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By Margaret E. Sangster
THAT woman, for instance, who moves like a jungle creature through a tiny section of one flaring reel. That slim, amazingly lovely girl, with the mouth that is half sullen and half wistful. Of whom does she remind you? And that boy whose eyes are sad — the one who limps, ever so slightly.
Can’t you see him cast as the hero of the post-war novel that set the book lovers of a nation to talking?
And — speaking of post-war novels. Of pre-war novels.
And of the war, itself . . .
We are tired of the war — yes! That is what the magazine editors, and the critics, and the directors tell us when we come to them with stories or with plays laid in those turbulent years between 1914 and 1918. We are tired of the war— bored with it. We don’t want to hear of it again, ever! And yet — when some epic of the war does appear upon the printed page, when some battle, scene flares across the silver sheet, we read it avidly — we watch it with eager eyes. And those of us who toiled through the mud of the Argonne draw shaking hands across damp foreheads. And those of us who knew sorrow-drenched Paris try to brush away the mist that will obstruct our view. . . .
You remember the success of that great pageant of the world war — and of all wars? The one that ran, for three straight years, in a certain large motion picture theater? A film with its cast splendidly chosen — its drama carefully sustained. And you remember that most tense moment of all — when a shivering little band of peasants was lined up before an alien firing squad? It was the second peasant from the left who caught the eye-— who held the attention. There was such mute agony on his drawn, tired face — such utter, overwhelming despair. . One felt, when he fell forward heavily in the dust, that the firing squad had been a real one — equipped to do deadly work!
ALWAYS we see them — the stars that never were. And, almost always, we wonder about them. The extras who show the unexpected flash of high genius. The members of the mob— who never seem to rise above the mob.
Often we wonder why they do not ascend to the heights, these extras. For some of them have in their grasp the thing called “IT.” Some of them have that intense — and intensive — magnetism that goes into the making of success upon the screen — that is, almost, the keynote of success and its symbol!
Some of them, also, have the true flair for acting. Unmistakable, breath-taking. And, recognizing it, we watch through picture after picture — half expecting to see again a face that we have only glimpsed before. To see again some face in its proper setting —to watch some spirit unleashed and given its real chance.