Screenland (Nov 1925–Apr 1926)

106 SCREENLAND FRANCES MARION She is America's highest paid screen writer. She has written a majority of the biggest pictures in film history. Her skilful continuity and advice has helped the rise of many of screendom's stars, among them Mary Pickford and Norma Talmadge. How well she knows the movie folk! There are few people in the industry who know so much about the pictures,— who have so much to tell! She tells it in MINNIE FLYNN, the first real novel of the movies. It is a story of the rise and fall of a typical movie star. In the background are many of the big people of the screen its stars, directors and backers. Being intimately of the screen, it is a story of love and lust, of the squandering of beauty and honor, in a mad struggle to reach fame and keep it. "MINNIE FLYNN is a slice of life." N. Y. Telegram-Mail. "There is no putting aside the book till it is finished." Boston Evening Transcript. "No movie-struck girl should fail to read MINNIE FLYNN." Boston Herald. "You find yourself laughing one minute and thrilling the next." Chicago Daily News. Anyone interested in the movies must have this book. The story itself is too thrilling to miss and in addition it offers the fullness of Frances Marion 's knowledge of the movie game . — a knowledge that could not be gained by ten ordinary lifetimes of experience. MINNIE FLYNN By Frances Marion 4th Edition $2.00 BOItlf LI VCRIGHT GOOD' Some of her aloofness seemed gone, the way the outer crust of a bud is gone when the flower reveals itself. The magnificent black-and'white tones of her coloring seemed oddly to have taken on life. They started off with scarcely a greeting. "We're not going to lunch in the city," Castan stated. "That's about the only thing I'm certain of." Her silence was agreement. He scarcely looked at her, aware of some oddly disturbing quality about his own thoughts that made it advisable not to, as he headed out of the Los Angeles traffic and struck for the open. But at luncheon, in a secluded inn which was somehow hundreds of miles from Holly wood and all it stood for, Castan found himself unable to speak. A somnolent satisfaction with the moment took hold of him; he was content to relax and be momentarily happy, putting off the inevitable parting. That it was inevitable, he knew; he reassured himself on that point several times. That luncheon was strangely different from the others they had had. Some of the irony, the playing was there; but the day seemed too beautiful. Even Castan was repressed. For a farewell, he thought, Fate had given him a beautiful setting, at least. He decided, about the time dessert was brought, that he would go back to the Orient. He despised the east, and he had only contempt for the Hollywood he had seen. "Let's motor a bit," he suggested, when they had finished and sat about for an hour on a little, ivy-clad veranda. "I want to drink in all of this day that I can." Out on the road again, headed northward, he throttled down; and leaning back comfortably against the leather cushions, turned to the woman. "Tell me about that night," he said. "I've been waiting." Tessa shook her head and turned away. "It was just — a night," she replied. "A night just like other nights, I suppose. When I spoke to you last night, I was looking at it through the eyes of the girl who saw it." "And it was beautiful?" "Gorgeously beautiful — but I don't know how. There were the stars, of course — and a moon " "There'll be both, tonight," Castan interrupted to murmur. "Yes; but never the same." When she turned to him, she was, for a moment, like a child. "We each know too much, you see. It's quite possible, I imagine, that you might know all about what's behind them and be completely disillusioned of the fact that they're moon and stars." Castan stared. "You think I'm that bad?" he demanded. "I think we both are," she answered. "But then, there's nothing to be done about it, either. We do know, and I suppose that's all." Castan drove on. "I wonder if it is," he muttered. "You said something?" He glanced at his watch. "I said the hours' ve been skipping by since we've been talking. I'm going to drive on to the beach ; nd we're going to have dinner together there." His face had taken on an unwonted sternness that was like a mask. With dusk, the graven lines that were a part of Ronald Castan had deepened. Tessa looked at him studiously as they drove on. His was a strong face — the strongest face she had ever seen, probably. She wondered if the price of strength was always bitterness. When he brought the blue roadster to a stop under the porte-cochere of the Coronado, it was nearly dark. In the sky, one or two stars had appeared, and the faint disc of a moon showed. "Same stars," he mused, alighting. "Same moon," she observed. "Are we still playing?" . Castan halted, his hand on her arm, as she alighted, before going up the steps. Tessa looked at him for a long moment before replying. His features were expres' sionless. At last she turned away with a reluctant shrug. "Why not?" she said at last. "At least, there's an element of truth in that." He bit his lip. If he could only begin to understand what the strange metamorphosis that had come over him meant. As it was, he could only vaguely resent it; even rebellion was impossible. They found a table secluded in a little corner. Far below them, a strip of white beach merged with the whiter foam that the sea made in an attempt to crawl over it. Underneath, black, jagged rocks sloped downward like so many entrances to fairy caverns. An orchestra played somewhere inside the inn — muted, faintly reminiscent of strange, unstirred longings. "Still bored, Tessa?" Castan asked. "Are you?" she countered. "I don't know," he admitted truthfully. The waiter came. Their courses were de' livered, one by one, while they sat in a vague, troubled silence. Castan cursed himself for a fool. Why hadn't he turned back from their luncheon place and gone home? How infinitely better than this! They were dancing inside. Through the opened French windows, he caught a glimpse of one or two players from the motion picture colony whom he knew by sight. Tessa waved to one of them. "Do you feel like dancing?" he asked. She looked across at him with a little, tender smile, and shook her head. "I'd rather not," she replied. "Unless you do." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter." But when, a moment later, Tessa arose to dance at the plea of young Rex Martyr, one of Colonel Francis' coming stars, he found himself annoyed. When she was out G[ John Patric\, featured in "Leave It To Me", is what is \nown in Hollywood as "Our Own American Apache."