Modern Screen (Dec 1934 - Nov 1935)

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More Bargains than in 20 Big Stores. New styles, new features, new colors. Year to Pay —30 days free trial— 360 days approval test — 24-hour shipments. The amazoo Stove Co., Mfrs. 40S Rochester Avenue, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Modern Screen Dramatic School (Continued from page 62) words thrilling if you want to make theatrical work your career, or if you're merely interested in amateur dramatics. Read every word carefully. Says W. S. Van Dyke, "The first and most important piece of advice I would give to dramatic students is this : drop all expectations of success, cultivate shatterproof patience. "Success comes as the result of many factors, luck being an important one of these. By wooing it too hard you're apt to miss it. The best thing is to forget about it and concentrate on work. "Clark Gable gives an example of this. He'll tell anyone that he never expected success. He became an actor because he liked to act, because he enjoyed it. He never thought about being successful. It never occurred to him and he wasn't much interested in it. But he did want to learn all he could about acting. Today Clark is a reigning star. Was it luck, or what ? Ask him. He doesn't know, either. "Patience speaks for itself. It is an absolute necessity in this business. A scene must often be taken over several times. Then, again and again from various angles. If you become impatient, you lose poise and sureness. You get ruffled. But that's after you're in the business. "Before this, you need more patience. Patience in rehearsing over and over again. Patience in studiously learning how to stand, to walk, to talk, to enunciate — in short, learning how to change yourself from a mere individual into a highly polished reflector of the playwright's or scenario writer's mood, emotion, feeling. "People often enter the dramatic field with an 'arty' point of view. Vaguely they seek self-expression through dramatics. They pretend to an abhorrence of commercialism, wanting to be something 'artistic' This is a major mistake, and no one who continues with this point of view can possibly succeed. Although the motion picture industry is in the business of manufacturing shadows and illusions, it must be practical and down-to-earth. And so must its actors. DON'T misunderstand me. I don't say there's no place for art in films. It's what the industry needs. But art is not 'arty' ; instead it is the result of hard work, patience, observation, intelligence and more hard work. "If you wait for 'inspiration,' you'll wait until you grow grey. It comes but rarely and then means nothing if you're not prepared for it. You must have the groundwork of technique and experience to know how to direct inspiration, if it touches you. "Acting requires the same thing as any job, including a talent for it, and including the factor of luck. Luck is important. Many good actors are starving; luck just didn't come along. But again, the important thing is to be ready for it in case it does. You can only study, work, observe — train, train, train — then hope for the best. "In general I advise all prospective students to be careful of the dogmatic dramatic school. There are some very excellent schools but other schools sometimes do more harm than good and few of them have kept pace with the times. Acting now is much different from what it was twenty years ago, but many schools don't seem to have noticed this. "Some schools teach how to 'read' lines, while lines, as a matter of fact, are no longer 'read.' They teach stereotyped precision gestures and technique. If a poten tially good actor imbibes this at a formative age. it may take him years to learn differently when he reaches professionalism. It may even make him a bad actor for life. "Today actors don't act ; not, at least, as much as the audience does. Plays and film stories are more psychological. There is far less ranting and running about. "All good actors have found that repressed emotion is far more pointed than the extravert kind. A mere quick dilation of the eyes is apt to be more effective than a scream. Real people don't thrash about in the dramatic moments of their lives. And neither do actors any more. "Remember, too, that the audience is always a step ahead of you. Usually they know what you're going to do or say before you do or say it. Thus you must be quick, be fast, don't drag, hurry to keep up with them — or be ingenious enough to fool them. "Being ingenious comes only from training. In general the following is true : Figure out how you would naturally do a thing, then do it naturally some other way. It sounds like a puzzle but I believe it to be sound advice. It's a method of fooling the audience, keeping them interested by being 'fresh' about your slightest movement. "Here's an example. Say you have to respond to a knock on the door, cross the room and open it. Do it as you would naturally. You'll find it would make a humdrum, uninteresting scene. You open doors all the time, doing it automatically, uninterestingly. Now studiously do it some other way. You'll find you're thinking of your every movement, and thus each movement has a sparkle and freshness. The audience will be more interested. If you're ingenious and, possibly, stop at a table to pick something up on your way to the door, the audience will be even more interested. "Fearlessness is important — learning to be afraid of nothing and not to care a hoot. You'll have a grace and a swing instead of the frozen technique of too-carefulness. It's a psychological factor that affects every word and movement. "Joan Crawford has taken that stand on this new picture, 'Forsaking All Others.' It's a swift comedy and she's playing it swiftly, disregarding any conventional 'staginess.' The result is that she's turning in a swell performance. "Think what a job an 'arty' actress would have with that role. Think what would happen if she tried to get literary, blank-versy or read-y. The audience would run away with the situations while the actress stopped to emote. NATURALNESS is the new kind of acting and it is here to stay. In real life people don't begin speaking precisely when some one else has finished. They interrupt and overlap, and that's what good actors do now. They can't stand stiffly, or studiously regard their position. They must move about naturally and speak naturally and laugh naturally. "Now about those questions which some of your readers have asked you. I'll do my best to answer them. "Crying before the camera is an individual thing. Some actresses must get angry to cry at all. Some do it with music. Some can sit and think themselves into the mood. It all depends, and you must work out your own salvation. "If you have poise you can face any camera or audience without fear, but poise is the direct result of experience and sure