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THE MOTION PICTURE DIRECTOR
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Jazzing up "Brewster’s Millions” has been lots of fun for the entire staff. Here Miss Daniels is shown talking over new gags with Clarence Badger, director; Monty Brice, scenarist; Travis Banton, designer; H. K. Martin, cinematographer ; Kenneth
Hawks, editorial supervisor, and Paul Jones, assistant director.
Incidentally, there’s a certain glamor in the life of screen folk that was missing in that of the “Four Hundred.” “Miss Brewster,” herself a famous star portraying the role of extra girl is seen meeting many other famous stars of filmdom in her rounds of the studios. That in itself is sufficient to interest millions of picture patrons.
Another important character of the story, that of the uncle, has also been remodeled in order to take him out of the class of the ancient villain and thus endow him with a greater humanness. A fuller, truer and less dignified revelation of one’s human qualities is permissable today, whereas twenty-six years ago it simply wasn’t being done. There has since been added the final touch of destruction to the idea of “poise,” for which has been substituted spontaneity. Instead of the stern,
dignified, overbearing character of his prototype, Ford Sterling as the uncle in “Miss Brewster’s Millions” becomes a humorous, human sort, possessed of all of our present-day weaknesses.
To have attempted making “Brewster’s Millions” with a feminine star five years ago might have been folly, for it is a question as to whether or not the public would have accepted the substitution. Since then, however, the screen patrons themselves have so accelerated the tempo of modern life that they have involuntarily created “Miss Brewster’s Millions” and successfully influenced the Paramount organization to screen her ‘a la mode, proving conclusively that forcing the producer to recognize intelligent public taste stimulates competition and creates better pictures.
If in some future development of the public taste, interest should shift to men
instead of remaining, as it is a present, focussed on women and their problems, perhaps some enterprising producer will bring forth “Brewster’s Millions” for the third time, and allow a man to spend the millions.
Meanwhile Bebe Daniels as the comedienne who must spend the million in three months, should keep her audience hysterical from the time she makes her entrance on a miniature horse following a wagon-load of hay, all the way through to the highspeed finish of the film. The radical departure of the producers in making the star of the play feminine is more than justified by the promise of her performance for this role, and the lavish staging that is being given the production by Director Clarence Badger. Miss Daniels has, in her role of “Miss Brewster,” the sort of opportunities in which she appears to the greatest advantage.