Broadway and Hollywood "Movies" (Jan - Nov 1933)

" MOVIES " We Take It, -And Like It By Tom Tyler IT’S THE John Barrymores who get the orchids but the Carl Cowboys put the punches into pictures — and get a great kick out of it! I have all the respect and admiration in the world for those real actors who get fat screen roles, who are masters of an art and who deserve and receive the adulation of countless thousands of fans in this country — and elsewhere— but honestly, I wouldn’t change my horse — Lady — for Romeo’s ladder, nor would I trade it for the swankiest chaise lounge in the frilliest boudoir that Maurice Chevalier ever sang a theme song! “Four star hits” may mean something different to the critics, but to me, it means just that! — giving a guy everything you have in your two clenched fists — and may the blows fall where they may! Although I’m not a native Westerner, having been born at Port Henry, New York, (and proud of it!) I’ve been roaming the boundless plains for lo these many years that I seem to feel more at home with a coyote than a pom — and enjoy sleeping beneath the stars on a treeless rim better than the swellest feather-bed set-up you could imagine! Honest! Gosh, I can remember when I first appeared in a Western. Although I can’t recall the incident in all particulars, I do seem to remember I was one of the “bad men!” And what a stiff fight I put up before the director cautioned me that I was prolonging the footage and I grudgingly realized that I had to “give in.” Gee, I didn’t want to! A good thing too that it wasn’t a sound film, because the director would not have been able to call me the miscellaneous kinds of a so-and-so that he lavished on my too vigorous portrayal. ... In fact my distaste for curtailing a fight that went to my boyish heart like wine was brought to an Tom T yler m one of bis screen fights abrupt end when the hero grabbed a stout chair and nqiade contact with my head. That gave me my first general idea of what a four-star picture can be! Stars! Boy, I saw ’em ! Of course it was my own fault, I should have realized that when you’re on the wrong side of a story you’ve just got to give in gracefully, or take it! And I guess the boys who appear in films can do that! Pon’t get any idea that the fights we put on are any pink teas! If you’re not the equal of the best — just forget all about action films — they’re not your meat! On the other hand, if you’ve never itched to do Hamlet and can watch Clark Gable without getting a yen to double for him, you’ll find acting in Westerns more fun than watching them! I’ve fought amateur champions and even fellows who have first-rate reputations in the professional class. And they don’t know what it means to pull a punch. And I’ve gotten many a thrill out of it — and have enjoyed it so keenly that some of the bruises I’ve given — and taken — are pretty nearly hospital cases! It’s all done in good spirit, though, and I have yet to meet the man who harbored a grudge when the camera stopped shooting. But let me doff my ten gallon for a moment to the many pretty ladies whom I have appeared with in countless pictures and who have the stuff of which stardom is made! Take, for instance, Caryl Lincoln, one of the most charming and most beautiful girls who appear on the screen. Miss Lincoln has been borrowed from Paramount to appear opposite me in my latest Monarch production, “War of the Range,” (which I hope you’ll be seeing soon!) Here is a little lady who rides like a veteran in spite of her youthfulness, who, during the film, is required to sit in a wagon when her horses run away, and who does so with the calm and poise of the most hardened cowlad! No, not for a moment, is the field open alone to men who fight — gals who dare are equally welcome to the fraternity of the West — where men are men — and girls are heroines!