Hollywood Spectator (1938)

Hollywood Spectator Page Five one of whom God must be most ashamed.' I only hope that your suggestion that the situation would be a great theme for a motion picture will some day, before it is too late, be accepted by someone with the ability to ‘do the job.’ I am especially glad, too, that you particularly commented upon the insane prepar¬ edness moves which are now being made by our own country. Unquestionably, we are preparing, not against war with some unknown country, but defi¬ nitely for war, with Japan. And some of the powers that be will perhaps be sorry if we should not have the opportunity to use these weapons which are be¬ ing prepared. Please keep up the great work!” * * * EASTERNERS AGREE WITH BRUNO . . . HE note of warning, first sounded in the Spectator by Bruno David Ussher, that Deanna Durbin's singing voice should be given a long rest, is being re¬ peated by Eastern picture and radio commentators. Someone should make the journey out to Universal and tell Charlie Rogers the one about the goose and the golden egg. * * * DR. FIDLER, CONSULTANT . . . URING his recent illness Bill Powell probably spent a lot of money for services of the doctors who attended him. They told him it was safe to go back to work. Jimmie Fidler in a recent broadcast told Bill he should not go back to work. If Jimmie, as an act of friendship, had taken the case at the outset, Bill could have saved all the money and would not now be risking his life by taking the doctors’ word for it that he is fit to resume his acting career. Jimmie should branch out. No doubt Ein¬ stein would like to be set right on his scientific theories and Henry Ford would be glad to learn how to make motor cars. * * * MUSICALS AND MURDER . . . NQUESTIONABLY a big factor in the success of a picture is the manner of ics projection in the various houses in which it is shown. While staying overnight in a small town we attended its picture house, then showing Naughty Marietta. The sound was awful, Nelson Eddy’s voice came from the screen as a high, and what musicians would call a white” tenor, and Jeanette MacDonald scaled heights which Lily Pons never would attempt. The theatre manager explained the small attendance by saying his people did not care for singing pictures, and that, anyway, he did not think Jeanette and Eddy had voices worth listening to. He was right about that; as they sounded in his house they certainly were not worth listening to. It might pay the film industry to make some effort to have sound projection stand¬ ardized. Gladys Swarthout’s voice was recorded for Romance In the Dark up to about eighty-five percent of trueness; in small theatres audiences will get about twenty per cent. Musical pictures can not maintain box-office strength in face of such brutal treatment as that. MENTAL MEANDERINGS . . . IGHT A.M. Two hours, with time out for break¬ fast, of work in the garden already behind me, and now I have to give some thought to my Spec¬ tator duties. But I am back in the garden, Freddie, the spaniel, curled in the rustic chair beside the one I am seated in, and Bo Peep, the Peke, audibly gnaw¬ ing at a bone she herself transported from the kitch¬ en; the sun lifting the morning haze; birds in the pepper, locust and mulberry trees singing for the breakfast already spread for them beside the bath which before noon they will empty with their splashings; a distant rooster crows, a dog barks, from far away comes the dwindling purr of a motor car — muted sounds which make the morning silence, the indolent silence of rural life. . . . But now to my Spectator job. . . . Last night I saw a pict — . . . Just noticed a gorgeous Sun Kiss rose, the first of that variety this season; and after admiring it, went around to the back of the house and looked again at Mrs. Spectator’s sweet peas, the finest I have seen in Southern California. . . . What about the picture I saw last night? I forgot why I mentioned it. . . . Better stick in the garden. . . . Like to know what I have in it? It is a fascinating place; just now com¬ posed mostly of beds of smooth, rich earth, each dotted with low green things, lying close to it, send¬ ing down into it tiny tendrils through which they suck up life which later will be expressed in all the colors on nature’s palette and all the perfumes she creates. Meanderings Continued . . . GARDEN’S promise is its spring allure; its ful¬ filment, a summer and autumn joy. That long, curved bed, for instance, is not much to look at — just a stretch of brown soil in the shade of pepper trees. When the little things which dot it now achieve the end to which nature guides them, the bed will be a mass of subdued colors, Christmas Cheer begonias in the background, velvety coleus covering the center expanse, Cora Bells, with their rich foli¬ age, red stems and red drooping flowers, forming a border which curves with the graveled path. That is one of the beds, a shaded one, but there are many others, some which sit all day in the sun and will be particularly brilliant when their colors develope; others partly shaded, and one is the surprise bed. Judging by the appearance of the small plants now growing sturdy in it, there are a couple of dozen different varieties which will have to bloom before we know what they are. But these are some of the varieties we know we have: Geums, foxglove, del¬ phinium, zinias, giant asters, salpiglossis, poppies, verbena, stocks, gladiolus, painted daisies, sweet Wil¬ liam pom pom zinias, phlox, penstemon, cosmos, shasta daisies, hollyhocks, canna, and oodles of roses. As I sit here in the shade of a locust tree which is draping itself in its fragrant blossoms, do you won¬ der at my failure to remember what I intended to say about the picture I saw last night? Anyway, Freddie has brought me his rubber ball, and that means seri¬ ous business which must be attended to at once.