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DECEMBER 1924
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Best Bet
That's Betty Balfour, the talented star of so many Gaumont-Welsh
Pearson successes, whose joyous personality never fails to make
British pictures brighter.
She is just a winsome, laughterloving slip of a girl, whoso middle name is Optimism, and whose first and last names spell " Begone Dull Care " in the minds of discerning kinemagoers.
She is a dimpled, pink-and-white-andgold confection, as graceful as a fairy, and as dainty as the loveliest French doll that ever delighted a child's heart. But no doll in all Christendom was ever equipped with a strong: and mischievous sense of humour, a sunny disposition and a heart-catching smile like little Betty Balfour's.
Twenty years ago, through no fault of her own, she assures me, she was an infant prodigy. To-day, an easy first amongst British stars in the field of popularity, Betty is still a prodigy, and still very much an infant. This may displease her small Majesty. Let me hasten, then, to assure her that, in these days of over-sophisticated flappers it is unique and delightful to find a young lady of twenty-two about whom one can truthfully make such statements.
Betty is demure and charming, but monosyllabic — on first acquaintance. You have to literally break theiceof her shyness before you can discover the fascinating little bundle of mischief and high spirits that the film public knows as " Squibs of London Town."
For "Squibs" and Hetty are one, really. Even though " Squibs " was a rough-cast, ragged, little East-Ender and Betty is a smartly-attired, highlypolished little West-Ender. The true inwardness of " Squibs," her penetrative wit, her pungent repartee, her impulsive kindliness and frank honesty, and above all her wholesome personality is also the true inwardness of Betty Balfour. It peeps through all her other characterisations, you will find it in
A new camera study of Betty Balfour that strikes a demure note.
Above : A study in contrasts. Betty in " Squibs' Honeymoon." Left : A thoughtful pose.
" Mord Em'ly," in Tiptoes, in " The Girl " of Reveille and in Satan's Sister, when Betty brings the last-named to the screen during the coming year.
Betty Balfour's forte is comedy, and broad comedy at that. She can set you rocking with laughter at her antics, or even at the expressions that chase each other with such lightning swiftness across her saucy face. Also, and this is a more recent accomplishment, she can express tragedy. She can make you feel a whole lot without facial contortions, frantic gestures, or subtitles. There are many scenes in Reveille that make you realise that there are histrionic depths as yet unplumbed in Betty's art.
Josie P. Lederer.