Movie Classic (Mar-Aug 1936)

Try a Movie Test >ur Own Mi ome W( IULD it surprise you to know that Paramount Pictures Corporation, or any other big film company, will give you serious consideration if you helieve you have a chance for stardom ? It's true. Very true. One hundred to two hundred applicants for a chance in the movies are interviewed carefully each week in Paramount's New York office. It wasn't always thus. Only a few years ago Venus de Milo, with both arms intact, and rave reviews from a two-year run on Broadway, could have worn her arms down to the shoulder again, knocking in vain on Movielaud's gate. Hut today, thanks to Oscar Serlin, Paramount's chief talent scout and director of Paramount's famous dramatic training school, anyone with strength enough to hobble into •1501 Broadway (the Paramount Building) will be given serious consideration for a job in motion pictures. We can say "thanks to Oscar Serlin," because Paramount is the pioneer in the "open door" policy of talentscouting. Since Paramount established the first dramatic school to coach aspirants for the screen before giving them expensive screen tests, other film companies have followed suit — and are now eager, also, to interview per sons believing themselves screen material. "And why shouldn't an applicant for stardom seek out a film company and learn if he or she has what the movies are looking for ?" asks this same Oscar Serlin, the man who discovered Fred MacMurray tooting a saxophone in an orchestra pit. Fred, by the way, attended the Paramount dramatic school three months before taking a screen test. You know the rest. He has become a star in one brief year — and is currently the hero of the first outdoor natural-color picture, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, with Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda. • "How," I asked Mr. Serlin, "can anyone not already in the theatrical profession measure his talents and <^ Gladys Swarthout's screen test cost $1,250. She firepared for it or five months John Howard (above, left) passed the talent test this article talks about. So did Fred MacMurray (above, right) —and is a star after one year before the cameras Do you have what the movies want? Read this article — and learn how to test yourself I By RALPH FOSTER ability and determine whether or not his chances of success are great enough to warrant trying for a screen test and movie contract ?" "Those with genuine ambition can do it," he persisted. "Persons of normal intelligence are capable of judging their own ability and chances of success in the entertainment field, as they are in any other field — clerking, writing, law or what-not. Once they have looked over what they have to sell, and are convinced that they are fitted for the movies, we want to see them. If we want what they have to sell, we'll buy — and, believe me, we are genuinely grateful to everyone who comes iti, whether we buy or not." "You say they can examine themselves," I reminded him, "but I want to know exactly how they can do it. What questions must they ask themselves? What kind of yardstick can they use to measure their own ability ?" "I'll give you a yardstick," was Serlin's answer to that. "We'll make it possible for everyone genuinely interested to take a screen test in his own home!" Then the huddle. Pencil in hand, one of his assistants helping him, Serlin took time out to make the set of screen test questions you see at the end of this article. Finally, he looked up from his task. "It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be," he admitted, "and I'd like to caution you that, before anyone takes this test, he should be familiar with the way an applicant is greeted here. What we have done," Mr. Serlin explained, "is to put on paper the same questions we ask when an individual calls in person and is interviewed by a talent scout. For anyone to answer these questions intelligently, he or she should get a little behind-the-scenes picture of what goes on when we interview an applicant, a better understanding of the qualities we are seeking." • All right, to get the whole picture, let's suppose that you, the reader, have funds to support yourself in NewYork for a period of six months, and you have accepted Mr. Serlin's invitation. Just what happens when you walk into his office? An alert secretary will ask the reason for your call and, learning it, will usher you into the presence of one of Mr. Serlin's assistants, perhaps Mr. Boris Kaplan, first assistant talent scout. If Mr. Kaplan sees you, you will find yourself engaged in a conversation as general as one that you might conduct with your best friend. But all the time you are chatting, Mr. Kaplan's experi [Continued on page 72] Eleanore Whitney, though only eighteen,passed the talent test and became a sensation in her first dancing role