Motion Picture (Aug 1933-Jan 1934)

Is the Future Threatening Gable? by "trends," except when a "trend" or cycle is shattered rudely by the public's interference with the cinema course of things. That happened when Clark Gable came into view. He was trying to break in at the wrong time — just when his "type," personified by Bancroft, Bickford, and Bill Boyd, having had profitable innings, was beginning to bow out in favor of a "polished gentleman " sort of film hero. Yet Clark crashed through, thanks to a mighty, vibrating, full-throated roar of encouragement from the public's rooting section. "Hold that line, hold that line!" piped the dismayed "gentlemen" actors and their supporters. But it wasn't any use. Clark was over for a touchdown, and behind him, hardly able to believe that a miracle had happened and the tide had turned so suddenly back in their favor again, clumped his hard-bitten teammates. Of the oldtimers, only Bill Boyd and Vic McLaglen recovered quickly enough from their surprise to follow, but newer "tough eggs," such as James Cagney and Lee and Spencer Tracy, were right on the job. It was a hard-boiled, he-man, womansocking era that followed, and no mistake! That is, until a certain slightly-built, studious-appearing young fellow, who wears glasses off the screen, came into the cast of one of Clark's pictures, "A Free Soul." His Most Dangerous Rival T ESLIE HOWARD, himself, never 1—/ learned exactly the truth of the situation. When he had finished his strong, sympathetic part in the picture, a part greatly enhanced in appeal by the very skill and force of Gable's "villain" portrayal, he shook the dust of Hollywood from his heels, and disgustedly entrained for New York. Films were jolly well off on one of their "type" stampedes, he thought, so they held no lure for him. Then some lady columnist or other created a saying about Gable and women. It was copied and repeated widely, in many versions. Ladies, she declared coyly, love brutes best, after all; no red-blooded American woman could resist the big, rough, unscrupulous, but handsome man such as Clark portrayed. All the vaunted feminine love of finesse, gentleness, and such "finer qualities," she opined, was just so much ba-loney! Some thousands of American women took her seriously, and launched an indignant protest! And, because Leslie Howard had played hero to Clark's villain, countless women said by inference that they could go for Leslie in a bigger way than for Clark! Back rolled the tide in favor of "gentlemen types." Howard, amazed, and not sure he was pleased, was dragged back to Hollywood. But don't rush to the conclusion that this is the danger now confronting Clark — that he may be swept out with the ebbing of the "he-man" tide. Producers speedily discovered that Clark's followers were still as many and as loyal as ever, and perceived that such an actor and personality could hold his place in any screen era. Might Be a Two-in-One Hero CLARK'S danger to-day does not lie in the fact that there are too many popular "gentlemen type" actors on the screen, but in the fact that there are too few of them! With an eye on Gable's tremendous following of "fans," and a knowledge of his versatility, producers are wondering if it wouldn't pay to have him play "gentleman type" roles. His "fans" might remain loyal, and perhaps, in sympathetic, polished (Continued from page 42) characters, he'd attract a host of new ones! That would be a fine way of killing two birds with one stone, but if the plan is a failure, it might easily ruin Clark professionally, by losing both groups of his followers. That, however, looks like a minor danger beside the one that will arise if producers, in giving Clark "gentlemen type" roles, seek to soften his screen character. That will destroy the vital quality that makes him different, that attracts us to him. He is a good, versatile actor, who can portray a real gentleman as easily and effectively as a lovable roughneck. But the screen's "gentleman type" is something else again. It is too soft and poetical to fit on Clark's husky shoulders. And if, with or without his co-operation, an attempt is made to "gentle" the man, himself, it might let that ever-alert, alwayswaiting antagonist we have been talking about sneak in a deadly wallop. A physical "kayo" that would spell the professional count of ten as well, since Gable, more than any other high-ranking screen idol of our day, Well, well, what have we here? A pretty li'l