Screenland (May–Oct 1927)

SCREENLAND 9? If you saw the stage play, "The Beggar on Horsebac\" , you haven't forgotten the lovely pantomime in which a beautiful dancer from Scandinavia took the town by storm. She was programmed as Greta Ruzth-Nissen, and acclaimed the most gorgeous girl that New York had seen since — since the last one. In other words, the tall blonde who danced the part of the Princess in the pantomime opposite George Mitchell was a great hit, and even on the opening night people were speculating as to which movie company would sign her up. We didn't speculate long. Paramount had her name on a contract before you could say it. Unfortunately the parts she was given to play did not offer her the chance she deserved — it wasn't until "Blonde or Brunnette" that she .shone. Now keep your eye on Greta — she'll show us yet; and it can't possibly hurt your eyes. Carol Dempster was a student of Terpsichore— at Ruth St. Denis's school, Denishawn — before D. W. Griffith visualized her quiet grace for the films. Not that Carol would ever put it that way. She'd call it dancing and let it go at that. Carol isn't one of those girls who calls her acting art — though it is, all the same. Julanne Johnstone's training as a dancer won her the coveted lead opposite Douglas Fairbanks in "The Thief of Bagdad"; and the easy poise which comes to an experienced dancer is still standing her in good stead. It's no hardship to watch Julanne glide across a scene. Two fair graduates of the Follies seminary are Mae Murray and Jackie Logan. Sure, Mae was a Follies girl; she was probably the first Famous Follies Beauty. She danced at her own supper club, too, before pictures claimed her. Mae is another girl who has never stopped dancing and never will. Look what a waltz did for her. Jacqueline cavorted in Mr. Ziegfeld's renowned revue before Allan Dwan picked her for pictures. Now she is heralded far and wide as the Mary Magdalene of deMille's "King of Kings". Avonne Taylor has just left New York and the Follies for Hollywood and the films. Metro-Goldwyn saw her patrician beauty and said, "Go west, young woman". You'll see her soon. Helen Lee Worthing is a recruit from revues who is making good as a movie actress. Did you know that Marion Davies was one of the best-known dancers of the Great White Way's younger set before she became a celluloid queen? Marion was even then famous for her spun-gold hair, her laughing eyes — and a delightful little lisp and stammer that betrayed itself when she had a number all to itself — it's too bad you can't hear that lisp on the screen. Oh, yes, and there's another little girl we might mention who has done a little dancing now and then — Gilda Gray by name. She shook herself right into the jumping gelatines and now she has the whole world quivering with her, instead of just the few millions she used to amuse on Broadway. If their mothers had never sent them off to dancing school when they were kids, we might not be cheering for them now. But they did, and we are — clap hands! Give these beautiful Dancing Girls your support — not that they need it, with such perfectly swell supports of their own. 10 DAYS' TRIAL SEND NO MONE Dreams That Come Across (Continued from page 33) She brought him all her sympathy. She was eighteen and much in love. The world was cruel to him but so has it been to all great souls. She comforted him. Perhaps she should have used a club or read the riot act to him but she wasn't that sort. She lifted him on her shoulders and put him up on his Pegasus. She bathed his brow and set his gaze back in the clouds. And then, with indomitable pluck or unfathomable folly . . . and there isn't much difference . . . they took the bull by the horns and got married . . . without a job . . . without a cent. Perhaps Fate, in the face of great folly, is dumbfounded, or when challenged by great courage is non-plussed, beaten. Perhaps, in admiration of its conqueror, Fate is a good loser . . . ? However that may be, over their frugal wedding breakfast in a modest restaurant they read an ad in a newspaper wanting the services of a young married couple to take care of a gentleman's farm for the two months the owners were, ironically enough, luxuriating in the hills of California. They rode out to the suburbs and their youth and enthusiastic energy got the jobs . . . gardner and housekeeper. Thus were the next two months taken care of . . . April and May — amid the perfume of fragrant flowers and the angelic chatter of song birds, busy as they were with their new homebuildings. The month of April — young April — rolled by on a golden chariot. Never was such an April! Never were there more glorious stars, pinker downier clouds . . . He wrote poetry between spadefuls, fancied himself Tom Moore. Sang, shouted, flung melodies to the sky. She helped the birds with their twitterings. The gap between Heaven and Earth was bridged as with a golden plank over which they came and went, their happy feet flinging up rainbow dust. And then a man — a common mortal — ■ came into their picture; a motion picture person looking for a location just such as theirs, and persuasively induced them to allow his company of artists to pose before their lovely garden — using them for local color. And Fate, still generous, played with a prodigal hand. They both screened like a million dollars, and were offered a contract to play small parts, and so, on and on to solid substantial success. And now he is one of the most skillful directors. Full of dreams for greater pictures, and she is the mother of five gloriously radiant children, whose heads are touched by the beauty of pink clouds, and whose souls are alive with the melody of great Music. Next month Screenland will have a contest, intriguing, amusing and different. It will brush up the brain, brighten the eyes and make the pocketbook to burgeon. GET SCREENLAND FOR AUGUST. The NEED FOR A 'NEW PHONOGRAPH New PHONIC Reproducer makes an up-to-the-minute Phonograph out of your old one Direct from Factory Gives the New Tone and Volume of Latest New Phonographs Now at last you can say goodbye to the sciueakv nasal, rasping, metallic tone of your phonograph. Now you can have the beautiful, natural, full-rounded tone of the expensive new machines which are startling the world. Yet you need not buy a new phonograph if you have an old one. The reproducer is the HEART of any phonograph — and the New PHONIC reproducer makes your old phonograph like an entirely new one. Based on the new PHONIC principle. Makes you think the orchestra or artist is in the same room. Never Before Such Tone Tones never before heard are clearly distinguished when the New PHONIC reproducer is used. 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