Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

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o/^roadway^ for the "Bernard Shaw Jlctors By LOUIS REID ST. BERNARD stalks alone Broadway! St. Bernard Shaw from John Bull's other island, with his tongue in his cheek, a twinkle in his eye and his hand suppressing a belly laugh at the expense of all actors this side of the StjTc. In Broadway's own peculiar. language,'the dramatist with the socialistic scorn for all capitalistic dollars save his own, is a wow. And all because he turned actor. Not the common or garden actor who was a leading symbol of Broadway when the Shubert brothers were displaying the latest things in neckwear in distant Syracuse. Nor yet his more opulent brother of the films who has built a fabulous legend about Hollywood. But an actor who employs the new and astounding device of the movietone upon which to express himself and his personality. To witness the dawning of a day in which a mere dramatist would be acclaimed a second Jannings, whose -voice would be likened to the strains of a 'cello and the ripple of a waterfall, whose acting sense would be hailed as forceful, vivid and appealing is, in itself, inconceivable to those members of the stage profession who are regarding the movietone as the culmmation of their dreams and ambitions. Once they reflect upon the strange event, however, they are inclined to be more charitable, more tolerant. Then they realize that Shaw is capable of anything, even black magic; that his importance as a world figure gives him an immunity even in a startling impersonation of the divine Mussolini; that, in short, he can get away with anything including murder and lese-majesty. The Menace of Playwrights HE danger to them and to their careers lies, however, _ in the courtship of a similar ambition on the part of ose less famous and less gifted than Shaw. Suppose other dramatists, without his renown or talent, should attempt to follow his lead, and elbow ready and deserving actors away from the movietone! The very idea is incredible. Nevertheless, the possibility remains as a horrible and haunting spectre to menace the peace and prosperity of playerfolk. There is little wonder then at the spectacle now being enacted behind the scenes wherever actors congregate — in clubs, in dressing-rooms, in boarding-houses, in the hotels of the roaring Forties and the easy-speaking Fifties, and along the curbs of Broadway from Times Square to the Winter Garden. The world of make-believe is getting ready for the movietone. And getting ready in every conceivable manner before the motion picture magnates decide, because of the success of Shaw, to place other writers, as well as editors, column conductors and whatnot, under contract. The actor has decided, with the business instinct bom of his association with union labor, that he is not to be caught napping. He is training his voice as he has never trained He is reducing his embonpoint, he is in attendance upon the city's vast hordes of dietitians and tonsil teasers, and masseurs, and face-lifters, and double-chin eradicators. Never in the history of the stage, according to the reliable it before. T thosi 48