Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

EVERY MONTH 16,000,000 wide awake Americans buy copies of MACFADDEN MAGAZINES on sale wherever magazines are sold in every neighborhood in the nation. At a stand convenient to you — right now — there is a complete supply of • LIBERTY America's Best Read Weekly TRUE STORY Truth is Stranger Than Fiction PHYSICAL CULTURE The Personal Problem Guide Boole TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES Thrilling Accounts of Fact Crime Solutions TRUE ROMANCES Revelations of Courtship Days and Young Marriage LOVE and ROMANCE Entrancing Stories of Early Married Days and Vitally Important Problems of Mental, Physical and Financial Happiness TRUE EXPERIENCES Life-true stories of how men and women have met the changing conditions that arise in every marriage as months become years PHOTOPLAY The Aristocrat of Motion Picture Magazines MOVIE MIRROR Edited Direct from Hollywood RADIO MIRROR Makes the Broadcasts Twice as Interesting MASTER DETECTIVE The Facts Behind the Headlines in Famous Cases of Crime Solution • These are the eleven Macfadden magazines. There are no other Macfadden magazines. No other Macfadden magazines are planned HtOQwziHi took onike.cottc*.f<H> MACFADDEN PUBLICATION Look for the Macfadden Seal on every monthly magazine you buy. It is your assurance of clean, inspiring, informative and entertaining reading Behavior by Bogart some picture or director or writer or producer is no good. I don't get it. If he or it isn't any good, why can't you say so? If more people would mention it, pretty soon it might have some effect. This local idea that anyone making a thousand dollars a week is sacred and beyond the realm of criticism never strikes me as particularly sound reasoning." A COLUMNIST recently stated that Bogey "refuses to conform to Hollywood standards of behavior." Which didn't make him mad, exactly, but it did put him in a mood. A mood of cool, superior, analytical reasoning, which moved him to inquire, "Why can't you be yourself, do your job, be your role at the studio and yourself at home, and not have to belong to the glitter-andglamour group?" The answer is to be found, where most Hollywood answers are found, in the box office, where fans are pouring in now to see Bogey in Warners' "Unlawful." Perhaps as many fans as the columnist has readers. Every now and then, the Bogart gets himself into a sanctimonious frame of mind and does a little off-screen acting. He dresses up and goes out of an evening, reminding himself all the while, "Now this is a nice party and I'm going to be a little gentleman tonight. Going to remember my manners, and agree with everybody." So he tries, but things seem to go wrong. If he pulls out the lady's chair. he forgets to light her cigarette, and when he bounds gracefully ahead to open a door, he manages to get his arm in such a position that she has to fold up and duck under it, or knock him down. The awful consciousness of being a gentleman ■weighs upon him. He holds up under it for about half an hour. Then, the first thing he knows, he is backed against a wall and eleven people are shaking their fingers in his face and demanding to know what he "means by that." He says people bristle at a certain set look in his face, just the way animals i bristle on the backs of their necks at ' the sight of the enemy. He has the t maddening habit of arguing things he ' doesn't know beans about. He makes I broad statements and won't back down on them. He just can't help it. Friends who have known Bogey for a long time are aware that he is simply the old-fashioned garden-variety tease and kidder, as his father was. But he has the most desperately accurate marksmanship toward the most irritating weakness of his victim, and can exasperate and annoy people into a choleric froth, under the fond impression that it is all just good-natured kidding in a spirit of g.c.f. I wonder the man has lived as long as he has. . . . HE was doing that at twenty, when I first knew him. Our first meeting took place in Greenwich Village, longer ago than either of us cares to remember with much accuracy. Bogey was spread out like sandwich filling all over a sidewalk. He could still talk (he can (Continued jrom page 22) always talk), and he asked us to take him to Dr. Bogart at an uptown address. We did. Dr. Bogart, not too surprised, sewed him up. It seems Bogey was doing the Village on his own, and, when a lady in a doorway yelled for help, he responded. But the gentleman with her didn't think she needed any help. . . . What promised to be the battle of the century almost took place when Bogey first arrived in Hollywood. He was playing in a picture called "Body and Soul" with Charlie Farrell, and how they hated each other! The talkies were just starting, and every little punk who ever had a line in a Broadway show had rushed out to Hollywood to displace the