Screenland (May-Oct 1934)

SCREENLAND 78 I hate to miss the party, 1 Just soak the foot for 10 minutes in hot water, and then wipe it dry. 2 Apply BlueJay, centering pad over corn. Pad relieves pressure, stops pain at once. 3 After 3 days, removeplaster, soak foot and lift out corn. It's so safe and gentle I JIM, YOU'RE AN OLD flatterer! you're A MARVELOUS DANCER YOURSELF. DO YOU use BLUE-JAY too? What, No Screen Beauties ? By Earl Carroll Continued from page 28 » Blue-Jay is the safe, scientific corn remover, used by millions for 35 Jf*™Invented by a famous chemist, made by Bauer 6? Black, whose products are used by doctors and hos How B|ue.jay works pitals the world A the medication • Over. Be \ind tO your that gently under feet When a corn mines the com. Wears, remove it ^^urT, with BlueJ ay. stops pajn at once. 25c at druggists — special C. adhesive that sizes for bunions and calluses holds pad in place. BLUE-J AY BAUER & BLACK'S SCIENTIFIC C OR N R E M O V E R Free Booklet-Contains helpful «£°™f °° ,fo ^ ers. Also valuable exercises for foot health and„b^>; Address Bauer 6? Black, 2500 S. Dearborn St., Chicago. j^ame Address City © The Kendall Company .State . Jean Harlow has an amazing supply of flash and color, but under no circumstance could Miss Harlow be described as being beautiful. Her features are too heavy, and too unsymmetrical. Her face is interesting but far from classical. Marlene Dietrich might come near to being beautiful, I think, if she permitted herself to be. But why does she wear coats featuring heavy, padded shoulders? Now, can a woman with bulgy shoulders be called beautiful? In addition, Miss Dietrich has plucked or trained her eyebrows until they extend straight across her forehead, on a line across her temples Ihe effect is animalistic, and not lovely. Nature shaped feminine eyebrows; their natural contour is beautiful. _ • ■ ci Greta Garbo is plain, in my opinion, bne reminds me of nothing so much as an h-nglishwoman shopping m the ram. J. all, angular, Garbo falls far short of all accepted standards of feminine beauty, to my "^Beauty is measured by a general standard These standards vary in widely separated parts of the world. In Turkey, for example, fat women are more admired than are slender, well-formed females. In certain districts of Africa, big-lipped women are considered beautiful; the bigger her lips the more beautiful the woman. In China, tiny feet are regarded as a woman s o-reatest treasure, and Chinese females torture themselves during childhood by wearin* tight shoes to stunt the growth of their feet Thus, in different corners of the globe, conflicting standards of beauty have been set up. . Our beauty standards are set according to our visual point of view We say that "a pair of legs are beautiful." We mean, those limbs are curved according to a standard we have learned to accept. As we stand or sit, we perceive those legs from a certain angle, and if they measure up to our accepted standard, they are lovely. But suppose we up-end those limbs t Suppose we turn them upside down i 1 hey would no longer be beautiful, because they would cease to conform to our accepted standard-the standard to which our eyes have become accustomed Actually, the legs will not have changed shape because their position is reversed. It is this naturalness that Ho ywood actresses lack. I have seen ,n Hollywood many girls who would be much prettier it they would permit themselves to remain as nature designed them But nc-they must adopt artificialities. They seem to think that because they are in Hollywood, they must be "unusual." As a rule, this unusualness" is actually bizarre. . A marked example of this error is Ida Lupino, the pretty young English actress. For a reason known only to herself, perhaps, Miss Lupino has shaved away her eyebrows. She paints _ eyebrows on her forehead! The effect is pract .cally ■ eerie Why? Simply because painted eyebrows are not natural; our eyes are not used to them. Of course, if all women were to shave their eyebrows, we would soon reach hat point at which our standards wou d undergo a change. We would eventually become accustomed to women without eyebrows; the woman with her own eyebrows would be exceptional, therefore unnatural, and thus unpretty. Grace Bradley is another newcomer to motion pictures who might be much prettier She combs her hair in the Zulu Islander fashion. Miss Bradley has symmetrical features, but the bushy unkempt mop of hair spoils her effect _ Dorothy Dell, the "Miss Universe of a recent international beauty contest, has, (and this is a common fault in Hollywood), permitted herself to become careless ; she has grown a bit too plump. She is not at, by any means, but the extra pounds she has accumulated are just sufficient to offset the natural beauty of her body. Too many lovely girls go to Hollywood, and promptly become careless about their appearance. Hollywood plays too much. To retain beauty, a woman must play moderately. She must eat carefully, (not diet at intervals), exercise regularly, and she must retire early at least four nights every week. The lack of beauty on the screen today is easily explained. During the era of silent pictures, feminine comeliness was a prime requisite to success. Then Hollywood was over-run with lovely women, talking pictures arrived over-night, and the him producers suddenly discovered that their beauties were untrained as actresses. I here followed a great hue and cry for experienced players; and the studios turned to the stage, the only source from which such veterans of histrionism could be dratted. But few stage actresses are beautiful. Most of them are women who began lite with the handicap that they were not beautiful They had to attain a substitute tor beauty They attained individuality, or they became accomplished dancers and singers, or they developed into fine actresses. It was from this group of women-of-the-stage that the screen was forced to select its early "talking picture talent." , , At least in one respect, the screen does have beauty. I refer to eyes. Rare indeed is the film actress who does not possess entrancing eyes. There are a few exceptions such as Norma Shearer, Madge Evans, and one or two others, but I have discovered that the vast majority of feminine stars have orbs that make audiences temporarily forget other facial defects. At first I could not understand the universality of beautiful eyes on the screen. One night I was mulling the matter over in my mind, and the answer came to mean answer that is so simple that I laughed to think how it had eluded me. When two people converse together, they look into each other's eyes. I am convinced that when audiences watch actresses perform and listen to them talk, the audiences concentrate their gaze on the eyes ot the performers. That is the reason beautiful eyes are most important to an actress. You may ask, how can one ascertain just what reahbeauty is? Suppose I use Janet Gaynor as an example. Taken alone, Miss Gaynor is most attractive. But let us assume that we have placed Miss Gaynor in a sound-proof, glass showcase, and beside her we have introduced a classically beautiful woman. As long as the two specimens remain motionless and soundless, and are compared only for their physical beauty, the second girl will attract far more" ohs and ahs. It is when the two women move about and act, and talk, and come in contact with their watchers, that personality has the opportunity to manifest itself. When that