Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

for October 1931 101 peering through the door, sending a beam into the eye of the man whom he intended to kill. "Next night, the same thing happened. I was nearly frozen with fear. Suddenly there was a loud bang and a crash — something fell into the fireplace and lay shattered, but I could see it from my bed — a broken mirror — another evil sign ! "When I told the story at breakfast, my brother grinned. At length he confessed that he had fixed a mirror on the chimney top so that the moon's rays reflected down the chimney into my fireplace. The wind tumbled the mirror down and it fell into my room. And now I don't believe in ghosts !" Carmel Myers says her ghost was a joke. She was playing a vaudeville engagement in Newark, N. J., and was waiting in her dressing room when she heard her brother's voice. She ran to the door, but saw no one. Zion Myers was in California. She heard it again, and ran to the window. There was no mistake. It was Zion's voice. One of the dog comedies was being run off at a talkie theatre next door, and she had recognized Zion's voice speaking for one of the dogs in the picture ! Irene Dunne's father was captain of a Mississippi steamboat so it's not strange that her favorite ghost story concerns a sternwheeler. "This boat had an evil reputation. Once a cargo of slaves had been roasted to death on it during a fire ; several duels had been fought on its decks ; suicide and murder had taken their toll of life on it. Then it was bought by a river-going Bluebeard, who was said to have killed several wives in its cabins, throwing their bodies overboard and claiming they had drowned themselves in terror of the haunted craft. He was tried but never convicted. "But a girl of New Orleans won his love and utterly dominated him until she tired of him and took a rich man in his place. This rich man bought the boat, ejected the captain and arranged for a honeymoon on the vessel, inviting women and gamblers of New Orleans. "The boat steamed up the river, but never came back and now on black nights people say they hear a ghostly whistle when dark deeds are under way. But others say that the captain stole aboard and piloted the boat back to sea where she was lost." The favorite Hallowe'en tale of Irving Pichel deals with a miserly man wrho deserted his wife and small son when he came into a fortune. Twenty years later, the wealthy old man married a gold-digging actress who insisted that he build a mansion on Long Island. A young architect was employed to design the place and a year was devoted to its building before the couple moved in with their servants. But when night came, there arrived simultaneously strange sounds of scraping chains, moans and sighs. When a wall slid open, sent forth a shaft of light and closed a split second, the servants left in a mass. On the second night the actress deserted the house in hysterics and refused to return. The old man would not leave a place on which he had spent so much money so he remained, with one attendant, for seven years, seeing no one. No one knows whether he was frightened or not, but after his death the house was dismantled and the ghostly goings-on were found to be matters of architectural trickery. The man who had built the mansion was his long-forgotten son, who had thus avenged his mother's sorrow. DeWitt Jennings rode the range in Wyoming, when he was a lad, and there heard the story that introduced him to his ghost. Cattle rustlers were working in that territory in the early days, and one night the marauder was caught by a group of cow boys. The rustler broke away from them, leaped to his horse and shot at Joe, a young cow puncher, whose return shot went through the rustler's sombrero. With blood streaming from his wound, Joe rode after the fleeing rustler, crying : "My curse on you and may you ride till doomsday!" fired another bullet that went tc the rustler's heart, instantly killing him, and fell back dead himself. Ever after that, the rustler's ghost rode the range in chaps and sombrero, his horse all lathered and fiery-eyed, the bullet hole still in his hat. The first time DeWitt heard the story, he had a long hard ride to make alone after leaving the campfire. On his way home, his horse shied, and looking to see what had caused it, he glimpsed a horse and rider that seemed to gallop through the air, the horse all lathered under the spurs, the rider wearing chaps and sombrero, an old-fashioned revolver and having a white, featureless face. As he looked, the two of them vanished. Did he imagine it. or did he really see them ? He never knew. A tale that always thrills Ann Harding, when told in proper dusk, is that of a house in Hollywood. A girl named Judy spent a week-end there and swears that this is so. A glassed-in sun porch led off the dining room, next to the butler's pantry. At noon, on the day of Judy's arrival, as she passed through the dining room she heard the clink of glasses and the sound of water being poured. Being thirsty, she ran to the porch, but found no one there. The next day, the same thing happened and Judy stood bewildered, trying to locate the sound. "Hearing our daily ghost?" asked another guest. "The water is on the ice box in the butler's pantry. I asked the maid about it and she told me her orders were to leave it there at noon each day, but she has never seen anyone drink from it." Judy sought explanation from her hostess who said that the water was so placed to placate an active ghost. It seems that a cousin had committed suicide on the sun porch, dying in agony while she begged for water. For some reason the water had been turned off, temporarily, and water could not be brought in time. Shortly after her death, serious disturbances began in the sun porch and pantry, the maids left and no one could live in the house until a spiritualist suggested that a pitcher of ice water be left on the ice box at noon — the time the cousin had died — each day. After which, except for the sound of pouring water and the clink of ice, there was no disturbance. Marguerite Churchill believes that the Phantom Drummer of Hurstmonceaux Castle in Sussex, England, is her favorite ghost. The Phantom Drummer, she declares, took it upon himself to keep an eye on love affairs of beautiful damosels. If a girl in the castle even thought of doing something indiscreet, he would bring out his drum ; everyone knew what the sound of the drum meant, and gossip began. If the girl still persisted, she was invariably found dead. No one ever saw anything but the drum and the drummer's forearm, shining with pale-blue radiance! And Maureen O'Sullivan can't make up her mind which ghost she likes best, since Just between us girls! Pola Negri and Bebe Daniels were fast friends in the silent days, and now the two lovely brunettes stage a reunion. You'll see Pola in her talkie debut before long. Bebe keeps up the good work in "Honor of the Family."