Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1940)

Boos and Bouquets (Continued from, page 4) "Vigil in the Night," which is as far from screwball as Maine from California, and her acting was superb. Many people have criticized Carole for changing from comedy to more dramatic acting. Yet it must be remembered that the finest of actresses shun glamour. I, for one, would like to see Carole kick up her heels again and act as only Carole can — Carole who can be screwier, laugh harder and shriek louder than anyone in Hollywood. But I don't want to see her give up dramatic acting. Such magnificent versatility is a gift to be treasured and not enough praise can be heaped upon the lovely Carole who, in my opinion, is one of the greatest sports and finest actresses in the movie kingdom. She has climbed higher and higher to the top of the ladder of success and has seen her greatest ambitions rewarded. More power to you, Mrs. Gable! Marian Barnholtz, St. Louis, Mo. "JEWEL OF INCONSISTENCY"? HOLLYWOOD, that jewel of inconsistency! Every year you pull a score of "discoveries" out of a hat. Every year, like a spoiled child, you scream for new toys — new talent, new faces, new personalities. And every year you throw away the old toys. Did it ever strike you that the toys on the shelf are still good? That real acting ability is as manna from heaven to a glamourglutted public? Among the dozens of "new faces," a few are star material. Some are not properly handled; most of them are forgotten in a few months. And a new crop of doll-faced incompetents comes up — witness Ellen Drew, Lana Turner. Hollywood should have reached the age of discretion by now. If it would exercise its intelligence it might find some ability in those dusty pigeonholes. Virginia Hunt, San Francisco, Calif. ENCORE TO A PLEA May I add my plea to that of Miss Louise Norell's in your June issue? Please give us another gay Garbo film. I'm sure she'd be marvelous portraying Madame Curie — but surely there's plenty of time for that. Just now we'd like to see some more of that bewitching Garbo smile! LORETTA DRISCOLL, Brooklyn, N. Y. Man of Many Moments (Continued from page 72) uAIRO, after the routine voyage from Marseilles, seemed like a beckoning, sun-drenched paradise to him. Physically he was almost well again; but his mind still hid in a shell of exhaustion. One night, on a trek to an outlying town, he was forced to stop over at a village while repairs were made to his car. After dinner he spoke to the inn attendant. "Is there any entertainment here? A bazaar, a cinema — ?" The attendant shook his head, then brightened. "A countryman of yours is here, conducting experiments at the new hospital. A surgeon." Charles turned away. Then an incredible thought occurred to him. "You said a surgeon? His name?" "Monsieur Mouchet." Memory flooded through Charles' mind. Figeac, the base hospital, coffee through long evenings in the dim cafe corner, a man's deep voice saying, "Have the courage to live every moment . . ." Mouchet, his first oracle. "Where," asked Charles, controlling his voice with effort, "did you say I might find this man?" Mouchet had been thirty-eight when Charles had known him in Figeac; now, in his early fifties, he had changed little. Were it not for the vast and still Egyptian night stretching out over the desert and the difference in the quality of the coffee, this might be only another of those memorable evenings. It was Charles who had felt the years. The shrewd eyes across the table were studying him carefully. "Why are you here, doing this tour?" "I had to get away, be free." "And you have done and seen all the things you talked to me about in Figeac?" "Yes." "Then you are ready to begin to live. A boy's dreams are built on a boy's conception of things. Your new purpose must be that of a man." Mouchet's kindly eyes crinkled as he smiled. "It is a big thing to live one life by the time you're thirty and have the courage to start another." For a long time the two men sat in silence. At last Charles stood up. "There's no way I can thank you. You've given me an answer." Mouchet held out his hand. "You would have found it for yourself." I HE tour was long and, a year before, would have left him out of sorts and in need of a vacation. Now he returned to Paris in excellent temper, anxious to find a new field in which to prove what he must prove — that he could create and accomplish. The picture companies, having long since heard of his freedom, were waiting with attractive offers. He picked the best and signed a five-year contract. Then, before he had started even one picture, arrogant Hollywood held out its golden lure; the California companies had decided to make French versions of their properties in sound and needed not only a good French actor but one who could talk, who had a voice. Charles held out both hands, palms upward, when his agent told him. "It sounds wonderful," he said, "but there's the contract. I've signed it." "Simpleton!" the agent laughed. "If you want to go to Hollywood, pay your dedit and go!" Charles had forgotten. The French law provided that if a man wished to get out of a contract he could pay a sum agreed upon as compensation to the producer — a dedit, so called — and there was an end to it. "Cable Hollywood at once," Charles yelled, and, "Fredric! Champagne!" Hollywood greeted him with a certain flamboyant, specious courtesy, ignored him for several weeks and then confided to him casually that they had decided not to make French versions after all. "However," said his studio, "we must use you somehow. You can have a part in Jean