Broadway and Hollywood "Movies" (Jan - Aug 1934)

14 “ MOVIES ” HOLLYWOOD HIPS By Mary Dees Warner Brothers — First National Player THE importance of beautiful, shapely, legs cannot be exaggerated; not only to the stage and screen girls but also to the average young woman. Let me point out to you that if your body is in correct proportion, but your legs are under or over developed, you a-re seriously handicapped, not only for a career in the movies but also your social activities in life. What young woman is there, who doesn’t want slender, straight thighs? The new straight-skirted suits give no quarter to bulges. This exercise is excellent both for reducing your thighs and hips, and for giving you balance and poise. It also is excellent for insomnia. Stand on your toes, feet together, facing a straight chair. Rest your little fingers on the top of the chair and do not lean on them. Keeping your body balanced on your toes, bend knees slowly until you sit on your heels, keeping your back straight and your knees apart. Then rise, very, very slowly, making your thighs do all the work. Do another deep knee bend, very slowly, and rise, being sure that you don’t wabble around on your toes. This exercise gets at the muscles running down your limbs that get almost atrophied from lack of exercise. It is over these lazy muscles that fat accumulates. Get the muscles to working properly and the fat will be worked off. Stand up on your toes and lower your body ten times, slowly down. In three days’ time you will find that you can do it with pleasurable ease. Now for the girl whose legs are too thin let me suggest this exercise. Stand on the toes on a pile of books or some hard surface raised three or four inches from the floor, with the heels extending over the edge. Then, place hands on hips, with back straight, and stoop down — up and down — fifteen or twenty times. This exercise, designed to develop the muscles, will do wonders to beautify scrawny legs. This routine should be followed at least once a day. Don’t stop until thoroughly tired, as aching muscles during an exercise indicate that the remedy is having its effect. I know of no better way of stressing the value of pretty legs in film production, than to mention the highly successful Warner First National pictures “Gold Diggers of 1933,” “Footlight Parade,” “Forty-Second Street,” and other productions such as: “Sitting Pretty,” “Moonlight and Pretzels” and “Take a Chance.” I don’t know too much about the other studios but I presume their policy is the same as we find on the Warner Brothers and First National Pictures’ lots. They want the girls to keep young, fresh, vigorous and happy. They are just as anxious to have us keep our jobs as we are desirous of retaining them. In closing this article for “Movies”, let me give one bit of counsel to the women who find their charms beginning to lose power in their forties and even in their thirties. They should study the most durable of all charmers, that French Parisian actress, Cecile Sorel. At seventy, the oldest veteran of the Parisian stage and the confidante of three generations of high French officials is appearing as star in a fantastic piece by Sacha Guitry at the Casino de Paris, where she displays her seventy-year old legs in white tights in competition with those of fresh young chorus girls. For many years on the stage of the Comedie Francaise, Cecile Sorel reigned, entrancing all theatre-goers by the beauty of her limbs, the aliveness of her supple feet, the yielding grace of her body, the exquisite grace of her arms and hands. Beauty dwelt in every line of her and she is still carrying on. If you want to attain a graceful body, perennially young, it is well to start the day with a long vigorous stretch in bed which should be supplemented by other stretches whenever you find yourself tired or stiff. Stretch as high as you can. Try to reach an imaginary bar a little above your head. That will help yo ustretch; this will help increase your height.