silent-picture actors who he was sure didn't know how to talk. This hardly applied to Bogey, who had a number of important Broadway successes back of him. But it was the general opinion of Hollywood. The Broadway actors resented these big-shot movie stars, too, and if all the chips on all the shoulders had been stacked up, they would have made quite a fire. I O assist matters to a climax, Bogart and Farrell had two weeks of night work, during which they were packed together in the cockpit of a plane. The crew helped out the general atmosphere by throwing oil on them and firing machine guns. It began with "Move over"; "Keep on your own side, there"; and worked up to, "If you think I'm going to take that offa you any more — !" from Bogey. When the scene was finished that night. Bogey extended an invitation to Farrell to take a walk in the alley. Outside, Charlie turned and calmly asked, "Can you fight?" "What d'you mean, can I fight? I can lick you!" Bogey informed him. "Yeah, but can you fight?" Charlie persisted. This kept up awhile. Finally, Charlie said, 'I just wanted to know, because it's only fair to tell you I was boxing champion in college, and I know how to fight." This stopped Bogey. He knew how to scrap. He began to see Farrell in another light — besides having size on him, Charlie also had technique. They decided to talk it over. Pretty soon they decided to go for a vacation on Charlie's boat, as soon as the picture was finished. They went — and right away got in a whale of an argument about who was going to sail the boat. This was settled by the skipper, who wouldn't let either of them sail it. They are very good friends now, as long as they keep out of boats and airplanes. HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR HOLLYWOOD? Check your answers to the state ments on page 10 with these correct ones: 1. Pat O'Brien 9. Bing Crosby 1 7. Tyrone Power 2. Gary Cooper 10. Hugh Herbert 18. Jean Hersholt 3. Margaret Lindsay 1 1 . Carole Lombard 19. Joel McCrea 4. Ronald Reagan 12. Lionel Barrymore 20. James Caoney, 5. John Barrymore 1 3. Minnie Dupree Pat O'Brien, 6. Franciska Gaal 14. Clark Gable Allen Jenkins 7. Arthur Treacher 15. Bette Davis 8. FranchotTone 16. Alan Mowbray LVEN Bogey's romances begin that way. Mayo Methot. who will be Mrs. Bogart in August, used to have wonderful sessions with Helen Menken, putting Bogey on the pan. The two of them fried him to a crisp, fluted the edges, garnished it all with a decoration of spirited invective, and decided unanimously that the result wasn't their dish. . . . At that time. Helen had just ceased being the first Mrs. Bogart. When Mayo's approaching marriage was announced, the first wire of congratulation came from — Helen Menken. Helen is married to Bogey's favorite optometrist, to whom he introduced her. Mary Phillips, from whom he was recently divorced, will soon marry Kenneth MacKenna, who was a good friend of Bogey's in the New York days, and still is. So is Mary. You see how it is: one has to learn to love him, and he makes it as difficult as possible. But once you're over the hurdle, he's rather a good egg who wears well, and people can't hold things against him, not even his ex-wives. DOGEY tries to tell me some sort of fancy fiction about how there is an "old Bogart" and a "new Bogart." This new one, he says, is a mellow lad. thoroughly seasoned and full of sweetness and light. A householder (he just bought a house, with chintz and dogs and birds and flowers all over the place), who just loves humanity and wouldn't fight with it for anything. But don't give it a thought, children. He happens to be in love, and isn't quite himself. He'll revert to type, in time. In fact, when I saw him, we got in a political argument before the afternoon was over, and were roaring at each other, just like old times. Bogey says he would rather be hard to like — after looking around Hollywood and seeing the gang of sycophants and hangers-on surrounding the boys who are too easy to like. Thinks what he has is a form of protective coloration every actor could cultivate to his better advantage. Says he is a little worse now with strangers than he used to be, if possible, because picture success makes you mistrust people. They all want something from you. "It puts you on the defensive, times when you needn't be. But how do you know that? So you develop a certain manner of approach, and everybody immediately says you are conceited or a first-class heel. "Well, okay. I have confidence in myself, if that's conceit. Too few people have, in this business. They think front and bluff make confidence. ''However, I need to get my ears beaten down every so often. And anyone who tells me I am a damn fool in a louder voice than I tell him, I believe him!" So you see, Bogey's behavior may be pretty awful; but he isn't entirely hopeless. He can still be told — if you can outshout him. 84 PHOTOPLAY