Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

102 SCREEN LAND tug much longer. Barbara nearly has Paolo ulriched when the brother steps in to save the wife and baby from what the Times would call "undue notoriety." Well, the brother gets almost tumbled, too, when Barbara — flaming with what Buddha calls Desire — necks a shepherd, who eventually chokes her to death while they are both posing for Paolo. I've seen all this before somewhere — was it in Ouida or Archibald Clavering Gunther? Miss Nash was good, however ; but such caloric roles must tell on her eventually. The rest were merely g-nashing 'round. "Give Me Yesterday" The pediculous drama of Broadway received another solid thumb-crack in Charles Hopkins' production of A. A. Milne's "Give Me Yesterday," a superb play, beautifully produced and acted with rare skill. It is a satire on Success. In the second act there is a fine dream scene where Mannock, a member of the British Cabinet, becomes a boy again, meets the "Buteus Maiden" and the real flesh-and-blood Sally of his boyhood. He discovers he has sold his soul for social and political advancements. The real Mannock no longer exists. Resolved to can the whole fake show of his life, he is elevated to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at the moment he is about to return to Sally. He surrenders. The real Mannock is dead. Vive la Fake! It is a great play with satire and sentiment mixed in exactly fifty-fifty doses, as is proper. Sylvia Field as Sally is the most beautiful apparition you ever dreamed of in your most romantic youth. Louis Calhern is a perfect Success-boob. Gladys Hanson is a handsome and vivid Lady Mannock. It is going to be a Prize AA picture some day. It would be nice to see Sylvia Field in the role of Sally in the screen version. Meanwhile, see this perfect play. "The Gang's All Here" Here was something that Russel Crouse aimed at that looked like a bull's eye. But too many people handled the gun, or it was overloaded, maybe. Anyhow, "The Gang's All Here" exploded all over the lot. It is intended to be a satire on our gang warfare. It becomes a burlesque, almost slap-sticky. There is a rich guy to be knocked off. Of course there's a "goil," too. Atlantic City and Nantucket are the places where these musical comedy gangsters cavort, headed by Ted Healy, who has a smile that would melt to laughter the Great God Cal. Gina Malo has a hand in the matter as well as Zelma O'Neal. But it is Hal LeRoy, a kid of seventeen, who dances off with the show. Some ankle-shaker ! — the latest "find." Lewis E. Gensler wrote what is known as the music, Oscar Hammerstein and Morrie Ryskind directed, and the ballet was staged by Tilly Losch. Just Fine and Landi— Continued from page }4 whole world in those words. Two very ordinary words, but Catherine puts into them everything she would give to her lover. I hardly believe Mr. Hemingway imagined half as much in those words when he wrote it. But each of us building up the part, adding to it, brought more depth and beauty to the character. No. I would rather have someone else act any roles I might write. Though I doubt if I could do a movie story. The things I write are not very plotful." Well, what sort of parts do you yearn to do? Dramatic? Ibsen, perhaps? No one has done Ibsen on the screen. "Ibsen," thoughtfully. "What would you suggest? 'The Dolls' House'? But that could only be clone in costume, as a period play. It was, after all, propaganda for the enfranchisement of women. Ibsen is too 'dated'. Shakespeare isn't. He didn't try to point a moral. Ibsen did. 'Hedda Gabler' might be nice to do. Yes, I think I should like to do Hedda — but when I am older in pictures. I think a part like that should belong to someone like Greta Garbo." Ah, Greta Garbo ! Someone has been murmuring about Elissa Landi being Fox's Garbo. She might be. Who knows? She's tall, blonde, intense, with amazing green eyes. An English girl — who yet was born in Venice and claims Austrian heritage. That almost makes her a good American, doesn't it ? She played in films on the Continent, in England. She played with Lars Hansen in Swedish pictures. With Adolphe Mcnjou in a French film. Played the lead in "The Storm" in London. Appeared in "Lavender Ladies," "The Constant Nymph." All in all. her career has been seven years long — she's now twentyfour ! She played in several films written by Elinor Glyn — the perpetrator of It, remember? Madame Glyn declared Elissa was the typical English girl, but Elissa smiles about it. She doesn't think she is. The typical English girl is solid, rather large, calm — and well, nothing at all like Landi. But with her very nice and authentic English accent, how can she help but play English girls? Elissa doesn't like things just because they are fashionable. She thinks Beverly Hills is less than nothing. Imagine! Like some clerk's suburban heaven in England, only there are dozens of rosebushes in Beverly Hills front yards, instead of one. It's quite ordinary. Stereotyped. Little homes in the hills that ramble up and down are something else again. She finds Hollywood artificial, adolescent and sophisticated, all at the same time. But where all the orgies and "Queer People" hide out she can't imagine. She takes long walks, knows the etiquette of riding a horse, and plays a diffident game of tennis. Reducing is just a word in the dictionary to her. She's naturally slim. She loves children and animals. Elissa enjoys motoring and is an expert driver. She's married to an English barrister called "Johnny" — J. C. Lawrence to the public at large. Her next picture, after a comedy just to show she's versatile — and by the way she admires Ina Claire more than other talking star — will be "The Yellow Ticket." "Body and Soul" with Charlie Farrell will soon be released and then fandom will know that everything is now just fine and Landi ! Lil Reforms— Continued from page 31 siasm of the audience may be with you in a well-drawn characterization, it is the thought of the heroine who actually gets her man in the final reel, that is left with the audience as they leave the theatre. That's why she wants to be good. Good. But not too good. Lilyan promises to go on being just as chic, as smartly groomed — but with a difference. Being good won't mean Queen Mary hats and muslin underwear. Nunno ! "Certainly there is a difference in the clothes a character wears," says Lilyan. "You instinctively react to the way you are dressed. In my personal life when I get ready to go somewhere, I always try to imagine who will be there and dress and unconsciously react to the part that they expect of me. I have two or three kind of personalities like that — and yet they are all myself. "So a character in a play will react to the scene she finds herself in and the kind of clothes she wears. Obviously a heroine, even a 'good' heroine — providing it were a modern role, would be smartly dressed. After all you must conform to the rules of good taste to be truly chic. If you try to be too different, you become just frumpy. Naturally a vamp can get away with a more bizarre type of dress than a woman of accepted standing — otherwise there would not be too much difference." And that's that. Lilyan is the arbiter of elegance and fashion in the movie capital. So in the screen world, what Lilyan wears today, we will try to wear tomorrow. Lilyan started her career in New York. She posed first for a noted artist, then joined the "Follies." Well, didn't they all ? Then came a season in stock, where she played everything from old ladies to ingenues. Fine training, she declares. Don't they all? Then came the romance with Edmund Lowe. Lilyan is just a little worried about what a contract may mean. Her marriage has always come before her career, she says. She likes to be free to go with Eddie when and where he goes. Wliat Eddie says goes — practically — in the Tashman-Lowe household. Why, just the other day Lilyan yearned to go to Santa Barbara to see some polo matches but Eddie didn't want her too, so she stayed at home. "And you always mind your husband?" "Oh, yes," admits Lilyan cheerfully. "Life is too complicated to get into endless arguments. It's much simpler to do what Eddie wants — or doesn't want." The private life of a vamp ! Lilyan is much smaller, slighter than she appears on the screen, with very bright blond hair — (never mind if it wasn't always that color, it looks swell). And she's as pleased as a child with a pair of shiny red wagons, at being good. A blonde vamp has made good ! And trust her to keep on — even if they make her be ^ood !