The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

*•+ *i She Will Jimmy Savo, above, step into Chaplin's place? Or will Charlie Chaplin stay forever the one and only? Little Shirley Temple won a place for herself among the ten most popular women, above, so we gave her a great big place. And gladly! among all the arts. Already there is a reflection of this prophecy in the studio announcements of a forthcoming series of films based upon the great world classics from the pens of Shakespeare, Kipling, Dickens, Dumas, Barrie, Thackeray, Stevenson, Poe, Wilde, Dante, Rostand, H. G. Wells, O'Neill and other great authors. In addition such a genius from the theater as Max Reinhardt is affiliating himself with the newer medium of expression. HOLLYWOOD is moving in the right direction, toward better and finer achievements. The cheap ballyhoo is disappearing. Even the flashy premieres seem a thing of the past. The new Ann Harding dignity is reflected in the new type of star, and in the choice of stories. It is safe to predict that the "Renaissance" of the movies will begin in 1935. Does the public welcome this change? Will they continue to patronize the movies in its new dress of culture and refinement? Will the mob clamor for a Mae West invitation to come up some time, for a Jean Harlow undraping, or a glorification of a nice gal like Ann Harding having an illegitimate child to nice, weepy music? Of the dozen smash hits of 1934, financially speaking, ten were technically clean pictures, featuring domestic life, children, music and comedy devoid of salacious gags. The public has chosen — and the producers will oblige. 1934 produced three outstanding stars; Margaret Sullavan, little Shirley Temple, and the songbird, Grace Moore. Compare these with the previous year's sensational rise of Mae West and Katharine Hepburn! In this comparison is your best barometer of the changing times. Three months prior to the writing of this forecast for New Movie I made a tour of the country. I have been in the largest cities and in the smallest hamlets; have talked to cosmopolitan matrons and to Main Street housewives ; to city sophisticates and to small town everyday people who make up the vast mass of moviegoers. On a large ocean liner, plying between New York and New Orleans, I questioned two hundred and fifty people one night, people from every walk of life and from practically every state in the Union, asking them what kind of pictures they wanted to see, and the type of stars they approve. As a whole they were pretty well fed up with the sex drivel Hollywood has been feeding them. Their intelligence and tastes have been underestimated. vford Kay Francis THE predictions I am about to make for the stars and production policies of 1935 are based upon practical knowledge. There is to be no attempt at fortune-telling or wild guessing. Rather, by a process of calculation, and a thorough checkup of each studio's plans, as well as a compiled estimation of the attitude of the movie fans themselves I have been able to crystallize a conclusion that will be as nearly accurate as it is possible to be in a business whose very life's blood is constant change. STAR-STOCK MARKET FOR 1935 The rise and fall of stars in Hollywood is very much like the rise and fall of stocks in Wall Street. Sky-high today. Rock-bottom tomorrow. The Bulls and Bears of movieland buy and sell with the same ruthless madness of brokers in the wheat pit. One career goes down as another goes up, in the crazy see-saw of picture making. Each star, each featured player, even the unknown novice, is an individual stock. The big name stars and featured players are a producer's preferred stock. They are the Mae Wests, the Katharine Hepburns, the Clark Gables who pay large dividends to the companies who have gambled on their talents. Each major studio also holds under contract large shares of common stock, in the parlance of Hollywood the stock company players, who comprise everything from well-known character actors from Broadway to a Brown Derby waitress who happens to have potential starring possibilities. The stockboards of Hollywood tell tragic and glorious tales as the Preferred and Common stocks fluctuate up and down, from month to month, and year to year. Every twelfth month a whole group of famous names disappear into oblivion as obsolete stocks, while dark horses appear to take their places. Common stocks change magically into Preferred. A few bad pictures, a silly rumor, a scandal, can send a star-stock tumbling down to zero; causing the producer to sell short. On the other hand a good break, a few excellent notices, wellplanned publicity, can shoot an unknown stock up to the heights overnight, with every producer clamoring for it. We refer you to the cases of Will Rogers George Arliss James Cagney Clark Gable Joe E. Brown The New Movie Magazine, February, 1935 27