newcomer, Ruth Charming, and a coming li'l fad — "manicured" gloves needs to keep his health, vital force and condition. Not as Physically Fit To-day CLARK, of late, hasn't been so well. Forced out of one film cast by appendicitis, he is taking it easy, recuperating from his operation. The immediate cause of his illness, I believe, was a strenuous cougar-hunt — and nothing can be more strenuous! — ■ undertaken when he was seriously out of condition, from a continuous succession of pictures. Study a photograph of Clark taken two years ago, then glance at one of his latest. You can see plainly the working out of a "polishing" process. The Dempsey-like appearance of his earlier portraits is erased. Some of the recent ones go so far as to give him a poetical, "spiritual" look. So far, this change is entirely superficial. The make-up men and the photograph retouchers have done it, by filling in and etching away Clark's hard-bitten character lines. In real life, his face may have softened a trifle, but hardly noticeably. Oddly enough, Clark is the only "hardboiled" screen idol menaced by this peculiar state of cinema affairs, a dearth of really good "gentlemen type" actors and a wealth of able, popular "roughnecks." No one thinks of trying to make a Phillips Holmes of George Bancroft, a Buddy Rogers of James Cagney, a Franchot Tone of either of the Tracy boys, or an Adolphe Menjou of Edward G. Robinson. What He Might Become BUT Clark presents a big temptation. Soften and erase that Dempsey-like ruggedness of countenance, sophisticate his hard, but naive youthfulness by a little moustache such as he now wears, and you might have someone a bit like Cary Grant or George Brent, with — perhaps! — the appeal of a Gable. Then he might be given roles such as Phillips Holmes played so effectively in "The Man I Killed." Fancy, if you can, a man of Gable's type as we know it, spending part of his life in a psychological phobia of remorse because he had killed an enemy in a hand-to-hand combat of the late War! Even if such a change in him "got by" with Clark's followers, it might react badly upon the man himself. And that would be too bad after the fine scrap Clark has put up against that wily old antagonist of his, who uses so many different subtly-dangerous weapons. The weapon of flattery, for instance. How they've talked about Clark's powers with women ! Some lady scribe or other said Clark finally had to go to Buster Keaton for advice on avoiding the fair sex, and Buster prescribed marlin-fishing and deer-hunting. The fact that she was a lady scribe made it worse, for Clark might deduce that one of her sex should be able to gauge his appeal accurately by her own reactions. Then there's another type of flattery given few other film idols as lavishly. Not content to note that Clark is a husky, wellset-up fellow of about Jack Dempsey's height and weight, with a bit of Jack's facial appearance, prose poetesses have written odes on Clark's physical prowess. They brought out all the old Dempsey-descriptive adjectives, and struck not a few comparisons, such as: "he hits like Dempsey" and "he moves with the grace and quickness of a tiger." Still Able to Kid Himself FORTUNATELY, Clark spent some time in lumber camps. There a man is quickly forced to form a realistic conception of his own powers. He isn't allowed to retain the illusions of your average shoe salesman, for instance, who may go through life believing himself to be at least as good as Max Schmeling. So when he was having a boxing lesson recently, Clark stopped poking at his professional trainer's elusive jaw for a moment to chuckle: "Gable — he hits like Dempsey!" That sort of feet-on-earth, humorous cynicism is a fine armor for him, and has doubtless helped him to avoid many such calamities as that which befell Heywood Broun's fictional baseball character when a sob-sister styled him "a Greek god!" The Broun hero, you may recall, lost his job as baseball's greatest outfielder because, just as he was about to make a throw, he'd remember that "Greek god" business and pose Greek-god-like for that fraction of a second which makes the difference between a big-leaguer and a dub! So far, Clark has shed flattery as a duck sheds raindrops, and he has tried pretty hard to stay tough and alert and capable. Despite the more dangerous trials now before him, I see him heading across for another touchdown — if we in the rooting section keep bellowing encouragement, loud and long! 64