Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

Glorifying Ihe A merican Drunk By HELEN LOUISE WALKER i ^OTION pictures |\ /I appear to be ear\/ I nestly concerned, ▼ Jl, just now, with glo! ying the American drunk, i nay have discovered that the bow-benders, the flask-tot-j s, the boys who weave when ) ey walk, are just frightfully nny fellows and that they are good r sure-fire laughs from any audience j this enlightened day of the Noble jxperiment. Which is a heaven-sent >| scovery, what with audiences get'ng harder and harder to tickle. It wasn't like this before ProhibiYou could never have let your hero get a bun on then — and remain the hero. Charles Ruggles doesn't see why he should stagger forever in pictures rank McHugh delights in ving you that superiority feeling Liquor automatically turned anybody into a heavy in those days. But now it seems that the surest way to gain sympathy for any character is to show him a bit boiled. We run all the gamuts in drunk scenes, of course — from the pathos of Joseph Schildkraut in "Show Boat" down (or is it up.') to the hilarity of Laurel and Hardy getting thoroughly and tearily plastered on cold tea in "Blotto." Al Jolson did an appealing bit of weaving in "Mammy," you remember — and was still fiis mother's boy. Marie Dressier, wandering maudlinly through "Anna Christie," nearly stole that picture from Greta Garbo. (Perhaps they should give Greta a rousing drunk scene from time to time!) Marjorie Rambeau had scarcely a sober moment in "My Man." John Barrymore was pleasantly bunned in "The Man from Blankley's." Give Brook shows us how polite an English drunk can be in "Anybody's Woman." David has played in seven pictures and has never had a sober part. He is First National's permanent drunk. Charles Ruggles, another consistently good alcoholic (professionally speaking, of course!), belongs to Paramount. And how the studios do treasure these boys! I asked McHugh tvhy he thought a drunk was so funny to most people. "Is a drunk really funny?" I wanted to know. "Or does he only seem that way when portrayed by a clever actor — the way a tramp can be made funny ?" "I think a drunk really is funny," he said. "Unless he is the kind that gets quarrelsome or weepy — and unless he gets too drunk. I have always liked to watch them. A man with just a slight edge on is nearly always funny. His brain is working so much faster than his muscles. He can think, but he can't coordinate. "He gets absurd notions that seem very brilliant to {Continued on page 80) A Little Lager, Now And Then, Is Relished By The Leading Men Manners gets thoroughly squiffed in "The Truth About Youth" — his squiffed-ness, of course, being an important part of the Truth! Drink and Be Employed ANYONE who can play a convincing drunk scene is assured of a good job in pictures now. Studios are employing actors who are experts at this particular form of histrionic expression— and asking them to do nothing else. It requires a talent all its own. Frank McHugh But Expert McHugh insists that a drunk cannot play a drunk 33