Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

68 Silver Screen for June 1940 Coast. She could have in five weeks picked up $5,000 over and above expenses, and she could have done herself a world of good by being presented wisely on stages to thousands of people — without losing any movie opportunity — but she was not interested. At almost every turn, you were confronted with this same attitude on the part of Hollywood players. To the man on the street, or even to the man in high positions in law, surgery or industry, a net salary of $1,000 a week is a huge sum of money, as actually it is. Miss Lang was not the only one who sniffed at it. In fact, it came to a pass where I'd almost apologize in offering $400 a week. You never realize how far out of focus Hollywood is until you embark on such a tour as this, and have to talk business with individuals who have been anaestheticized by the California sun. Then, suddenly, when things looked most discouraging, Helen Parrish was again available. She was not needed for the next Durbin picture. In contrast to the lethargy and the lack of enthusiasm of others with whom I'd talked, Miss Parrish was a 17-year-old ball of fire. "I'd lov-v-v-e to go," she said eagerly. "I want to get on a stage, learn how to do things I don't get the chance to do in the movies." Marjorie Weaver was just as enthusiastic. "That's for me, Massa Sullivan," said Marjorie. You could understand why these two youngsters have been successful in pictures. Such enthusiasm and intelligence couldn't be licked. There was nothing they weren't ready to do. You'd tell them they were needed for photographs at 8 a.m. They'd be there ten minutes early. You needed them for an extra rehearsal. They answered that was fine, that they wanted to be letter-perfect in their parts. You suggested that what they ought to do was to sing a song with Betty Jaynes, a comedy song. They read the lyrics and raved over it. It was wonderful. It was marvelous. I was so amazed at this sort of response, after what we had gone through that I thought to myself, thought I, "Treacher and Lugosi are veterans. You'll find them more difficult." Treacher WAS more difficult. I'd wake up early in the morning and he'd be sitting in the living room downstairs. "Sorry to bother you, dear old boy," he'd say, "but here's a comedy line that I think will improve that first entrance. Now let us just run over it once and try it like a good fellow." Likely as not, he'd drop in that afternoon with something else that had suggested itself to him. Meeting him and working with him, and daily being astounded by his keen and helpful enthusiasm, I had no doubts as to why Arthur Treacher has been a great success in the moving pictures. He couldn't miss. Lugosi was another delightful experience. As courtly as his native Budapest, "Dracula" would do anything that you asked of him. "Perhaps, it might be better if we changed this word here," he would indicate. And you learned quickly that when he suggested a change in a word or a phrase or a sentence, he was speaking from a vast theatrical background. Perhaps, vaudeville was new to him, but the theatre was not new to him, and his "savvy" or instinct for the right word or the right action was stimulating. In the case of Helen Parrish, there arose a problem which was heartening. Miss Parrish, 17 years old, could not leave the State of California on such a tour without a teacher approved by the State Regents board. And every day on the tour, Helen had to spend three hours on her lessons. I say it was heartening, this experience, because I'm glad that California is conscious of its obligations to the kid stars of the cinema. Once upon a time, the youngsters did about as they pleased, but those days are gone forever. The State exercises a discipline that studios and even parents might forget to impose and that is the way it should be. The entire preparations for the tour, while exhausting, were of intense interest to me. I thought after three years in the movie colony that I knew Hollywood. I learned that actually I'd never been behind the scenes before because meeting people over a business desk, and meeting them at a party are two entirely different matters. The false-faces you wear at Hollywood parties are laid aside in a business conference. In lining up a vaudeville invasion, I met and talked business deals with perhaps fifty players; I met their agents; I dealt with studio casting agents and studio legal departments; I met songwriters, prop men, mask-makers, music arrangers, railroad transportation men, mothers — it covered quite a wide range. These things I found to be self-evident: that the movie colony is divided into enthusiastic and unenthusiastic performers; players who had an exaggerated idea of values and players who had an intelligent scale of values; I met players who were smart and others who were difficult because they were half-smart; performers who were tricky and performers who were honest and aboveboard. Meeting all of them, a columnist could understand why some of them had been successful for years and would continue to be successful, and he could understand why others were doomed to a brief span in the public eye. The next time you are puzzled by the sudden disappearance of a favorite from the screen, analyze it from the standpoint of this article. Invariably, he or she will be found to have lacked intelligence (as distinguished from shrewdness), and judgment (as distinguished from haphazard guesswork). Because what I've spread upon the records here for you to see and understand is not the case-history of a vaudeville unit, but the real behind-the-scenes story of Hollywood and its players. The pattern of this story is the warp and woof of the entire industry because my experiences with performers, on a small scale, actually can be extended on a large scale to embrace the movies. Yet these vaudeville tours this season, j I believe, have cracked the ice. We have been the trail-blazers. Probably eighty or ninety movie performers have made J vaudeville trips within the past six months. Each of them returned to Holly ( wood with glowing reports of their experiences. Quite a few of them, because of newly-won publicity, won fatter roles ' at their home studios. Vaudeville safaris • refreshed their box-office appeal in some cases and created box-office appeal in other cases. From now on, I feel safe in i saying, Hollywood players will be more kindly disposed to a tour of the five-aday, because they've learned that the mere act of meeting movie fans face to j face is an intelligent investment in their K cinema future.