Screenland (May-Oct 1931)

89"1 Prize WI1Y(T)cHANGED TO MARLBORO CONTEST Miss Eileen Fitzgerald, Chicago, III. I changed from cotton to silk hose I changed from long hair to a bob I changed from croquet to golf I graduated from ftsteno" to secretary I graduated from "rummy" to bridge I graduated from Fords to Cadillacs I graduated from all cigarettes to Marlboros Marlboros are modern So am I! • . . SS^o more in safety and enjoyment at only 5 cents more in price MARLBORO for October 2 9 3 1 The Stage in Review Continued from page 87 some influence on the "music" (so-called) of our musical comedies. Also on the dancing and general ballet bunk (how that beautiful word "ballet" has been degraded in meaning on the Broadway stage!). Two of the best pieces of entertainment I have seen of their kind either on screen or stage is "Two Hearts in Waltz-Time" and "The Merry Wives of Vienna." Here are bounce, lyric quality, good dancing and a real, spontaneous, effervescing spirit of joyousness, which are plainly faked and standardized and clock-watched in the musical comedies on the stage. The dances, songs and "ballets" in our musical comedies have not evolved one iota from the days when the Bowery at Coney Island was in its prime. In fact, Broadway is, with a little more tinsel and show-window dressing in the matter of some of our musical comedies, lower today than in the days of "Floradora," "Erminie" and Henry E. Dixey in "Adonis." What am I going to do about it? Nothing. But I want to record the fact, as a chronicler of the drama and musical comedies, that the singing pictures from abroad have got us licked in popular music, dancing and fun. Marvelous Mickey Mouse In the Little Picture House I fell into a reverie over why Mickey Mouse so enormously entertains me — not only Mickey, but all those animated cartoons. The success of these grotesque and absurd pictures is to be found in what Sig. Freud and his crowd call "dream-release." These animals do all that we do in dreams — the feats of the impossible that we'd like to do w-hen awake. There are no limitations of matter, space or time in these pictures. And that is the secret dream of all of us — to transcend our limitations. We take a great delight in watching these mannikins do it. Then there is the caricatural element. These beasts and birds caricature human nature. We are really looking at ourselves, our antics and our amorous monkeyshines from the dimension of laughter. The grotesque and the absurd are indestructible elements in our make-up. We 115 have a craving for nonsense. They are releases for the heavy Saturnian rings that weigh on our brains and on our hearts. Mickey Mouse and his pals are among the greatest of human satires. Long may Mickey and his playmates reign ! Married the Modern Way — Continued from page 21 merely discovered herself! You have only to look at and listen to the radiant girl who is Joan to realize the vast amount of intense energy which she throws into everything she does : work or play, career or domesticity. She is made that way. That's why she stayed in the back row of a revue chorus in a Chicago night club only long enough to learn the routine of the songs and dances. Then she was put into the first line. That's why she was selected from a whole chorus in a musical show to be offered a screen test and a motion picture contract. That's why she stepped from bits and glorified extra roles into featured parts and stardom in a miraculously short time. And that's why she threw herself so feverishly into making a success of her marriage. She gloried and reveled in domesticity, in hooked rugs and dimity curtains. "No extreme is good," Joan explained. "The women of other generations who made marriage the end of all individuality were just as wrong as the women who take the business of marriage lightly and carelessly. You've got to strike a happy medium. You can make marriage the most Par O'Brien made good in a big way. "The Front Page" put him in the front rank and now he has a five-year contract with Howard Hughes. important thing in your life without completely drowning your entire personality in it. "Every young married couple has its own problems to face. The first thing to do, as I see it, is to take stock of yourself, realize your two separate personalities, and then adjust your marriage to fit your own two selves!" Joan glanced at the wrist watch which had been given her as a prize for the most beautiful costume at Marion Davies' huge fancy dress ball. "I must get going." she laughed. "I've got to meet Doug in fifteen minutes. We're going to play tennis." She reddened her lips, jammed the beret on her blonde head, hid her long-lashed eyes behind the dark glasses and shook hands. Then she was gone. The last thing I saw of Joan Crawford was a smile and a waving brown arm from the depths behind the steering wheel of a long, black, topless car. "S'long! See you soon." It isn't a new Joan, at all. It's just the same old sparkling girl. A real, honest-to-sroodness modern maiden. When von write tn advertisers nleasft mpntinn SCRERXI.AND