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6
THE MOTION PICTURE DIRECTOR
December
IT IS a peculiar attribute of the screen that it frequently affords to those who have followed the speaking stage and have risen to great heights in the spoken drama, opportunities for expression hitherto denied them. In the heart of every great actor there burns the desire some day to portray some great part or to appear in a character completely at variance with stage roles which have hitherto been theirs.
Such an opportunity has been afforded John Barrymore in the Warner Brothers classic, “The Sea Beast.”
In this virile production of the sea and of the old whaling days of 1840 his Titan soul has found expression he has long craved and in his delineation of the character of Ahab Ceeley he has found the fulfillment of a magnihcent dream.
It has long been Barrymore’s desire to portray a real he-man character, for Barrymore is essentially a man’s man. While he has risen to the pinnacle of fame in his chosen profession, as the drawing room hero, as the polite, posturing beau and as the delicate, piffling, aristocratic dandy, he has hated such roles with manifold intensity and has longed for something raw
■ and elemental,
something carefree and gay, something frank and genuine in which he could have full play for the talent that is his.
For years it has been Barrymore’s ambition to translate Herman IVIehille’s splendid old novel of the American whaling industry, “Moby Dick,” into pictures. Bess Meredyth’s adaptation of that story as the scenario for “The Sea Beast” has afforded him the opportunity he has desired and as a result production of this picture has been with him a work of love.
H is enthusiasm and inspiration so completely permeated the rest of the company during the filming of the story that even the grip carpenter, with instinctive uneasiness, felt himself being swayed by an unwonted thrill of enthusiasm and covered up by remarking to an electrician, “It’s just another picture, George.” But he knew it wasn’t