Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

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It's amazing what a difference a talkie part can make — to the person who's playing it. In this fascinating article you can learn which parts they liked the best, and which they liked the least — and why Clara Bow's favorite role was in True to the ISavy. For one thing she had a director who made working easy — and that makes it nice. Vic MacLaglen liked the role he played in Hot for Paris best. Why? Because the character was a regular guy. Not too bad and not too good. My Hardest and Easiest Talkie Role TALKING pictures may be just pictures that talk co some of the fans, but to a film star cenain talkie roles spell h-a-r-d. while others spell e-.j-s-y. It's all in the game, and a role that is easy to one star might just as likely as not be difficult to another! From Lupe Velez right down the line to Oswald, the lucky rabbit, all the players have had their good and bad moments in the execution of different talking picture roles. "My hardest and easiest talkie role?" echoed Lupe Velez. "Oh, nothing is so very hard if one likes to do it and I love acting. Now, it may sound strange to say this — but my hardest and my easiest talking roles are the same! "I was very happy making The Storm. It is a part I like to play, the little French-Canadian girl of the great big woods. It is easy — very, very easy to play her in this picture, but for some scenes we went on location in deep snow. It was cold — so cold my teeth chattered. We took sequence after sequence in that snow because I ruined most of them with chattering teeth. Sometimes it was very discouraging, but after a while I got more used to the cold. Everybody was good to me. They taught me to use skiis and snow-shoes. It was wonderful to coast, too, arid that's how I stopped those horrid charters — my teeth. I'm so glad too, because I've always been afraid of cold and snow. Now I shall love it always. But that picture was really my hardest and easiest talkie role." MY hardest talkie role was in Dames Ahoy!" declared Glenn Tryon, emphatically and without hesitation. "I'll tell you why. I don't want to boast, of course, but after all, talking is rather in my line, if you know what I mean? A natural gift which has never grown rusty from lack of practice. However, in Dames Ahoy I met my Waterloo and 4a 1 wish to go on record that the difficulty was not in learning a "salty" vocabulary! It seems that my voice has a certain quality which blends right in with the noise made by the waves, and in order to record when near the ocean, I have to yell. "A picture which I thoroughly enjoyed making was Skinner Steps Out and I consider that my easiest talkie role. It was the type of work I like best — comedy with a big touch of reality about it. The lines were clever and we had a dandy cast. We made the picture in record time and with hardly any effort whatever. I can't remember any retakes. If we made any it was merely because the dialogue was changed for there was no trouble about recording. Also, the finished picture turned out great." MY hardest talking picture pan was that of the heroine, imposed-upon and wistful, in William Haines' Navy Blues." said Anita Page. "It was awfully difficult, in the first place, for me to maintain my pathos and wistfulness in the midst of Bill's extreme gaiety and fun-making. Then, too, it was my first all-talking picture and I was naturally very nervous. "My easiest role was as one of the three girls in Our Blushing Brides. Having played in Our Dancing Daughters and in Our Modern Maidens. I felt right at home in that third picture of the series of modern girlhood. I also liked the picture because it gave me an opportunity to be both merry and tragic. It offered me a real pan and I enjoyed every minute of it. " MY hardest role was the lead in The Man I Lore." replied Mary Brian. "I had done one talking sequence in Varsity before, but my whole fumre in talking pictures depended upon the result of The Man I Loie. That thought preyed upon my mind and made me rather nervous. Then too, we worked at night in mid-winter and it wais extremely cold. Another thing, the piaure was made in ten nights, which gave me very little time to study my lines, "The easiest talkie role came in The River of Romance. I had the pan of the little sister, Lucy, and it afforded me much variety in characterization. First, I was a young girl in love. I had a chance for comedy. Then I grew up and had to be serious. I liked the director, Richard Wallace, and everybody in the production, and I had a lot of fun working in it.