Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

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Odor banished . . . Sold at drug and notion counters (if not at yours, use coupon below) . NO BELTS NO PINS NO PADS Accepted for Advertising by The Journal of the American Medical Association TAMPAX Incorporated New Brunswick, N. J. Please send me introductory size package of Tampax. Enclosed is 20c (stamps or coins). Name AddressCity lem of a husband who drinks too much . . . think of the stoic heroism they represent as they try to hide such a tragedy from the world . . . think of their futile attempts to make their man conquer a habit that is consuming him . . . and know how you are going to feel when you see Kay Francis' character made a laughing stock in "Women Are Like That." . . . I believe you are going to be so annoyed by being cheated into thinking you were going to get something true and real which is later, because of the ineptness of the writing in it, turned into farce that you are going to stay away from the movies for the next week. . . . I AM perfectly aware that it is much easier to be critical than constructive . . . but I have what I believe is a constructive suggestion to make . . . let the important people of Hollywood get away from Hollywood every so often and meet a few of us people who represent their audiences. . . . For it is Hollywood, itself, that is selling Hollywood short. . . . Consider this . . . the number of great painters, composers, writers, actresses, or representatives of whatever art you choose . . . who have come from the ranks of wealth and society . . . you can count them on the fingers of one hand of a threefingered man . . . but today, all the people who "matter" in Hollywood are rich, very rich . . . and, with very rare exceptions, every one of them is socially ambitious . . . Gary Cooper married into the social register ... so did Randy Scott . . . so did Fred Astaire who is so proud of being the sole actor member of the swanky New York Racquet Club . . . Kay Francis, who mixes little in Hollywood, parties gaily in New York with the hoitytoity set . . . Robert Montgomery's conversation bristles with exclusive "money" names ... I could pile up examples endlessly. . . . All of which social ambition is no crime certainly . . . but just as certainly it is killing to art and creativeness ... it is death to the reacting to the problems of you and me who wonder whether, out of this week's wages, it is wiser to get a needed new pair of shoes or start going to the dentist's to have that aching back tooth filled. . . . I simply cannot believe that any person can be deeply concerned with the fate of the average man while sitting astride a polo pony. . . . Interestingly enough, the more sensitive Hollywood personalities are aware that something is wrong and want to get away from the town that has made them famous . . . Joan Crawford, that caldron of ambition, violently studying music five hours a day . . . wants to do a Broadway play . . . and then yearns to embark on a concert tour . . . Fredric March has already tried one stage play and will probably try another . . . scratch the average Hollywood writer, turning out scripts at unbelievable sums, and you will discover an unfinished novel ... all these things are symptomatic of the creative unrest out there. . . . Hollywood must become important enough to itself and the world to make people want to live and die for it . . . its creators shouldn't feel that, for their best expression of their art, they must leave it . . . and no more should anyone who goes there have only one idea . . . how much money can I get for this idea or talent or whatever it is he is selling. . . . But everyone does feel that way and it is Hollywood's own fault for making money of paramount importance in its own scheme of things . . . huge estates, great yachts, strings of polo ponies, important wines, jewels . . . those are the things the mind of Hollywood concentrates upon . . . not truth, not reality, not art . . . when they talk about making a picture "good" it is because it is provable that a good picture makes more money than a bad picture . . . when they put a fortune in a production it is because they believe that fortune will get a greater fortune back. . . . LET the creators of Hollywood come back to our way of living a few days of each year, at least . . . let them put their limousines aside and ride on a crowded subway just to rediscover how amazingly far a nickel, which they wouldn't hand out as a tip, can go toward getting a man to his job ... let them try shopping in a bargain basement for a six-dollar dress marked down to four-fifty on a hot, busy Saturday afternoon . . . let them try bargaining for a price on a baby's funeral procession. . . . I know the average star going about in such a way would be mobbed by autograph fans, but the writers and the producers wouldn't . . . since nobody knows or cares what they look like . . . the actors will portray what the producers tell them to show ... if the producers and writers would snoop around a little, perhaps they would discover that our problems are just what they have always been . . . life and death and love . . . we don't have to worry over our taxes since they touch so few of us . . . we don't have to puzzle very much about subtle shades of emotions since we are usually too tired to bother with them . . . but we still do have to figure how to pay the rent and buy food and clothes . . . and the great compensating miracle of love is more known to us than it is even to them . . . since one love is all-important to us while they have a chance at twenty. . . . Life and death and love and laughter . . . those are the things we want from Hollywood . . . put those things in our pictures and there will be no more need to worry in the future over box-office statements. . . . Are all businesswomen jokes? Miss Waterbury takes sides — but definitely — on that question. She uses in her argument M-G-M's "The First Hundred Years," in which Warren William, Virginia Bruce and Alan Dinehart (below) appeared