Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

i«W-«lf-' — ^.^^gHIH^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^X^^^^B^^H Richee Wilder and Wilder Women The "Badder The "Better, (^ries Popular Taste Of Its (Celluloid Loves By HAL K. WELLS THE screen is no place for a lady. By that I mean th« screen itself. I am casting no aspersions whatever on the private life and habits of any feminine player ofF-screen. Al Jolson tried a wise-crack along that line about a certain popular actress several months ago, and ever since then Al has felt a great deal like the rash individual who once tried to stage a necking party with a porcupine. I have no desire to be picking figurative quills out of my hide for the next six months, so 1 am not going to duplicate Mr. Jolson's little error. So far as I'm concerned, they're all ladies ofF-screen in Hollywood. They go to bed regularly at nine o'clock; they regard a chocolate ice cream soda as the height of dissipation; they divide their reading between The Literary Digest and the Elsie books; they never use any profanity stronger than "Oh, fudge!" and they believe that no girl should ever kiss a strange man unless she has been married to him for at least three months. But on the screen — boy, howdy! A blushing little heroine of the old lavender-and-lace type would be as out of place in the hectic screen fare of today as a butterfly in a hornets' nest. The screen heroine of yesteryear was a dear, demure little soul with soft blue eyes, golden curls hanging down her back, and with a white dove in one hand and a bunch of violets in the other. The screen heroine of today is a hard-boiled little egg with one black eye and one green, a boyish bob that ends about four inches above the nape of her neck, and with a machinegun in one hand and a bunch of hand-grenades in the other. We used to like to see them as kittens. Now we Cushioni . . perfumes . want them to be wildcats. If it were merely a case of one or two screen stars who have forsaken their old-time sweet and innocuous r6les for the more hectic portrayals of Gun-Totin' Sal, it would be nothing to become particularly excited about. But the whole blooming feminine contingent of the screen seems to have gone hard-boiled en masse. Take a look at a few examples selected quite at random. Eleanor Boardman was once just about the most demure and ladylike heroine in pictures. Now, in "Diamond Handcuffs," she blossoms out as a typical gangster's Moll, one who would be no disgrace to the old Bowery itself. Mary Philbin, after years of meekly turning the other cheek, goes vampire with a vengeance in "Drums of Love" and does some high and fancy necking that compares favorably with the best efforts of Greta Garbo. Esther Ralston, after a couple of years of merely looking sweet and wholesome in her screen rdles, is now portraying the type of modern young Amazon who always gets her man, even if she has to knock him cold to do it. May McAvoy has of late thrown her winsome shyness into the ash can and gone in for gamine roles. The classic beauty of Dolores Costello was seen as a part of the underworld in "Tenderloin," and the fragile Polores took enough physical punishment in that picture to send half a dozen U. S. Marines to the hospital for repairs. Even Marian Nixon, whose screen work long ago earned her the title of the sweetest girl in Hollywood, went jazz in "Red Lips" and proceeded to wildcat all over the place. The list might be continued indefinitely. And when you add to this list the names of those who have always specialized in more mystery . the lair of the sorceress or less hard boiled roles: Clara Bow ... in an Oriental mood {Continued on page yy) 63