Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

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beauty of both the physical and cultural. What, then, does this mean? Are we listening to a totally new, an absolutely different Constance Bennett? ^ND I know the reason why it is so difficult: we take it all too seriously. Of course, it is a serious thing — quite — but it will be serious whether we try to jnake it so or not. Love will always be a serious thing, so why not try to look at it as lightly as possible? Don't add to its weight with tears. Take away from its strength with smiles. Laugh. Laugh a lot. Laughter is the greatest cure-all for the love-sick that was ever invented. I have come to the conclusion that a man and a woman who can laugh together can weather all the disillusions and trials to which love is subjeaed. A sense of humor is not only a very gay thing — it is healing. It puts things in their proper light. It helps one over the bumps into which every love leads. For make no mistake, there are bumps — and hard ones — along the path of even the most romantic of passions. As love leads us to the altar, the Moonlight and Honeysuckle motif suddenly and unexpeaedly becomes intermingled with the commonplace of life. We find ourselves, all at once, on the ground, thinking of altogether too real and ordinary things. We thought we were in a heaven — a little private heaven all our own — and suddenly we find our feet very much on the txirf and our loved one very much like every other young man we have known. It's really too disquieting. An astounding revelation. THIS is all caused by our having taken the whole procedure too seriously. The romantic picmre we have painted of our loved one is far too abstract, too impraaical. We have succeeded in imbuing him with characteristics not possessed — and previous to matrimony there has been no reason to change or upset them. I suppose it is quite a natural thing for every woman to weave certain favorite virtues, into the make-up of the objea of her affection. If we particularly admire a certain characteristic or quality, we immediately transplant it into the personality of our sweetheart. Which 50 isn't quite fair. Usually, in doing this, we overlook some equally admirable quality in the person we are endowing. We create such an artificial glitter about the man that his own and natural qualities are submerged beyond recognition. Why do I say this is unfair.^ Because experience has taught me. Matrimony undoubtedly does one thing: it presents the truth about husband and wife. Fancies fall by the wayside. Nothing is left but sheer reality — and sometimes even the reality is partially eclipsed. You see, after you realize that the wonderful qualities which you have bestowed upon him are not there, you are unable to see the qualities which are there — which you were too blind or careless to see. That is why "the first year" has been immortalized. It is the stumbling block to marital success. During those first twelve months you will have to discover that he is not all you had supposed — and you must at the same time find that he is many things you had NOT supposed. Nice things, I mean. AS SHE has been talking, I have formed some very concrete conclusions about Constance Bennett. She is so utterly self-possessed. So positive. One has the feeling that she has lived — lived a great deal. And that she has traveled and seen things and places that have taught her many things. She seems so steeped in knowledge-from-experience that one is really led to the belief that she knows too much about life and its people. Too much about men. Too much about values. One is almost forced to conclude that Constance Bennett knows too much about life to be happy. But that is a rash conclusion. One that should be disregarded, perhaps. Certainly she will marry again and be happy. She must have an ideal that is forever before her. Could it be that she knows whom she wants? I've had the experience of marriage, yes, but it hasn't made me bitter. I'm still looking for love. Still waiting for it. Miss Bennett's experience of ^nd it really hasn't changed much marriage has not made her in Sin^e I first thought of love any way bitter. She is still look — that is, not the sensation we call ing for love — but not a silly, love — only some of its supposed over-romantic love. {Contmued on page «/} We create an artificial glitter about the one we love, says Miss Bennett, and foolishly submerge the many natural admirable qualities beneath this glitter.