Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

That Makes It Tough 16.60 for a New York Vanities ticket purchased at the box-office (thrice that from a speculator) makes the local Lotharios hysterical. The best the drama has to offer is a last season's show played by a road company, or impressed talent from the studios. And if the play has any greater kick than a dramatization of Sarah Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Mic hen's the gendarmerie will place gyves upon its wrists and a padlock on the playhouse. There is a Passion Play which goes on for years and years. And there are Community Sings where thousands of persons with bad voices satisfy the mass meeting complex and render the night raucous with alleged harmony at the Bowl. And that makes it tough if you live in the vicinity. I WON'T risk swiping the nifty that "all generalities are false, including this one ' — but it is pretty well admitted by the truthful damsels of the Cinema City that as a matrimonial hunting-ground Hollywood is a complete crack-up. Really eligible men are scarce as clams in a chowder for the average girl. And even for the stars, themselves. If you doubt it, try to name a half-dozen "good matches" that have had their genesis in Hollywood. The desirable husbands have been filched from other locations. There's not a good provider on the hoof in the whole home herd. And, anyway you look at it, that's not so good. Cold cash money is another thing that doesn't circulate in Hollywood. You do business on credit. There is no dough. No one expects any. It is a sober truth that you can pay the man at the parking station with a check for twenty-five cents. Everything is for sale. And the price is a dollar down. This makes it look easy — but it really makes it tough. The first buck is easy — but the sale seldom sticks. Subsequent payments aren't made, and then everything from the home to the Hupmobile goes back to the re-sale department. There's an established minimum wage of $16 per week. Try to get more as a clerical worker in most industries. In the movies things are better — but the most successful extras don't attain an average six-day wage of $50. There are a thousand and one rackets to take anyone with five bucks or over. Oil wells, chicken farms, walnut groves — you can {Continued from page 41] buy any of 'em right on Hollywood Boulevard. There's even a ballyhoo for a gold mine across the street from the Hotel Roosevelt. To be fair, what makes it tough in this instance is that there are a number of authenticated cases where some sap has bought a chicken farm, only to have an oil gusher spoil a setting of eggs by raining out a million dollars worth of black gold. There are paying wells in many a Hollywood back-yard. THE Big Shots of Hollywood are more important than the Mayor of Moose Jaw, Montana, when they're playing around the home grounds. They're used to all the homage paid a Hottentot chieftain — and devil fly away with the unfortunate who fails to kow-tow to these Lord High Executioners. One guy who is still fooling himself as the Supreme Whoosis of a Class A studio, had a head-waiter fired for failure to recognize him. And, word of honor, this mugg quit the hostelry in a huff, hurried back to the studio where the gatemen did a collective Lebedeff at sight of him, and raised hell with the entire studio staff just to convince himself that he really was a Little Napoleon. Away from the Movie Metropolis many of these men are human as God made them, but, boy, where they blow the oompah in life's big parade, they can and do make it tough for the piccolo players. As in all places where petty and ignorant people congregate, Hollywood is rife with the suspicion that accompanies inborn fear that incompetence will be discovered. Tattlers, tale-carriers, gossip-mongers throng and thrive. It is a paradise for stool-pigeons. A mammoth conspiracy of mediocrity. Studios are so honeycombed with politics and fencefixing subordinates that it is only by the grace of whatever gods there be that motion pictures have attained even their present doubtful excellence. Real ability, genuine originaliry are in the discard as positive assets. Competence is perhaps a ten percent ingredient in baking up a batch of that enjoyable dish called Success. FAR from being centers of art and accomplishment, the studios resemble nothing more than the factories where their executives once glazed furs, sewed buttons or made two pairs of pants grow for one coat. Time clocks are everywhere. Shakespeare, himself, if come to Hollywood, would have to turn out his Hamlet between the toots of the nine and five o'clock whistles. Directors and stars are given assignments on Saturday to begin shooting Monday — one day to create a picture from a script — one day to create a characterization. If you can't — or won't — do it, others will. One of the most incompetent directors of Hollywood has been with one and the same studio for — oh, for ever so long. As a matter of fact, I believe he is one of the record holders for long and continuous employment. Promises, in Hollywood, are made to be broken. And with them hearts are broken, too. Directors are promised recognition for services well performed in assignment to worth-while pictures, where a reputation may be won. Stars are promised suitable vehicles. Bit players are promised promotion. Extras are promised a chance. Hollywood lives on promises — as it does on climate. And, just in passing, the talk of the importance of climate to Hollywood is not an exaggeration. But for that same climate, there would be no Hollywood — for the motion picture industry would never have made it the world's film capital. In the beginning pictures were made mostly in the open. Clariry of atmosphere and brilliant light were essential. Nature provided them in Hollywood. But Nature also provides plenty of drizzles to pay for the bright days. FOR every ray of sunlight in Hollywood, there is a shadow of darkness. You'll never hear of them until you blunder into gloom. There is a conspiracy of silence, which includes the press itself, regarding any untoward features come to mar the vaunted sweetness and light. As at present, dread disease may stalk the canyons — but all you'll hear of is the glory of the starry kingdom. The saxophones of success drown out the futile sobs of failure. There is something sinister about Hollywood — as there is about those back alley cribs in Tia Juana where girls plaintively plead to sell all they have left to barter. Girls, perhaps, who once hit Hollywood with dreams of fame bedazzling their fair heads. Girls who learned bitter truths before drifting below the border. That's another story, maybe. But it sure makes it tough ! My Hardest and Easiest Role '"My hardest talkie role was undoubtedly Seven Faces," declared Paul Muni. "I had to portray different distinct types, widely varying in make-up. I enacted the roles of Papa Chihou^ the old attendant in a waxworks museum ; Napoleon ; Joe Gans ; Franz Schubert; a hypnotist; a fruit peddler; and Don Juan. "My easiest talkie role was in The Valiant. The lines were very good and clear and the part was a tragic one, which I think I can best portray." {Continued from page 43] MY HARDEST talkie role was that of Juan, the disreputable beach comber and roustabout in The Sea Bat, exclaimed John Miljan. "I liked the part, though, and enjoyed playing it. Its difficulty lay in the underseas diving scenes and the hours I spent in a diver's uniform, uncomfortable and unwieldy. "The easiest talkie role was that of the much-imposed-upon husband with Adolphe Menjou in Fashions in Love. I liked very much the suavity and nonchalant ease of the part which fitted me admirably." "The hardest I've worked was in The Black Watch," said Victor McLaglen. "I was talking before a mike for the first time in that, besides playing a role that would be severely criticized by my British compatriots, particularly if it were not true to type and character. "The easiest talkie role was in Hot for Paris. I liked doing that — the lines weren't hard and the character I played was a regular guy — not too bad, and not too good!" 81