FilmIndia (1946)

WtuMpMlLMi This section is the monopoly of "JUDAS" and he writes what he likes and about things which he likes. The views expressed here are not necessarily ours, but they carry weight because they are written by a man who knows his job. GE AND GLAMOUR Film stars in India never grow beyond their twenties, he other day I met a 45-year old dame who has been orking in the films for the last 20 years. With impish discretion when I asked about her age, with an impunity at took my breath away, she said she was only 28. , Yes, Indian film stars are very sensitive about their l;e. If they could help it, most of them would love to be , lied "baby" stars but with half-a-dozen babies shouting fvlama" at home, we are spared at least this outrage. I Age has always been a sensitive point with the oman as a race but one fails to understand the hypernsitiveness betrayed by our film stars about the ca'endar I .at keeps changing every year adding a year more , their glamorous appearance. After all every iaman being, man or woman, has to get old lime day and I cannot understand what particular ejection our film stars have in telling us their true be. A woman is as old as she looks is a well-proved iage and under-counting the age is not going to rub off tie traces of age from the faces of our g amour girls. Seelig that every year, like every child, leaves its trace on the Insitive face of the woman, one fails to understand what lirticular illusion is sought to be gained by this game of ide-and-seek. Max Factor can rub a few years off at too yards but 1 a close-up even Max Factor's grandfather will have to irow the sponge in despair. Ho lywood film stars are evidently not so hypocritical ; their Indian sislers. Can you believe that the glamorous llarlene Dietrich, the woman with the perfect legs, is a irandmother in her 41st year and has a daughter 21 years d? Constance Bennett is just 40 while her sister loan, is r" The coy little Claudettc Colbert has just signed a fcven-year contract at 40, whi'e Joan Crawford, who has een working for over 20 vears in Hollywood openly adhiis being 37 \ears, though you can safelv add five vears iiore to her mathematics. Bette Davis, one of Hollywood's most famous actresses, loesn't care a damn if every one knows that she is 37. i V'hile Kay Francis has passu. I the 41 mark, Greta Garbo, |ie mc.it glamorous, is 39 years today. Katherine Hepburn is 36 and Myrna Loy, the perfect ousewife who has failed iwice in her own domestic advenlires, is a 40-year o'd girl. Irene Dunne, who is still conidered as Hollywood's most beautiful woman, is not a day elow 41 and only a month older than Norma Shearer. And let us take a few glamour boys. Ronald Co' man. hat ever popular hero, is in his 55th year, earning near'y lakhs of rupees per picture, while William Powell, •lyrna Loy's popular screen husband, is waxing strong in |iis 53rd summer. Is it therefore difficult to imagine Charles Boyer being 46 and looking so romantic at that age? Well, if Hollywood boys and girls can admit their years, what is wrong with our gir'.s giving their confessions? In any case, whether our girls admit it or not, wc know their age. But if we are told the truth, we may not add a few unnecessary years which their looks compel us to. A MYSOREAN IN TEMPER Raghavendra Rao, a Mysorean in Gwalior, is wild with me because of my strong remarks about the Mysore State authorities banning the film of the proceedings of the A.I.C.C. session. Writing to Editor Patel, the angry Raghavendra say*, "so far as this particular ban is concerned, Judas should know that the people in Mysore could in no way be held responsible for it is the act of the Government which is not a full-fledged responsible Government." He therefore considers my remarks as "unwarranted", my cheap jibes as Madhuri is still an attractive proposition as win ue seen in "Gvalan," produced and directed by Baburao Patel. 7