Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

I IO yw^' Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section What Kind of Men Attract Women Most? At the office the days go faster with Beemans — its really delicious and its use is "a seMSihlt habit" TepsinGum AMERICAN CHICLE CO. Makes Any Hat Fit Any Head Try n Do Leon Bandeau and learn real hat comfort. Does away with hat-pins, yet holds lint firmly in any desired position. Dress hat — sport hut — it's all the same to the De Leon Bandeau. Adjustable to any size hat and inserted in a few seconds. No sewing — no stitching. If your milliner or dealer cannot supply you, send us 26 cents with dealer's name and we will Bend one promptly, postpaid, State color, black or while. 35o ill Canada. De Leon Bandenu Co. 2129 Locust St. St. Louis, Mo. Daalen, ■••your jobber. If he can't supply you, wrlle us. -.: n in >; jobber's numc. Embossed Stationery from HOLLYWOOD 200 Shoeta $0.00 100 Envelope* * Po.ip.id Will, v,..ir KlIM Ud Vl.lr , bwutltlll RAISED I." r. i miuissi l> .„, i mi ,.( u,, •!»!• and imi avrelopai o-> nol ."»f this with ti» nrrtinnrr prinlod ■UUoiwy II" I.-ii.t. ,,rc II USED, .... SooqwIIU i>%i>or. «.»..n row p« I iui rv i motl dUtlorttv* •ppo.ir : I... gl WhlK, (Ir.'v. 111.,-. 0t Buff. Bill .'.v', HOMty rrfunl'l HOME STATIONERY CO.. HM Gordon SI HOLLYWOOD, CALIf. [ CONTINUED divine with the most eloquent and soul-stirring voice it has ever been my privilege to hear. Hut even tho-e things form too small a percentage upon which to base a decision. Hut there is a way to get an answer that ought to be fairly correct. The movie stars. Eighty per cent of the attendance at motion pictures is feminine. That eighty per cent is composed of women from every walk of life. Limousines filled with laughing young debutantes drive up and their pa--engers walk in side by side with shop girls of the same age. Elegant young matron in sable and diamonds rub elbows with trimly clad stenographers and harassed housewives. All ages, all classes of women find their way into the movie palaces. Xew York's Broadway and Gopher Prairie's Main Street are illuminated with the same names and they draw the entire female population of both towns. And this, it seems to me, gives us a mo-t amazing amount of new evidence, irrefutable evidence, in the matter of what kind of men really appeal most to women. For it is the women who make or break a male star, except in the case of the comedians. Consequently, it must follow that the men who have really fascinated and held the great mass of women picture fans represent their taste in masculine charm. T ET us consider for a moment the list of men -'—'signalled out by the women of today for real adoration. I present it in the order which a careful study of fan mail, popularity contests and box office reports lead me to believe is the correct estimate of their popularity, and I find it entirely impossible to be at all accurate and not place first an idol who is gone from among us. The list reads: Wallace Reid, Rodolph Valentino, Richard Barthelmess, Bill Hart, Ramon Xovarro, Conway Tearle, Thomas Meighan, Antonio Moreno, Douglas Fairbanks, Richard Dix and Reginald Denny. Three of these — Xovarro. Dix and Denny — are comparative newcomers. The others have stood the test of time, trouble, absence from the screen, bad pictures, scandal, and even death itself. Also it is necessary to remember the intensity and madness of the "Valentino craze," and the amazing steadfast and loyal quality of the love and affection given Wally Reid. Beyond question, Reid and Valentino stand as the two great matinee idols of this generation. Probably they are the two greatest matinee idols the world has ever known, since no stage star has ever reached the multitudes of women who rush to see the screen stars. First of all, good looks evidently aren't the essential. Certainly their most ardent admirers cannot call Bill Hart. Doug Fairbanks, and Tommy Meighan handsome. Even Valentino, with his small eyes, his flat nose and large mouth, fails to measure up to the standard of male beauty usually accepted in this country. It seems to me that the thing registered most emphatically is that women like extremes. They crave excitement, and the man-woman excitement is the most satisfactory kind known. The commonplace, the ordinary, the everyday those are the things they will not have. A man must be very strong, or inlle must be very wicked, or he must have passion. Love credibly weak. divinely good. But, afo\ e a of women. Now the most delightful experience in a woman's life is to be loved. The most blissful moments in her life are when she hears the declaration from the lips of some man that lie loves her. It is the nth degree of flattery — and most men who are experienced in the matter of women will tell you that vanity is the keynote, the weak link, in every woman's character. FROM PAGE 41 J Most women, being good and virtuous and decent, by instinct or necessity, don't have enough of love. Their love life is confined to the period of girlhood — and only a small percentage of girls have enough suitors, or suitors who measure up to their ideals — and to the one love that is supposed to last lorever. married love. This doesn't begin to satisfy the inner, secret yearning for romance, the craving for the flattery of love. So a woman chooses idols of the screen or stage, or even the heroes in books, and these men become her lovers in the delightful land of her imagination. They are her partners not only in the screen romances, w here she constantly visualizes herself as the heroine. but in all sorts of conscious or subconscious day dreams, which are part of even woman's life. It is difficult for the average man, or for the woman who has had enough of romance and love in her life, to realize how many women have existed without having lived, how barren of romance, of passion, their lives have been. There is nothing evil in the tendency of woman to dream — and it is easier to dream romances with a real hero. So she picks the movie star. The majority of women will swear that they prefer respect to love. tIf they do. why do they choose a Rudolph Valentino as their idol? The first essential element of love 1 eing flattery, a woman's vanity is most vitally touched by a man's desire for her. The stronger trie desire, the greater the flatten,-, unless she become surfeited. The wilder the passion, the more uncontrollable, the more glowing a tribute it becomes to her own personal charm. Further than that, women have been bound for generations by the code of repression. They dared not show the streak of common clay that all men admit to. Men might be common, earthy creatures, swept by the tires of passion, mad infatuation, but women must be above all that. Abandon was the privilege only of the lowest form of feminine life. AS it happens, woman Ls just as much a human being as a man. Deny it she will, submerge and repress it too often she must, but it's there. The poetry of the senses has its call for her. too. but even within the sacred bonds of matrimony she will refuse to hear it. When she sees a man whose love-making is afire and aflame with that touch of madness that is called passion, he attracts her more than any other man in the world. When he is able to portray it in graceful, clever ways, without offending her good taste or frightening her, that man becomes the hero of her secret thoughts. The lure of Valentino is wholly, entirely, obviously the lure of the flesh. Sex appeal is the one quality that raises him above dozens of other men exactly as clever dramatically and much better looking. He is passion, exquisitely personified. The men of America have resented Rudolph's popularity. I have tried to find out why. and have always received the same answer, from men of fair judgment and unbiased opinion. They resent it because they 1 elieve he appeals to the worst side of women. because they claim his is the same attraction for women that a vampire has for men. And on the screen. Rudolph represents always and at all times the man inflamed by love of women. Strangely enough, off the screen this is entirely lacking. He is an ordinary young man. with atrocious taste in clothes, whose attributes render him devoid oi physical charm. Women who saw him on his recent tour of the country undoubtedly saw him through the glamour of bis screen personality. But I find that all the girls who have worked with him. all the women who knew him well in a professional way and the women who knew him before he became famous, feel about him exactly as I do. They are amazed and a little amused by the power Ererj advertisement i" moron. ay MAGAZINE is guaranteed.