Movie Classic (Mar-Aug 1936)

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Personal Attendance or Home. Study training. 26th year. Write for Free Booklet. NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF PHOTOGRAPHY 10 W. 33 St. (Dept. 18) New York For intimate backstage gossip and news from Studioland see Hollywood Highlights on pag e 20 YOUR FflK CHAUGCD Straiqht reqular features! Charming new beauty! They can be yuura. Dr. Stutter (grad. 0t University of Vienna) reconstructs faces by famous Vienna Polyclinic methods. Unshapely Noses. Protruding Ears, Large Lips, Wrinkles, Signsof Age, etc ,are all quickly corrected. Low . l> „. .all for Free Bookie *' Facial Reconstruction," (mailed | in plain wrapper.) ___.-» Dr. St tter, 50 East 42nd St., Dept. 48 J. New York Saddle Leather vs. Sex Appeal | Continued from page 47] 78 bearded villains. Tom's salary was one of the highest ever paid to any motion picture actor ; his pictures were used as "whips" to induce exhibitors to book the studio's other, and much more publicized, offerings. The theatre owners were so eager to satisfy the public demand for Mix pictures that they were reluctantly willing to book society dramas in order to get them. Mix lasted as a top-notcher for years — while suave purveyors of sex-appeal came and went — and then Fox built George O'Brien to take his place. O'Brien starred in western after western, in the Zane Grey stories, in originals scribbled by studio unknowns on wrapping paper, and his pictures poured new millions into Hollywood's coffers. For years, he was the biggest money earner on the Fox lot, bigger than Janet Gaynor, bigger than Warner Baxter. He received very little publicity. His pictures were never given formal openings at the Chinese or the other world-famous show places, but they made money. And the Fox fan mail department was literally buried under the storm of adulatory letters which poured in to praise a Western star. The late Fred Thompson was one of the greatest western heroes. Every Saturday afternoon, the theatres were packed with children, there to see his pictures. Richard Arlen, starring in a long succession of somewhat glorified "horseoperas" for Paramount, was the biggest and most dependable money earner on a lot which prided itself on its sophisticated pictures. Tom Keene — probably many of you never heard of him — was the biggest asset of Radio Pictures, notwithstanding the fact that his westerns were overlooked by the publicity scribes who were busy boosting the stock of Connie Bennett, Katherine Hepburn and Irene Dunne. GARY COOPER became a famous star because he "clicked" in a series of inexpensive westerns for Paramount, and one of his greatest triumphs since, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, follows the old western formula in every respect. Warner Baxter, then on the skids, scored his greatest success in the first western talkie, In Old Arizona. Richard Dix's one smash hit of recent years, Cimarron, was merely a glorification of the cheaper Westerns that had been the foundation of his stardom. And the westerners, booted, spurred and sombreroed, ride on . . . and on . . . right into this ultra-sophisticated year of 1936. And the exhibitors are just as glad as ever to hear the thunder of their mustangs' hoofs, even if it isn't accompanied by the publicity departments' brass bands. Amazingly, a survey this month — or any month — of exhibitors reports as published in the theatre trade journal, shows that Buck Jones' and Ken Maynard's westerns have played to "big business" in many houses which gave the more sophisticated offerings a very cold shoulder. The great western sextet of all time is Tom Mix, Bill Hart, Fred Thompson, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones and Ken Maynard. Tom is still "packin' 'em in" for the circus. Bill Hart is retired. Fred Thompson is dead. But Gibson, Jones and Maynard, seemingly as imperishable as so many Rocks of Gibraltar, are still three of the outstanding stars in Hollywood. True, Hoot Gibson fell on hard times for a few years. But his troubles were due to poor investments rather to any loss of screen popularity. He's back at work again, Movie Classic for August, 1936 "forkin' " outlaw horses, rescuing fair range maidens and thwarting two-gun rustlers — and the exhibitors, driven by public demand, will soon be clamoring for his pictures. Buck Jones has been a star, continuously and without a break, for a little more than seventeen years. Only one other star in screen history, Dick Barthelmess, can equal that truly amazing record. And Barthelmess, having waned decidedly, is not receiving five thousand, dollars a week. Buck Jones is ! You don't hear much about him and if you live in a major city and patronize only the first-run theatres, the big "down-town" houses, you probably never see his pictures. But he is not being paid such a staggering salary for nothing. Get this : Buck Jones receives approximately twice as much salary as the average, celebrated, internationally publicized, sex-appeal star. According to the most authentic records, he earns more than Gable, more than Montgomery, more than Fred Astaire, more than Dick Powell. He earns more than five times as much as most of the younger sophisticated favorites who are being ballyhoo'ed as the Gables of tomorrow. Of the many fan clubs in America, his is by far the largest. Children idolize him. The "Buck Jones Rangers" number more than SIX MILLION! And his pictures cost less to produce than the average studio program picture ! "We're out this year to put westerns — good westerns — into the first-run theatres," he challenges. "Because westerns are universally popular, we know that the public wants them in the big theatres. It is the motion picture industry itself which is prejudiced. Strangely so, for any producer knows that the lowly 'horse-opera' is the one sure-fire money maker. Westerns are built of the basic story ingredients — action, adventure and courage. The industry — I mean Hollywood — has come to look down on westerns because of the great flood of maudlin imitations produced by penny-ante fly-by-night producers on 'Poverty Row.' The real western picture has a hold on the public — and especially on children — that can never be broken. The old West offers the most • colorful, adventurous and romantic background that any picture can have." Ken Maynard, the last of the sextet, has been a star for fourteen consecutive years — and he is still a very, very big star. Like Buck Jones, he receives little publicity and lots of salary — far more salary than most of the ultra-publicized stars in Hollywood. His pictures — eight every year — coin money, and coin it with never a "flop." Like Buck Jones, he lays no claim to sex-appeal or acting genius — but Ken Maynard receives approximately four thousand fan mail letters every week! Four thousand a month is considered phenomenal. And both Buck Jones and Ken Maynard, who have outlived, professionally, the combined lives of three or four drawing room favorites, predict that 1937, themed by a return to clean, wholesome screen entertainment, will be the greatest year in Western history ! Tour the Middle West, and the secondrun theatres of every section, and the deep South, and ask the theatre owners to verify that prediction and they will ask in amazement how 1937, or any other year, can bring greater popularity to pictures which already play to packed houses. Apparently Hollywood, itself, is the only community which forgets its cowboy stars.