Modern Screen (Dec 1936 - Nov 1937 (assorted issues))

THERE SHE was, on the set of "The Awful Truth"— modern for a change. And poised and sensible-looking, as always. Except for one thing. Her hat. If it could be called a hat. A sliver of black felt with five or six other slivers rising straight up from its center. That should have warned me. The setting was the front of a courtroom. She was in the witness chair, asking for a divorce. Dramatic setting, dramatic situation. But the dialogue was hilarious. And she wasn't serious, she was coy. In the middle of a line she stopped, in sudden selfdoubt. The camera also stopped. "No," she decided, "that line wasn't right. It sounded almost sensible." The script girl told her what the line should have been. She started again. A few feet away, facing her, stood Cary Grant, from whom she was asking the divorce. Midway between them stood a wire-haired terrier, now Mr. Smith, once Asta in "The Thin Man," and real name Skippy. The dog was there by the judge's order, the dog being the main issue in the divorce. The divorcing couple were fighting over his custody. The judge had said, "In cases of this kind, we frequently let the party involved decide which one he wants to live with." So there was Mr. Smith — and there were both of them, trying to entice him. But whatever his cue was, Mr. Smith wasn't getting it. He wasn't reacting to either of them. He was just standing, staring into the camera, prolonging his close-up. They doubled, then redoubled their bids for his attention. The only result was a mad bedlam. Beside me stood a prop man, who looked human, sane and normal. Suddenly, he started shaking his head, and talking to himself. I didn't quite catch what he was saying, but it sounded like : "Is this picture scur-rew-y !" At approximately the same moment, the girl in the pixie hat threw up her hands, frustrated. "You know," she said, to Director Leo McCarey, "I think we have temperamental star on our hands. Either that, or he's high-hat, after acting with Bill Powell and Myrna Loy." "We'll fix that," said McCarey. "We'll have him eating out of your hand in five minutes !" He called for some dog biscuit. He crumbled some into her hand. Then she called to Mr. Smith. This time, Mr. Smith reacted. He leapt into her lap. Her expensively gowned lap. She didn't scream. She acted flattered. Five times more, in rehearsal, she proffered Mr. Smith dog-biscuit crumbs. Five times more, she had her lap leapt on by thirty pounds of canine. Then they were ready for the "take." This time she didn't have any crumbs, but Mr. Smith leapt just the same, and she turned to the judge, with a warm, disarming smile, and said, "I win, don't I?" The girl was Irene Dunne — who used to have a reputation for dignity. She'll be lucky to have a shred of it left after "The Awful Truth." And why is she making such a picture? Why is she turning from epic drama (see "High, Wide and Handsome") to mad merriment? There is only one answer. The awful truth about Irene is that she's a person who likes to un-suppress her desires, at least once in a while. And to do amusing things is a rampant old desire of hers. The awful truth is the girl has a sense of humor. No one has suspected it until just recently. There's nothing particularly funny about a singer, not when she sings as Irene can. She didn't make her professional debut in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera, as once reported. She started as an understudy to Peggy Wood, but from there she went straight to stardom in Broadway operetta. There's nothing particularly funny about a dramatic actress, not when she acts as believably as Irene does. Not when she wins screen stardom in a "Cimarron" and a "Back Street," undergoing, in both, a transformation from youth to middle age. There's nothing especially comic, either, about a girl who lives one of the quietest lives in Hollywood, seldom appears in public ,or the gossip columns, and makes a spectacular success of a marriage that "didn't have a chance" — a marriage in which, eight months of the year, husband and wife are a continent apart. If, on top of all this, she is also a beauty, such a girl doesn't accumulate a reputation as a clown. In fact, just the opposite. People — men and women 42