Harlow's new picture. It's called 'Red-headed Woman.' " Well, thought Charles, that was something. It was something, all right. If you will remember, there was a flash in the last scene of that picture when Jean, by inimitable implication, let her audience know she was on better than nice terms with her chauffeur. The chauffeur looked delighted. That was Charles. The cost of that scene to him can never be estimated; he was bawled at and pushed around on the set, his dignity was disregarded. They treated him, France's foremost star, like an extra. Then, when it was finished, they waved him away. He went home to France, his bitterness so intense his ears rang with it. By the time Hollywood called again, the insult to his professional standing had become amusing — a few successful pictures for French companies and a successful season, unbound by contract, with Bernstein had restored his ego — but his failure to make Hollywood give him what he wanted, to conquer the town, still rankled. This time it looked as if there were a better chance: Fox Films had seen his "La Bataille," released in the United States as "Thunder in the East," and thought they might make capital of a man whose eyes could look as if they mirrored all the sorrow in the world. So he accepted. They miscast him as the lead in "Caravan." Charles wore black curls and played mad music in the moonlight. Uh, uh, the press said. The public didn't even bother to go and see. Charles packed again. Then he met Walter Wanger. "I've a story called 'Private Worlds,' " Wanger said. "It's an intelligent piece, dealing with psychopathies and made for you. I'd cast you straight, as a doctor. And you'd have a Frenchwoman, Claudette Colbert, as your star. Will you think it over?" Here was the dawn, then. By the time "Private Worlds" was released and even before the delirious reaction to his superb performance made the piece the hit it was, Charles and Wanger had worked out a long-term contract — and Hollywood belonged to Mr. Boyer. Professionally, that is to say. Wanger had one obvious fault to find: Audience reaction had shown that although Charles' charm and appeal were enough to carry him through to stardom, his English was unintelligible half the time. Still, with tutors and diligence in study, this could be overcome so that prearranged lines could be read with only an accent to mar them. But it was one thing to keep saying dialogue over and over for the cameras until the effect was right and another to talk naturally in a strange tongue with social acquaintances. Boyer, he whose extraprofessional life had always been full and fascinating, found that he was still a lonely man, despite his new success. Aside from the language difficulty, he found it hard to reconcile the new code of manners and customs of Hollywood with those he had practiced all his life. The women he met interested and astounded him — and somehow left him without warmth. There was no mystery here, in these women. They acted grateful for favors that should have been taken for granted and thus implied such favors were very rare indeed. They knew what they wanted, wore their moral standards on their sleeves and expected their escorts to take a look and act accordingly. In Paris he had almost always been in love. In Hollywood romance necessarily assumed a different aspect: Companionship without passion. And so it was until 1935. He thought, when he first took Pat Paterson's proffered hand, This one is European, different from all the others here. He saw her beauty, her straightforward eyes, heard her low voice, which revealed nothing and promised everything; and with this awareness he felt an earnest conviction that he must not let this person get away from him. WHEREFORE, when Mr. Boyer drove away from that party, Pat Paterson was ensconced, somewhat to her own surprise, in the seat beside him. He knew, that evening, that he was in love with her and that it was unlike any love he had ever known before. The next three weeks were delightful, since they were spent in her company, but they seemed a period of delay to Charles. He knew that this was the woman he wanted to be his wife and his impatience at the waste of days and nights made him vaguely irritable. Their conversations at dinner and afterwards served only to confirm his impressions: That she possessed every endearing quality he had ever liked in any woman and beyond that an affinity for him apparently predestined. She was gay, charming, worldly, intelligent. She was everything in the world he wanted. On a night three weeks after their first meeting, then, he gave her dinner at a Hollywood cafe and afterward suggested a theater. The box office was sold out. They stood under the marquee indecisively, Pat grinning cheerfully at the situation. "What'll we do?" she asked. He looked at her. As matter-offactly as he could manage the words, he said, "Let's get married." She gave herself a short moment to make sure he meant it. Whereupon she pulled her furs around her and took his arm. "All right." There was no need for coyness. She had known, too, from the first. They were married the next morning in Yuma, having flown there in a chartered plane. Flying back to Hollywood, with both her hands possessively held in his, Charles thought of Mouchet and suddenly chuckled. "What?" asked Pat immediately. "I remembered I must send a cable," Charles told her, his voice not quite steady, "to an oracle in Egypt. I will tell this oracle that the new life is well started." The End. THEY CALL HIM ''MOTHER" WAYNE! YOU'LL LEARN WHY (AND A LOT MORE ABOUT JOHN) IN OCTOBER PHOTOPLAY 80 PHOTOPLAY