Screenland (Jun-Oct 1932)

for June 19 32 own. That discovery knocked any plans for being a lawyer out of my head. And, since my own tastes didn't run to the ministry, the only thing left was banking. So I supposed I could probably be a banker. Of course, when I thought of it, it was always by that title — never as "bank clerk.'' When I was in my senior year, the World War erupted. Being at that age when cliches seem profound and empty platitudes seem very noble, I got excited about my duty to my country and humanity. Also. I had become engaged to a nice girl co-ed and probably in the back of my mind was a desire to impress her with my maturity and gallantry. So, along with a lot of other students. I went to Fort Sheridan. 111., a preliminary training camp for infantry officers. Then my oldest brother advised me to get into the artillery. Respecting his judgment in this as I had in the matter of taking commerce at college. I went down to Camp Zachary Taylor where he was aide to General Austin. After three months, I got my commission as second lieutenant in the artillery". But instead of going overseas, I was retained as an instructor of equestrianism. Heaven knows why, because up to that time my only riding had been done on the fat, indolent pony we had as children. Anyway, after serving a period there, during which time the Armistice was declared and all hopes of covering myself with military glory went glimmering. I was sent to Fort Sill, Okla., to the School of Fire there. It was the most interesting base I was in, patterned after the Xapoleonic School of Fire. I was discharged from there in February, 1919. When I got back to college, a thwarted hero, I found a possibility which seemed designed for my own particular future. Frank Yanderlip of the National City Bank in Xew York was launching an experiment which was to take a number of college boys and train them, as apprentices and students in the main branch, for work in the foreign branches. It sounded romantic — one might be sent to Berlin or Paris or Rio or Singapore or anywhere. One saw oneself — "the 3-oung foreign banker," in sun helmet and trailed by admiring natives, driving along picturesque streets in car 89 riages, a potentate of finance. And my previous two years in the Racine bank gave me an additional advantage, so I applied. And made it. Living in a nice old rooming-house on Brooklyn Heights, overlooking all Xew York, I worked in the bank in the daytime and studied at night. After I had been there a short time, there was a shakeup in the bank personnel and James Stillman took over the directorship. He wasn't very enthusiastic about Yanderlip's experiment and the college apprentices became a little uneasy about the future. When I had been there seven or eight months, I grew discouraged. Xone of us was being sent to foreign branches and I saw what was more likely to follow — a long apprenticeship with perhaps the final reward of becoming assistant cashier. And then my appendix broke. At noon, one day, I suddenly fell over in the throes of acute pain. Friends took me to Brooklyn, my landlady7 sent for a doctor, and the doctor sent for an ambulance. I was to be operated on immediately. As I waited for the ambulance, my kind little landlady talked to me to distract my mind from the pain and fear. She had been an actress in the old days, and told me delightful anecdotes of the theatre. I listened carelessly, but when I got to the hospital I went under the anesthetic with those stories in my mind. And I woke up knowing I was going, to be an actor or else! I never went back to the bank. All idea of doing anything but try to get a job in the theatre left me. Throughout my convalescence I devoured books on the history of the theatre. I confided in only one person, a particularly understanding sister-inlaw. She thought it might be a good idea. I had no notion of how one went about it, but suddenly I saw very clearly that this was what I had always, subconsciously, wanted and intended. As soon as I could navigate again. I hurried to Xew York to work on my great, appendicitis-born idea. Xext month. I'll tell you more about myself— and I want to tell y-ou right now it's the hardest thins I've ever done ! ENJOY the Allur e of HAIR-FREE SKIN Here's a New Girl to Love — Lilian Harvey! Continued from page 17 optimism of young love and the shamelessness of innocence that could not be put into words. One's mind enclosed her as in a timeless symbol. But in London, when she spoke English, she slipped back into time, back from imagination into reality-. "I've no doubt about it," she said ; and one remembered having heard that she hailed from Muswell Hill, which is the equivalent of one of the less opulent districts of Brooklyn. One became conscious that she had a background, that she had a human personality-, one agonized lest it was inferior to her person, one wanted to cover one's ears lest her accents should betray a lack of intelligence. She loses her place among the timeless symbols, she becomes a human being, and being human oneself one tends to judge her from the unfair standpoint of whether close and continued association with her would be an undiluted blessing. It is a pity; and the moral one draws is that the future of the cinema for the discerning, anyway, lies in the films (such as Rene Clair's "Le Million") where the sound effects are musical and avoid realistic dialogue, so that the actors can retreat into the silent significance of types. only indirectly related to the main theme. But all the same it is at a difficult stage of its existence. What dangers threaten us now that the movies have become talkies I have been able to realize by; contrasting the first and second time I saw "The Congress Dances." The first time I saw the German version in Berlin ; and I am on such terms with the German language that the minute I relax my attention it ceases to be words, and is merely a gush of sound. I heard the Yiennese songs and music that accompany most of the film, but when the characters spoke it was as if they spoke wordlessly like dogs. Then Lilian Harveyseemed an immortal effigy like Yenus rising from the foam. She is incomparably the most exquisite of film stars now practising. Beside her Constance Bennett and Joan Crawford seem as if they were cut out of tin. She was originally a dancer, and she reminds one of that story of Pavlova, who, when asked to explain one of her dances, answered, "If I had been able to explain it, I would not have troubled to dance it." 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