Screenland (May-Oct 1934)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

for September 1934 "The Laugh's on Me!" says Irvin Cobb Continued from page 21 69 stories had been adapted into pictures, but I knew very little about short comedies — much less about writing. " 'Write, hell !' interrupted Roach. 'I want you to act!' "When I heard him say that, things just started going 'round inside me. ' I realized I'd come all the way to California thinking he meant me to write comedies. I felt like the boy who's wakened early by the sheriff, dressed in a new suit, and asked what he'll have for breakfast. The boy usually eats his. I couldn't. I was too stupefied. "I tried to escape. T have no sex appeal,' I protested. " 'Neither did Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,' retorted Roach. 'And it's lasted quite a while.' "Before I came to, I found myself in make-up and costume being shoved before a myriad lights, hundreds of witnesses, and a camera for a screen test," continued Cobb. "My legs went limp, and I whispered, 'I can't do it.' "But everyone was so considerate I tackled it again. I went into it like, a soldier going over the top. I was scared stiff, but I couldn't stop. They say the test was all right, but I don't see how it could be. "Yep," smiled Cobb, "The laugh's on me. It still seems like a dream. I have to pinch myself every once in a while to believe it's true. "Imagine me, at my age, turning Thespian ! I haven't been on the stage since I, as a boy, left Paducah, Kentucky, to be an 'end man,' lead the parade, and play a fake horn in Harry Ward's Minstrels. I hope I help the movies more than I helped Ward's Minstrels. They closed three weeks after I joined them!" While Cobb chuckles in bubbling goodnature at the joke that turned out to be a laugh on him, Hollywood chimes in merrily, enjoying its latest laugh — and it's on Cobb too. For America's foremost humorist has taken 'many a poke at the film capital, cracked many a good joke at the expense of the movies, has amused people from Maine to Georgia with quips about Hollywood's eccentricities. And now — well, believe it or not, Irvin Cobb has gone Hollywood. He's settingnew records for being guest of honor at Hollywood parties. Cobb is aware of it, is amused himself. . "Yep,"( he agrees in his deep baritone drawl. "The laugh's on me. Like every professional jokesmith, I've made a living laughing at Hollywood. In fact, just recently I wrote an article digging some of the town's kiddable things. Now I'll just be kidding myself." Like most visitors to Hollywood, Cobb has found it different looking at the movies from the inside than from the outside. "I came to Hollywood looking for sin," he explains. "But I've yet to find a firstrate orgy. My daughter and I attended our first party in fond anticipation of its turning into a Saturnalian revel. We dined without a symptom. Then, filing into the living room, we waited impatiently for the orgy to start. For a moment it looked hopeful. Two people ordered highballs. The rest took iced coffee, and settled down to playing fair to middlin' bridge for a tenth of a cent a point. _ "I'd always heard the first thing girls in Hollywood said after reaching the age of consent was 'yes.' But apparently I've been to the wrong parties." While a close-up of Hollywood has changed Cobb's ideas of its social life it hasn't changed his favorites among the screen personalities." "Charlie Chaplin is the greatest pantomimist I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including the famous Slivers and the French clown, Grock," Cobb declared. "None of them comes within miles of Chaplin. He hasn't talent or ability — but sheer genius. I believe every century produces a few, a very few authentic geniuses, and if I were asked to make a list of the geniuses the twentieth century has produced, I'd place Chaplin at the top. Marie Dressier also stands alone. She is not only a great entertainer, but also a great soul and a great woman." Of the younger stars Cobb confesses to a favoritism for Claudette Colbert. "She is a great comedienne, and in her more serious portrayals reveals a refreshing charm and loveliness." Will Rogers heads the list of Cobb's favorite character actors. "Not because Shirley Temple hears a story by Irvin Cobb, read by the author. We'll bet the famous humorist outdid himself. he's going to do my 'Judge Priest,' " he hurriedly explained, "but because he's such a vital _ personality. Some people say Rogers isn't an actor because he just plays himself. But why should he try to be anything except himself, when he's so much more magnetic and interesting than any character ?" Walt Disney is the man in Hollywood Irvin Cobb would like to know better and more intimately. "I've met him but do not know him," Cobb added. "A man who can create a great character like Mickey Mouse must be interesting. I think his 'Three Little Pigs' is the finest example of fantasy since Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland.' Using my seven-year-old grand-daughter as an excuse, I saw it three days in a row. When I tried to take her the fourth day, she finally rebelled." Though Hollywood has welcomed Irvin Cobb with open arms, its cordiality has left him a little nonplussed. He prefers to think the movie colony likes to hear his unendingfund of humorous stories. But sometimes he wonders if it's trying to win over a skeptic who has lampooned the movie capital with his barbs of wit. "If they're scared of what I'm going to write about Hollywood, they haven't mentioned it," Cobb volunteered. "Nor have they asked me to retract my previous attempts at humor. Of course, they ought to feel safe now. I've turned actor and become one of them. "As a matter of fact, Hollywood has been too darned nice. The scandal of my turning actor was no sooner printed that I started receiving advice. Will Rogers began the deluge. 'There's nothin' to this screen actin' just you be yourself,' Will advised. "Then Ned Sparks stepped up with the same line. Director John Ford offered identical dope. Every place I went, every place I turned I heard, 'Be natural.' "But these fellows can't fool me. The most artificial thing in the world is being natural on the stage or screen. These actors all use a bundle of tricks to create the illusion of being natural. They don't talk in real life the way they act on the screen. For 40 years George Arliss has been learning tricks that make him seem natural on the screen, and now nobody mink's he's artificial because he's so perfected his art. "But believe me I can still be natural about one thing. The next guy who tells me to 'be natural' will receive a natural bust in the jaw." Cobb, however, has turned to acting with intense purpose. He's determined to succeed as he has in the other fields of humor — writing, lecturing, and radio. To that end he is studying the movies zealously. He can be found any time of day on the stages of the Hal Roach studios, intently observing the work of Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chase, and the "Our Gang" kids. Out of it has come a thorough grasp of the motion picture business — and a deep respect for it. "The amazing thing," he says, "is not that there are so many bad movies, but that there are so many good' ones. Behind the apparent disorganization of Hollywood a great intelligence is functioning. There may be more slack ends than in a button factory, but when you consider that the movie producer's raw material is human beings, and some of it pretty raw, and that he's selling a fickle public the intangible of amusement, it's . surprising so much is achieved. The faults are only the faults of human beings. "In writing for the stage an author can write and rewrite. A producer can rehearse, try his play out, and do it all over again if weaknesses develop. But the movies have no public laboratory in which to experiment. Every picture must be a gigantic guess." Like every writer of humorous stories, Cobb confesses he thought his job of writing comedy the hardest in the world. "There's nothing sadder or more depressing than a man trying to be funny in print. They used to say on the New York World that they could always tell when I was going to be humorous by the tears I'd shed and the groans I'd utter as I put a piece of paper in the typewriter. "I thought even movie comedy writers had a snap compared to me. A visit to the Hal Roach gag room quickly changed that idea. For a whole morning the writers fussed and fought over which way a gag would be funnier. The atmosphere was clogged with acrimony and bitterness. At any minute I expected one of the men to be hurled out the window to prove a certain kind of fall would be funnier. The whole argument was about a gag that would take twenty seconds on the screen. "As for the comedians themselves, I knew their job was a cinch ! I thought they had a funny face, a queer walk, or a peculiar blink that automatically made people laugh as the comedians zualked through their parts. I imagined Laurel and Hardy were