Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

NOVEMBER 1924 Picture s and Pi chut <?pver 17 J3y RUDOLPH VALENTINO pantomimes that were being unconsciously enacted for me than I was in the gaming itself. I didn't join the play for the chief reason that gambling doesn't interest me. It never has and I daresay now, that it never will. It is one of the fevers of man that I have happily escaped. Natacha took the same interest in the gaming rooms as I did; the human drama being there enacted. Men without their masks. Women with their masks of paint and powder all too pitifully transparent. Toys. Victims. Money-mummers. Tragedies . . . Dcauville, August \0th. ""To-day we have spent in motoring *■ about the country with Hebertot. They are among the most pleasant hours we have spent since we left American shores. As we motored with swift ease over the level roads of Normandy, viewing the quaint Norman cottages, catching glimpses of the Normandy peasants, the old sailor type of Normandy peasant, I felt very much akin to them, very near . . . and curiously responsive. I wanted to wave my hat in my hand, to shout out to them, " Why, how do you do there . . . here I am . . . back again . . . after . . . how long a while . . . no matter . . . here am I !" I think I did wave my hat a trifle and Hebertot thought I had recognised someone I knew. I had, but he wouldn't have quite got my point of view without considerable explanation, and 1 Norman family it is, too, by the way, for generation! upon g eneratjona, and in th? old place he showed us the very bedroom in which. William the Conqueror had slept before he went to England On the ride home, I took some pictures here and there along the way, of some of the old Norman types. It was most enjoyable. Natacha makes fun of my photography and told me when we started home in earnest, after I had proclaimed the fact that I had had mv Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Valentino and their large family of small dogs. wanted to drink in sensation, not expound an abstract theory. The most interesting part in the ride, really, was an ancient Normandy farmhouse to which Hebertot took us. The lovely, traditional old place had belonged to his family, a very ancient fill of photography for the day, that she didn't know zvliat type of man would appear on my film, since I had doubtless taken three or four on the same negative. I have, since, proudly proved her wrong ... in some cases. Deauville, August lltli. IWJore motoring to-day. Luncheon at a charming little inn overlooking the sea. Wine of the country. Normandy women serving us. Smell of milk and butcer and fresh eggs and nounds of sweetly-smelling bread. Comfort. Rest. Tranquility. Contentment. A Normandy peasant . . . with the luscious country rolling back of him and the smitten sea sprawling at his feet . . . what more could the heart of a man desire? Why travel farther to find Nirvana? To-night, the Casino again. Some friends of ours from Paris, the owner of the Swedish ballet and a motion picture director, joined us and with this and that we managed to stay up until two or three in the morning. /""Vi I forgot to say that on our motor ^^^ ing trip this morning we visited an ancient monastery in the pure Gothic style. It is now a farmhouse, as so many of the ancient missions and so forth are. Before being a monastery it was a castle and now in its reduced state (or isn't it a reduced state after all?) the huge, sunken guardroom or Salle des Gardes, is used as a sheep run during the night. Thus does Time transform all things and all places with ghostly, mocking finger tips, and the