Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

"Romeo and Juliet" is vet to be tested at the box office. For myself I cannot see how it can fail, if for nothing but the sheer beauty of it. The other four have already made more than double their production cost. Talk to any of the studio heads, as I do almost weekly, and you will learn how eager are their plans. I sincerely feel that never have pictures been planned with more surety than today. Warners have " The Charge of the Light Brigade;" Metro has "The Good Earth;" Radio has "Swing Time" and "Portrait of a Rebel." "Good Earth" will probably be the most important, but the others will be magnificent fun. The production end of things out here is conduct ing itself gloriously. STRANGELY enough, as important productions get underway, something is happening to the actors. They are on a "quitting" jag. I do not mean simple contract quarrels like Bette Davis with Warner Brothers, but a genuine impulse to get away from it all. Leslie Howard was the first to announce his retirement from the screen. He says he may never come back after "Romeo " Paul Muni declares he does not want to sign another contract when his present one runs out. Robert Montgomery mutters along similar lines and now Luise Rainer, who has hardly got started, says she wants to go home. As much as studio heads may growl about this attitude it represents the same impulse that is creating better pictures. As they become more wealthy the actors are getting artistic. They want to play roles of sustaining greatness. Claudette Colbert, though she is frightened of its box office possibilities, is mad to do "Joan of Arc." Bob Montgomery pleids to do a powerful but dangerous play — "Night Must Fall." Muni has always fought for more serious pictures and is chiefly responsible for "Pasteur" being produced at all. Hollywood is experiencing an artistic awakening; becoming aware of its artistic possibilities. A XI) now for the President and Robert Taylor. 'Mm sure Mr. Roosevelt doesn't mind that Bob outdrew him. A very wise man, he undoubtedly acknowledges that romantic appeal is more persuasive than statesmanship. Maybe he feels that it does the world just as much good in the long run. And also being a happy man himself, having made himself rise over physical obstacles to contentment and intelligence, he knows that the happier people are the better they behave, and he approves of movies, being a fan himself. DUT of "The Astor Case." If I did not believe ^that you, our readers, would wonder at its complete omission from Photoplay I would prefer not to mention it at all. I hate to seem, even by a word, to sit in judgment on any woman. People, be they movie stars or ditch diggers, should have the right to their private lives. But thi> dreadfully tawdry case thrown open in court, just as Hollywood was taking its rightfully proud place among the art centers of the world, unjustly besmirches an entire sincere and hard-working community. So, as you love movies and their people, I ask you not to blame Mary Astor on Hollywood. Think of her, if you can. as a woman beset by strange temptations that do not touch most of us, and motivated by reasonings that would not influence the average person. But do not think of her as "typical" of Hollywood. She i not typical of Hollywood, any more than she is of any town — any more than she is "typical" of the average wife and mother. Handsome Robert Taylor, that young Lochinvar from Filley, Nebraska, has had a meteoric flight to fame that is one of the screen's miracles. Three years ago he was an unknown bit player; recently more people went to see him in person than went to see the President of the United States 12