Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

DECEIVING an award like the Photoplay Medal — and Nelson was the first to point out that he felt he was only accepting it pro tern, that it belonged just as much to Jeanette MacDonald, his co-star, and Hunt Stromberg, his producer — he was happy as a child waking on a Fourth of July morning. Two things he takes with enormous seriousness, his music and his public. He could no more cheapen his singing than Toscanini could cheapen the playing of a symphony. And while the Eddy movie salary is still very small, he spends more than he earns from pictures in answering the fan mail which reaches him as a result of them. Everything else, and Nelson Eddy in particular, amuses him enormously. TV FEW days after Nelson left New York, Hunt Stromberg arrived en route to a four months' European vacation. With "Naughty Marietta" and "Rose Marie" behind him, and "The Great Ziegfeld" only recently completed, I'm sure he could have demanded London on toast and Louis B. Mayer would have given it to him. Stromberg is the kind of motion picture executive people writing satires on Hollywood never mention. He is quiet, young, intelligent and he does his job brilliantly. And with "The Great Ziegfeld" he becomes one of the important factors of forcing the eventual death of the double bill. 'ZIEGFELD" is the first road show picture in several seasons— "road show" being just Hollywood's subtle way of saying "higher priced." It runs for nearly three hours and is doing terrific business all over the country. Watching this, that wise man Daryll Zanuck is putting out "Under Two Flags" without an accompanying "B" picture to bog it down. And "Two Flags" most politely is doing top business everywhere. "Romeo and Juliet" is looming up for fall release. Warners already have the magnificent "Anthony Adverse" and are preparing "The Charge of the Light Brigade." RKO-Radio will have "Mary of Scotland." "Good Earth" is almost ready. All of these will be long and rich pictures, more satisfying than six "B" pictures combined. What this really means is that at long last Hollywood is intellectually conscious of its own picture making. Nobcdy is playing follow the leader. The industry is on terms with itself. Players are being borrowed and loaned from studio to studio in relationship to good roles. Even writers and directors are being swapped around. Better stories, better costumes, better lighting, better direction, better feeling is everywhere and the pulse of artistic creation beats strongly. Those smart showmen, the Mayers, Thalbergs, Warners, Zanucks and Wangers realize today that we have no "season" in which we want war pictures, or romances, or detective mysteries. Rightly done, the appeal of any of these is perennial, always. We're simple, really. Perfection is all we ask. It's like the young writer who went to the very experienced writer and asked about writing pot boilers. "Why write pot-boilers?" asked the experienced writer. "Write masterpieces. There's a much better market for them." 'PEN years ago it was almost impossible to interest Wall Street money in Hollywood. The Street did not look with favor on motion picture stocks and thought even less of actual production. But in this year of 1936 all that is changed. Wall Street is not only interested but practically begging to be allowed to cut in on production. The reason is simple. Movies constitute the only major cash business in the world today. It is a good place to put money when you don't want to bury it in stagnant business or even more frozen assets. Result, you and I can expect more expensive pictures. r\II) you notice the new type of cover Photoplay has this month? I'm very proud of it, very proud of having secured so distinguished an artist as .lames Montgomery Flagg to draw these sketches from life for us monthly. You'll be seeing Bette Davis next, and then Katharine Hepburn. 12