The New Movie Magazine (Jan-Sep 1935)

FREDDIE and FRANKIE Freddie Bartholomew, the tenyear-old English boy you saw in "David Copperfield," talks like a professor By CHARLES DARNTON A CROSS a strange sea and a stranger land — and he but a mere lad, l\ mind you— he had followed his faith for six thousand miles and J. \, proved himself true to it. This is the most remarkable thing about one of the finest child actors the talking screen has produced. A light rap at the door, then there stepped through, for all the world like stepping out of Dickens' pages, the amazing English youngster, Freddie Bartholomew, who so appealingly and completely realized the boy David in the film production of "David Copperfield." Vividly alive, his dark, curling hair tumbling almost into his gray-blue eyes, he smiled up at me as we shook hands. Instantly he gave the welcome impression of never provoking you into an indulgent attitude, but meeting you, gladly, on an equal footing. Of course, that footing was somewhat wanting in physical ease for a three-footer talking with a sixfooter. But any possible difficulty was overcome when Freddie climbed into a chair and let his roll-socked feet hang in suspense. I almost fell out of mine when I asked what had led him to undertake his long journey on a mere chance of getting what he had come for and heard: "My faith." "In yourself?" "Not that, so much as my faith in Dickens. I had a lot of faith in him. "You see," he explained, "I knew his books so well that I felt I knew him — just had a feeling. I'd read 'David Copperfield' two or three times. Funny enough," and his voice had a gay rising inflection like a kite going up, "that was my favorite book. I mean it's funny I should get the part." "Had you any doubts?" "N-no," he considered, knitting his brows, "not any real doubts. On the way over I didn't think about it — that is, not much." "What did you think about?" "Indians!" He watched the effect of this exciting revelation, then merrily joined in a laugh. We were getting on. "And nothing shook your faith?" "Well," he admitted, "when I reached here and found that ten thousand other boys were trying for the part my hopes were slightly dashed." Still, even in the face of such competition, Freddie never lost hope. It now remained for him to tell what he had done to win the much coveted role: "I recited Portia's speech." Just a kid, yet with "The Merchant of Venice" at his tongue's end! "I know Cromwell's speech and Marc Antony's," he added, "but I thought Portia's would be enough." He wasn't boasting, simply being matter-of-fact, as though Shakespeare were an old story to this young boy. "I like Shakespeare very much, don't you?" he asked. In agreeing with him, I recalled that the first play I had seen, as a small boy in London, was "Hamlet," and that it had been followed by an exhibition of horsemanship. "My goodness!" he exclaimed, his eyes widening. " 'Hamlet' and horsemanship— that must have been (Please turn to page 51) Freddie, with Edna May Oliver and Lenox Pawle, in a scene from the picture that will long be remembered. Another stage veteran, at twelve, Frankie Thomas is unlike Freddie in that he's all boy. He loves "Dawgs" By LUCILE BABCOCK UPON the stage a little blond boy with pain-tortured face huddled in a wheel chair. On his slight shoulders rested the responsibility for so convincing the audience, of a miraculous cure, that all subsequent events would have reality. I shivered for that little player. I knew from my own acting days how perilous it all was, how easy to fail. "Dear God," he prayed, with upturned face. "Please let me walk. Please!" Off stage the Jesuit Choir soared in an ecstatic Te Deum. He half-raised himself on the arms of the chair. Struggled to his feet. Stood erect and took four triumphant steps. There was just one moment of that breathless silence which means utter credulity on the part of the audience, and then applause came thunderously. The little boy with the halo of blond hair was Frankie Thomas, brilliant new screen star. The stage play, although that is unimportant, was "The First Legion," that strangely touching story of life in a monastery. What was important and exciting to an old trouper like me was the fact that here was a boy of twelve completely swaying an audience with his playing of a part which not only demanded genuine emotion but a technique to portray that emotion that it takes years to acquire. His timing seemed as instinctive as breathing . . . this line taken at slow tempo to sink every syllable, that line speeded to build a climax. It is as God-given as perfect pitch in music. Either you have it or you haven't, and without it you'll be a ham actor all the days of your life. I knew that afternoon at "The First Legion" that I wanted to meet Frankie Thomas, but also that I wanted to see him act again to make sure that his performance wasn't coincidence or circumstance. A good play has so often carried a poor actor! A good director so often saves both stupid acting and inadequate play! And then, as Bobby Phillips, in "Wednesday's Child," that heart-tearing drama of a lonely little boy trying to adjust himself to the problem of his parents' divorce, the miracle of impersonation happened again. The episode between Bobby and his mother, following the discovery of her affair with "the other man," is as quietly contemptuous as any moment I have ever seen on the screen. He looks at her with level, tortured brows and then, with a slight dilation of nostrils and an almost imperceptible pinching of his lips, faces away from her and marches up the stairs. You can feel tears in every line of that straight childish back. But Frankie Thomas in real life is something pretty jolly, and I think you'd get a great lift out of meeting him. He walks like a buccaneer, with enormous strides. Beret worn as nearly as possible in the manner of a sombrero, slanting well down over his triangular gray eyes. His handgrasp is as hearty as a salesman's. You wince and you wonder. Later you learn that wrestling is his favorite indoor sport. But more of the private life of young Thomas when I show him to you with his spinach. (Mothers of growing boys, please note.) He likes to think of his own personality, I am sure, as one part Cagney, two parts Frank Buck, a dash of Max Baer. Tough. Tireless, Titanic. Especially the latter. He sat across the luncheon table from me and Big Frank, his father, and in less than two minutes had sold me a carload of Frank Buck and a couple of jaguars. The last first. (Please turn to page 50) And here's one of the "dawgs." Frankie must love him, because he's giving him the center of the stage. The New Movie Magazine, May, 1935 27