Screenland (Dec 1927-Apr 1928)

SCREENLAND 81 than nothing about camera-lines, you won't always be worrying about whether you're within bounds. Your mind won't be on the rushes, but on your work — only it's more like play. You may muss Her hair and let her ruffle up your pompadour and there won't be anybody to yell at you: 'Stop that monkey business — less passion, and more art." Dragging a third party into a love scene like that! Greta Garbo and Clara Bow, the two stormy petrels of motion pictures, have never been married. But they may have been engaged — plenty. And their most prominent engagements have been to movie actors. At present all bets are off. Greta and Clara both admit they may marry some day but they are not making any rash promises. Perhaps they have not yet met the Right Man — apiece. He may not even be in Hollywood. Clara's Future may at present be bending over a drawing-board in an architect's office high up in a Manhattan building, getting the dimensions of a new house in the suburbs all mixed up with Clara's. The lucky Mr. Garbo may even now be wondering how he can break away from the insurance business to take a peek at Hollywood, where the insurance most needed is love insurance. You can't tell. Two of the handsomest men in pictures have paid court to Greta and Clara at various times — John Gilbert and Gilbert Roland. Roland is now Norma Talmadge's leading man, while Jack is still playing opposite Greta — both still to be seen in Love. The picture, I mean. Meanwhile Greta's yearning face The Cycle TV yflLTON Sills and Young Kenyon Sills with the proud mother, Doris Kenyon (Mrs. Milton Sills). Also a picture taken forty years ago of Milton when he was a baby. haunts a million men. That questing look always ensnares. Garbo seems always to be seeking something faraway— and every man in his heart hopes that he may turn out to be the little pot of gold at the end of her rainbow. And he may be. One of the myriad male shadows who watch this glamorous girl in movie theatres all over America may get up enough gumption some day to follow her into darkest Hollywood. Greta, a little weary after a turbulent scene on the set, may listen. Sincerity — unselfish love — may win her. And perhaps in such a love even the greatest star could find her harbor of happiness. That sounds like a sub-title, but life is sometimes stranger than even the wildest movie, or so I've been told. As for the girls — if they have been reading over our shoulders, and I'll bet they have, the little mischiefs — the same to you. Perhaps I don't have to remind you girls that those of your heroes who married home girls are still happily married. More than one shy little flower who never stepped on stage or studio has captured the fancy of a famous actor and kept it. Styles in screen love-making may change with the seasons, but the real article survives the wear and tear of home life and stays pretty much the same year in and year out. Companionate Marriage is still new enough to be a novelty and more than one film star has expressed a wish to know more about it. It looks as if Hollywood will just naturally take to it. And why isn't it just the thing for movie stars, who never seem to know where their next mate is com' ing from? S i m b & — Continued from page 46 and perhaps result in instant death. Not all of their work is done at the water holes, however. Lions and elephants afford interesting views while feeding or playing about, and very often a chance meeting with a rhino on the trail gives them much more action than the pictures they get at the 'blind.' In the four years they spent in the African Jungle while making Simba, their most recent picture of life> in British East Africa, which had its world premiere at the Earl Carroll Theatre, New York City, their days were filled with much more adventure and thrills than most of us here in the United States can boast of, for with the family troubles, fights, illnesses, childbirth and evil rumors of the natives in their gang of laborers, to say nothing of wild elephants calmly emerging from the surrounding forests, rhinos blocking trails and leopards attacking their cattle, life was far from dull. Many years sojourn on the Islands in the South Seas taught Johnson how to handle the natives. He chose his headmen at Nairobi and they helped him recruit a small army of workers from the local tribes. Porters were used to assist with the baggage, artisans to help build the small village, cooks and servants to make them comfortable. Good hunters, who knew something of the habits of the beasts about them were also important members of the party. A native named Boculy was their most valuable guide. He knew more about the elephants than any other native living. He could tell their size and speed and the direction of their travel by a crushed leaf or a broken branch. A mere handful of tracks could reveal to him the number of elephants in the herd. Camera hunting in the wilds of the African Jungle meant taking chances and although there were few tragedies, there were many narrow escapes. At one time, one of their helpers was badly mauled by a leopard while helping Mrs. Johnson. On another occasion Johnson was awakened at midnight by the yelling of one of his assistants. Grabbing his gun he rushed out and found a rhino had stuck his head into the white man's tent. The assistant, however, had the presence of mind to kick the rhino in the face whereupon the beast backed off only to come on again just missing the man and plunging through the tent. The fury of the beast was so great it pulled up all the pegs covering him with the khaki canvas. In his frenzy the rhino madly dashed down the hill carrying the tent with him. Shortly afterward word came that the assistant's two friends were killed by rhinos. It seems that a young lady who was staying with friends nearby had gone out accompanied by a native armed with a knife. The pair encountered a rhino which charged and killed her after she had bravely fired six shots into it. Just about the same time a settler and his wife were returning to the village in a Ford. They saw the same rhino wounded on the road. Unfortunately the gun was tied to the seat and before they could get it loose the animal charged and killed the man right before the woman's eyes. One morning right after breakfast, Johnson, Osa and two friends went to the place where they had been told rhinos had been seen. The two men went into the bushes to look for tracks when all of a sudden the Johnsons heard screams, then some shots, then more screams, then another shot and more screams. Johnson and his wife ran into the bushes as fast as they could and found one of the men stretched out on the ground with his clothing torn in a pool of blood. At first they thought the man was dead, but on raising him a bit they found the rhino had got him in the legs. He was rushed back to camp where with plenty of hot water the wounds were washed and dressed. When the injured man could talk he told them that he had nearly stepped on the old female rhino who immediately came for him. He managed to get in a few quick shots but they only glanced off her horns and thick skull. Finally knocking the gun out of his hands she gored him. The man died a few weeks later. One day shortly after the encounter with rhinos. Mrs. Johnson disappeared. She had ridden out a little way from camp on a mule accompanied by one of the gun bearers, who reported that in some way unknown to him he had lost track of her. Only the man's intense fright tempered