Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

Hallelujah! And A Percenta to prepare the setting for the arrival of the star, so do Aimee's assistants, headed by "Ma" Kennedy, precede her arrival in the church auditorium. They work the congregation into a frenzy of enthusiasm for the climactic moment. Then, with the folks on their feet, palms upraised, shouting "Hallelujah," the regal figure of the evangelist comes into view, colored lights playing on her gleaming white gown. She dramatizes everything. Sometimes, even the devil, in red robes and with the well-known horns, appears on the platform, and Aimee, shouting maledictions and praise to the Lord, drives him away. Sometimes, she depicts the Gates to Heaven and the rocky path leading to them; sometimes, the Gates to Hell with its path of primroses. Greed, Lust, Pleasure, and other symbolic figures of her sermons are represented on the rostrum. When she returned from her harrowing "kidnapping" experience, she enacted the whole business out on the church stage. Maybe So, Maybe Not SOMEBODY once told her she had a voice like Maude Adams and Ethel Barrymore combined. Someone else remarked that she resembled Texas Guinan. "I don't know myself," she explained in repeating this. "You see, I don't go to the theater and I've never met Texas Guinan." How does she reconcile her present plans for film-making with her preachments all these years past against that instrument of Satan, motion pictures? In the first interview granted on the subject, she told me. Fondling a remarkably well-behaved baby on her knee, apparently as atmosphere, she went into action. Gone were all the vestiges of the shoutin', yellin', exhortin' preacher. For this role, she was a modest, demure little woman in a faded blue dress. Belle Bennett could not have done it any better. She looked between forty and fifty years of age, much more than she appears in photographs or from the church pulpit. The famous red tresses, which have figured so much in the public prints, were a light yellow. Aimee, without doubt, has blondined her hair. Instead of being heaped on top of her head, as once, it was combed straight from her face, parted in the middle and fell {Continued from page 30) in long ringlets about her neck. Her voice was subdued and quiet. She seemed almost reluctant to say anything about herself. But not entirely reluctant — A Heaven-Sent Opportunity " TT will be God's work to me. It will be a X religious effort. The talking picture is the greatest agency for the spread of the Longworth The witching houri: despite the penchant of turban-wearers and lazy, little Loretta Young wins her way into the heart Sidney Blackmer in "Kismet" Gospel since the invention of the printing press. " My first production will be based on my life in the service of the Lord. Everything — everything will be included. There will.be scenes depicting the terrible prosecution suffered at the hands of the money lords, the liquor barons, the rum runners, the dope fiends, the agents of the underworld in Los Angeles, who had me kidnapped and set down in the desert. Yes, I suppose we will include my long and perilous walk across the sands. "I would like to make something tremendously fine in the way of a picture. I would like good actors to play in it. My director? Personally, I would choose some one like Cecil B. de Mille or Lionel Barrymore. "When I was set free by my kidnappers and the newspapers were full of my experiences, I was offered a million dollars by a motion picture company to screen the story. I refused. I could see no reason then for making a picture. To-day, I will make one — for the Glory of God. "Talking pictures have changed everything. They give me an opportunity, through sound, to promulgate the Gospel as never before. After this production is ished, I intend to make a series of serm ettes. They will be released in the ei. hundred and forty-two branch church" Angelus Temple all over the country." She Lost Her Radio Voice AIMEE was not at all nervous when . took her first tests within the stu gates, she told me. had no reason to b developed, for tests were splen ' The evangelist pho graphed very well, deed. Her eyes w extraordinarily la and luminous. H profile was good. A her voice, the one th nearly blasts apart t radio loudspeaker, i cords clearly and wi pleasant tonal qua ties. The story goes th,'. these first tests we accomplished at Te Art Studio, an ind« pendent organ izatic where stages and can era equipment may t rented for short (jerioc of time. Aimee, roL ing up to the gates i a black limousine, ac, companied by her daughter, Roberta, wa assigned to the sta dressing-room, one occupied by Dolore Del Rio. The janito is grumbling authority for the fact that Aima brought no towels. Once before the mi crophone, she was apparently undecidec what to say. Turning to daughter Roberta, she said: "Shall I tell a story, or shall 1 use a scriptural text?" Roberta voted for the story. Aimee told one and so well, it seems, that since that day there has been no doubt about the picture being made — it just has been a question of when and where. Aimee Semple McPherson is a great showwoman . . . and her name is known the length and breadth of America. Other evangelists have dropped more or less by the wayside, but Aimee flings out her banners and marches on. She ought to do as well in pictures as she has in the pulpit. If so, she's on her way to more success. Although details of the business organization are a little hazy in the mind of a layman, it is said that the endeavor, besides being for the Glory of God, will be on a percentage basis. Universal at this writing will produce. The Angelus Picture Corporation and others will get a cut. So, folks, get ready for the religious spectacle of all ages. The lady evangelist is breaking into screen drama. No doubt, she will be as colorful a figure there as she has been in countless newsreels already ... for ladies large and harem of 84