Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

Stewart deserved the critics' award because he is a great personality, because he can express his personality in terms of the medium in which he works. The only thing which surprises me in regard to the critics' award is the belated recognition, by at least one New York element, of the status of the screen as an individual art, not merely a mechanical process by which stage technigue is brought to the screens of the world. * * * JIMMIE'S FOOD AND PHOTOGRAPHY TO MAKE a success of his Chinese restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, all James Wong Howe need do is to achieve, in the food he serves, the artistic perfection which characterizes his screen photography. When you see Jimmie's name on the screen you know you are in for a visual treat even if the picture has not much of anything else to offer. * * * EDITOR HAS A DINNER DATE T A dinner in honor of Lloyd Douglas, whose "Magnificent Obsession," published ten years ago, is followed now by what is practically a sequel, "Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal," I had the good fortune tc sit beside Rachel Field, whose latest novel, "All This and Heaven Too," is on the list of best sellers. Miss Field told us an amusinq story. At various times she has wanted copies of some of her old books which were out of print, and each time went to a New York book store which made a business of keeping such books in stock. Feeling embarrassed at asking for books she herself had written, she gave a fictitious name when makinq a purchase. On the occasion of her sixth visit to the store the proprietor asked her why she was buying so many of one author's out-ofprint books. "Well," she replied, "Rachel Field is a relative of mine." "Oh, I see," replied the book seller, "charity begins at home." ... I had interesting chats with Carrie Jacobs Bond and May Robson, both white-haired veterans still as vigorous as girls in their teens; also met Elizabeth Page, the charming writer of "The Tree of Liberty," currently successful book which will be made into a picture by Producer-Director Frank Lloyd, with Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant as stars. And present at the dinner also was my very good friend of a dozen or more years, Louise Dresser, great actress, grand woman. * * * CONTRARY TO HUMAN IMPULSES I^EFENDING in print double-feature programs, a ^writer claims they give the public a chance to see at least one picture it likes, and it does not have to remain to see the other. Weak reasoning. When a man pays for two of anything, he wants both, does not want to keep one and throw the other away. * * * PUBLICITY BOYS PLEASE NOTE ILL studio publicity departments do me a favor? When I see a picture in which a side-wheeler is shown paddling up a tributary of the Amazon, I like to imagine I am looking at just that; but invariably after a preview I find some publicity material explaining in detail the difficulties studio technicians oversame in staging the scene on the back lot, and how they had to train houseflies to act like Amazonian mosquitoes. The favor I ask is to be permitted to imagine I am looking at the real thing. * * * MENTAL MEANDERINGS P NEAR the paved highway where our dirt road comes to an abrupt end, a newcomer has built an imposing residence, and on the top of each of two arrogant pillars at the street end of the driveway has placed a light, the two being the only illumination the dirt road boasts. One Sunday morning the newcomer came briskly down the road, got a little group of us together, from one pocket pulled a petition, from another a fountain pen, told us where to siqn, and that, with his influence at the City Hall, our dirt road soon would be transformed into a smooth pavement. To the views we expressed about his pavement idea, we added the information that in our opinion his driveway lights already were more ostentation than we could stomach with complacency. The dogs and I were on the front lawn late last night when I was hailed from the road. It was the newcomer. "Just strolled down the road in the moonlight," he told me. "You know, I think you people along here know how to live. I'm going to jerk out those damned lights and substitute urns with ivy drooping from them. I'm even growing fond of the bumps in the road." In time the country gets you. . . . But at other places in the Valley, which is composed principally of square miles of open space, real estate developers are building houses so close together a man can borrow tooth powder from his neighbor without either of them having to leave his bathroom. . . . Think I'll have to do more of my writing at the office; things sometimes get a bit strained around the house. For instance, this is the day Wendy, the world's most charming granddaughter, spends with us. Tom, the man about the place, made a kite for her and commissioned me to find some strinq. I saw the loose end of something sticking out of a basket in which Mrs. Spectator keeps the knitting, crocheting, weaving jobs she is working on. I pulled it and it kept coming until I had a dandy big ball; Wendy, Tom and I flew the kite and had a wonderful time. While I was smoking my after-luncheon pipe I heard Mrs. Spectator at the phone; she was telling a friend that in some mysterious way a mat she was making out of twine and had nearly finished had disappeared from her work basket; couldn't find it anywhere; had looked everywhere but in the garage and was going to look there next, although she couldn't imagine its being there. So I hot-footed it to the garage, hid the kite, and now I don't know what to do about it. Or what she miqht do if she knew. We've been married only thirty-one years, and it takes longer than that to learn just what a woman would do under some circumstances. PAGE FOUR HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR