Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

Holds Open Court 'HE CHARGE: Sex HE PLAINTIFFS:--The 'HE DEFENDANT: rretchers, the case fortunately proceeded.) Avoiding Further Bloodshed IS Honor (weakly): "I think the plain Appeal Is A Crime Prodnose Family Clara Bow IB Ts' attorney's last question had beter be considered out of order." Defendant : "As the only point in asking the [uestion was to make me admit I possess sex ippeal, I may as well avoid further bloodshed »y admitting it. It is nothing I am ashamed i)f. What law is there on the statute books vhich denies me the right to possess it.'" P. A.: "Of course we are not dealing with he laws of man, but with the eternal laws of ight and wrong, the laws of morality. Are ou going to stand there and suggest that his unlicensed sex appeal, running riot as t does through millions of feet of film, dis)layed all over the world, is not an outrage gainst ail decent canons of morals and cod taste.'" Defendant: "Since the plaintiffs insist, hat is just what I am going to stand here ind do. I should not have thought it was lecessary to point out, and I am quite sure he worthy members of the jury will not think t necessary, that there is sex appeal and sex ippeal." (Applause in court, and cries of 'Atta Clara!") P. A.: "I think the members of the jury, who >ave decency and clean-thinking writ large all )ver them, would like to know just what you ire talking about." She Comes by It Naturally DEFENDANT: "I refertothe kind of sexappeal that appealsonly to men, and the other ;ina, which also affects women with the thought hat they would like to resemble the possessor •fit. Obvious, flagrant sex appeal can be vulgar n the extreme. I have sex appeal, but when I m in a scene I never think about it. Conscious ex appeal is not the real thing. It isn't just a natter of sex. You can have it, and people can >e drawn to you without having any thought of physical X)ntact at all. You can have just as much of it in a ginglam dress as in a low-cut evening gown with most of your )hysical charms showing. Sex appeal is personality — it's lot your body. You throw it out without thinking ibout it." P. A.: "Then you ask the jury to believe that you are lifferent from other film stars with .sex appeal, whose names have become synonymous with vulgarity?" Defendant: "I don't pretend that I am the only star possessing the real, wholesome kind of sex appeal — of course not. But I do say that sex appeal has earned its bad name through a fewstars who do not really have it, and who make it vulgar by making frantic efforts to look as though they had it. Either you have it or you haven't, and people who try to assume it by suggestive clothes and actions are always vulgar. A lot of girls in Hollywood act as if they had it, and only make it all the plainer that they haven't. Good Looks Not Essential HOLLYWOOD is full of marvelously goodlooking people, but good looks have nothing to do with it. Some people who are downright homely in their features are made attractive and magnetic by natural, inborn sex appeal. Others who have perfect features sometimes make themselves repulsive by assuming something they don't have. Some stars who are reputed to have 's. a.' are not so big at the box-office, and the reason is that they have only one audience — the men who don't object to their vulgarity. To be a really big star you've got to have the women and the kids like you as well as the men do. That means something more natural and child' ish, not just a bold sexy look on your face. "Sex appeal can be a great asset to a star, but can also pull you back if you get known for lat and nothing else. Personally, I have never striven after sex appeal because I suppose I have it inborn in me, and I believe that is why I have got where I am. I believe that anything that pleases the people as a "whole must be good. I deny the charge of vulgarity and I shall continue to deny it as long as there is a Prodnose left on earth." (Wild applause in court. Several gentlemen's hats are thrown at defendant. An excited lady throws her umbrella in the same direction, and her small offspring, thinking it is a game, tosses a toy brick. With great difficulty His Honor restores order.) Not the Criminal Kind PA.: "I am gratified to observe on the faces of the jury members that they are no more impressed by this hair(Continued on pa^r 89) 37