Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

30 Pictures and Pfehjrepoer JUNE 1924 StewevKt isFcxstidious l«l»i C/V1NCENT DE SOLA A character analysis of the popular film star. ' n spite of Miss Anita Stewart's obvious youth, her name to most of us conjures up those earlier days of the films, the days before mammoth productions, the days of Vitagraph Comedies, the days before a thousand directors stars, writers, and motion picture camp followers, who have since become famous, were even heard of by the film public. Her appeal was then very definitely that of a pretty girl who played pretty parts convincingly. There was about her a touch of the girl of the magazine cover, and a good deal of the heroine of the popular story. Both in type and spirit she was peculiarly American. There was not the slightest hint of the " exotic," or even the theatrical, in her pictured personality. She attained great popularity in a period when the heroine's role was, by an iron-bound rule, nothing more than a certain stereotyped and vapid sweetness. Now she returns to us, to appear in a new era of film production, before a new audience, vastly more critical and exacting. And in this inquiry, it is interesting to study Miss Anita Stewart's features to determine just what the appeal to her personality will be in modern film material under modern direction. I myself do not venture to predict, but leave conclusions to my readers. Predominant in this face is a peculiar delicacy, which embraces much personal sensitiveness. Such a person would be fastidious, loving luxury and grace, and fearing contact with anything violent, disordered, or vulgar. It is the face of a person excellent in all matters involving tiny details or precise attention, whose reactions, though slight, are infinite, and who perceives the minutiae of life rather than its epic spirit. Miss Stewart shows clearly a strain of optimism, but this is checked, oddly enough, by facial indications which lead me to conclude that she is subject to a certain private sense of doubt or fear. Possibly it is that her sensitiveness, her capacity for the minute, has come into harsh contact with things crude or monumental, and thus destroyed in her a complete confidence. But the brow is careful and practical, and the contours of the lower part of the face bespeak a definite persistence — one of her strongest qualities — in spite of a streak of feminine inconsistency which now and then upsets her aim. I would not say that she had great dramatic gifts, though grace and some sense of comedy combine to furnish her: with sufficient playing ability. She is intuitive, yet a trifle credulous. As if fearing this quality in herself, she appears to have attempted to confine her beliefs and opinions within the strict limitations of a code. This, however, is purely deduction on my part. She is affectionate. Her sympathies, though not widespread, are appealed to at once, by anything concerned with suffering or sorrow. She is not in any way callous in fact — and yet, well, there is in this face the signs of a certain coldness, a very slender feeling of fellowship, unlike, say, the wider human aspect of Miss Pickford's sympathies. In this quality I find the most dominant contradiction of Anita Stewart's features, and perhaps their most interesting character-note. For there is plenty of emotion in the face in spite of the qualities I have indicated.