Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

98 Which Make Better Actors, Men or Women? By Malcolm H. Oettinger Continued from page 1G amount of charm for the ladies, his talents arc still inconspicuous. Among the good actors who constantly find themselves doing the right thing by the world at large, are Ronald Colmah, John Gilbert, Conway Tearle, and Lewis Stone. Here are heroes. However incredible are their duties, they succeed in carrying them off in a believable manner. They convince. They impersonate stanch gentlemen and take you with them while they are doing it. You ' do not find yourself carried away by James Kirkwood or Jack Holt or .Milton Sills or Ben Lyon or Norman Kerry or Malcolm MacGregor. These are the wooden Booths, who are symbolic of the rank (stet!) and file. There are hundreds of dull, conventional actors — stars and less —just as there are hundreds of dull, humdrum actresses, but there are a greater number of intelligent, creative artists among the men than among the women. If there is character work to be done, you have such able fellows. as George Fawcett, Alec Francis, Hobart Bosworth, Theodore Roberts, Marc MacDermott, and Tully Marshall, among the older men. These actors do not depend upon crape hair and grease paint. They draw veracious portraits in celluloid. They bring to the screen hoboes and bankers, rogues and butlers, charlatans and patriarchs alike — easily, plausibly, naturally. Boasting a wider range, but no more talented, are Wallace Beery, Ernest Torrence, Raymond Hatton, William Powell, and Henry B. Walthall, the last named being my idea of what every young actor should know. For reasons best known to himself. Walthall has not occupied a tremendously important place in the picture parade, but there is no one who knows more about the art of pantomime and pictorial expression. Years ago, in "The Informer," a single-reel chromo, with Mary Pickford, this same Walthall gave a performance that stands unequaled, to this very day. In "The Avenging Conscience," "The Birth of a Nation," "The Raven." "A Splendid Hazard," and "The Misleading Lady," he did everything from trag edy to high comedy, and did it all with a grace and finesse worthy of Mansfield, if Mansfield was really as good as grandpa and William Winter claim he was. Wallace Beery is an unfailingly good actor. He can win sympathy as readily as he can repel it ; his characterizations invariably bear the stamp of verity. He is a master of the human touch. Brother Noah Beery falls short — he is a supremely fine "heavy," but little else. If he cannot be sinister, he cannot do his best work. When Noah attempts the jovial, he is reminiscent of a snake charming a bird. Lew Cody, too, is effective as a bad lad. He philanders convincingly. No heroine seems safe in his apartments. But his comedy does not come off. He is distinctly limited in scope. Raymond Hatton is the complete characterizer, with a veritable honor roll of fine performances. Memory brings to mind no picture in which he has missed fire. Ernest Torrence has made only one misstep — overacting Tola in "The Wanderer," the picture in which Greta Nissen and Collier, Jr., muffed the chance of their respective young lives. In "Peter Pan," Torrence was simply immense ; in "The Side Show of Life," he demonstrated remarkable versatility; and in "Torable David" and "The Covered Wagon," he trouped as successfully as any man could. William Powell is a young actor who registers thought as well as action. He catches moods, interprets scenes, and adds noticeably to any picture in which he is concerned. You will notice that Reginald Denny, John Bowers, Conrad Nagel, Bert Lytell, Harrison Ford, House Peters, Rockcliffe Fellowes, Rod La Rocque, Tern Moore, and Warner Baxter are not included among the score of good actors. These gentlemen have talent ; they are workmanlike, sincere for the most part, reasonably well equipped. But there is a sameness to their work that gives it a conventional touch. They are not actors in the true sense ; they are personality salesmen. The same may be said of Tom Meighan and Douglas MacLean. Other apparently popular performers who are working steadily, and permitting themselves to be photographed daily in exchange for thousands weekly, are Percy Marmont, Eugene O'Brien, Kenneth Harlan, Richard Talmadge, Monte Blue, and Larry Semon, none of whom is considered in this particular monograph. They remain among the thousand and one mysteries of the cinema. For all the colorless brethren, however, for all the dull, ineffectual Salvinis and Warfields, it is still my contention that the following fine actors cannot be matched by their sisters of the silver sheet, if beauty and sex appeal be sidetracked during the discussion and ability alone be the criterion: Richard Barthelmess, John Barrymore, Charles Chaplin, Raymond Griffith, Adolphe Menjou, Conway Tearle, Ronald Column, Lewis Stone, John Gilbert, Tully Marshall, Hobart Bosworth, Theodore Roberts, George Fawcett, Raymond Hatton, Wallace Beery, Alec Francis, Henry Walthall, William Powell, Marc Macdermott, and Ernest Torrence. By Helen Klumph. Continued from page 17 Of course, if Mr. Oettinger is going to bring into this argument such names as Alice Terry, Billie Dove, Madge Bellamy, Esther Ralston, Lillian Rich, Vera Reynolds, and Mary Astor, I can put up no argument. I do not consider them actresses. Or if he mentions Mae Murray, I am perfectly willing to admit that I have never seen her act except under the guiding genius of Von S'troheim. I will even pass by Corinne Griffith, Alma Rubens, and Irene Rich, because their obviously aristocratic bearing restricts them greatly in the range of roles they are capable of playing. And opportunity has restricted them still more. Producers and exhibitors believe that the public do not want their beauties to act. But these are, after all, but a few . chosen from many. The great majority of women players are infinitely better than the majority of men. In a comparison of the relative merits of men and women as actors, I could confidently rest my case on only two bits of evidence — Zasu Pitts and Colleen Moore. I should not even feel it necessary to bring up the Talmadge, the Swanson, the Frederick, the Negri, the Mary Alden. For, in Zasu Pitts and Colleen Moore, we have two players whose range extends far beyond the bounds of male actors' talents. There are men who can play in tragic vein, and reach the heights that these girls respectively did in "Greed" and "So Big." There are comedians as adroit as they. But no one, except Chaplin, can swoop from comedy to stark tragedy with their unfailing deftness and power. Among the men, who is there with their record of achievement? The only field of acting that I know of in which male superiority has been demonstrated, is among the dog stars. I will grant that Strongheart, RinTin-Tin, and Peter the Great have yielded none of the cinema spotlight to Lady Julie, Mrs. Rinty, or Peter the Great's paramours. But that, I insist, has been only because of the practicality of keeping the latter in the kennels to produce another generation of dog stars.