Screenland (Nov 1934-Apr 1935)

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She is not especially interested in seeing Hollywood, and had no regrets that her time in America prevented a trip to the coast. She says "English pictures are coming up. I think, don't you?" and feels she would rather for the present do pictures at home than in America. She would like, "only I am not the type" she added a little regretfully, to have as her first grown-up picture Emily Jane Bronte's "Withering Heights." She also wants to do, someday, Barrie's play, "Mary Rose." All this was delivered with mature conviction, expressed with the fluency and facility of speech which is an important part of the engaging charm of this magnetically alert young girl. Nova dresses very simply ; one of her hobhies is collecting miniature ivory carvings, (proudly she displayed a very commendable example, a tiny white mouse, which she produced from her handbag) ; is passionately found of horses and riding — and hopes someday she can have a stable of her own. These youngsters ! Not only are they fascinating on the screen, but whether because of their acting experience or those native qualities which in the first place bring them into professional acting, they are distinctly above the crowd in their offstage lives as well. Hollywood Can't Tame or Type This Man Continued from page 20 plays don't grow on trees. I am constantly in communication with writers, directors, producers — anyone who has a finger in the production of plays — looking for a new one. I've read plays by the hundreds — literally — looking for one. My entire family are reading manuscripts daily. So far we have found nothing suitable." "Before you made such a hit in pictures you didn't have so much trouble finding plays," I objected. "You were working pretty constantly." _ "Before I made such a hit, as you put it," he retorted, "I was prepared to take chances with a play that I am not prepared to take now. I can't afford to. And the plays I was in were not always so hot. Just before I did 'Fugitive' I was in two flops." "Golly," 1 murmured, "with the millions of people there are in this country trying to write plays, it seems to me you should be able to find one — if you wanted to." "Oh, yeah?" he came back — or words to that effect. "Well, you findme one!" "What kind do you want?" "A good play," he answered triumphantly. "That's a thought," I flipped. "It's very definite and I've never heard an actor make such a specification before." "I don't want to do a costume drama, but outside of that there's no limit. I try to keep away from old plays because I always think they date and are out-moded, no matter how you may try to modernize them. But, whether it's a drama, a comedy, or what not, doesn't matter — so long as it's gripping and well-written." "I don't know," I replied, still unconvinced. "Spencer Tracy has often commented to me on the fact that you and Robinson have the ideal contracts in that vou're required to do only two pictures a year and can do stage plays in the interim. Yet you don't avail yourselves of the opportunity." "I haven't an ideal contract!" he replied heatedlv. "I thought when I signed it it would be an ideal contract but very often contracts designed to serve a certain purpose fail utterly. It's true I have to do only two pictures a year, but they are made during the hottest part of the whole year. They are supposed to be made between June 1st and the end of September. This one I have just finished — 'Bordertown'— started eight weeks behind schedule. Instead of finishing it the end of July, we've finished it the end of September. Now, they're getting my next one ready and instead of being through with the second by the end of September, it will be the end of December before I'm through. How can I do a play this year? What producer would risk anywhere from $35,000 to $50,000 on the production of a play for me when he knows that at best he can get no more than a five months run out of it, be cause my 'ideal contract' stipulates I'm to be back here the first of June again. If I could go on and play in it as long as people would come to the theatre, it would be different. If it happened to be a hit it wouldn't matter when the run started, because I could go on and on in it. "Of course, when they started the first picture late I could have demanded my pound of flesh and said, 'You only have my services from June to October. If you haven't a script ready it isn't my fault.' But the studio people have been very nice to me so it's up to me to be nice to them. But the result of all this is I'll be loafing for five months after I leave here. "It's true I could make another picture or two this year — the studio is constantly after me to do more — but I don't want to. There's one point to illustrate why my contract is not ideal Here's another. If I ever sign another contract (and I will never sign another one for more than one picture at a time) I will have a clause inserted, stipulating that before we start work the completed script b to be delivered to me and that it is to be shot that way, with no changes. Also, I will specify that I am to have a full week's rehearsals before we ever start shooting." We sat in silence for a few minutes while I digested all this and Mr. Muni got on the outside of his broiled halibut. Then, "Why is it you object to visitors on your set? You've played in the theatre long enough to be used to working before an audience. I don't see how they can disconcert you." Mr. Muni glared for an instant or two and then relaxed. "That's something else I'm glad you've brought up. Rules are made out here for a certain purpose, but people in Hollywood have to have something to talk about so they distort the real reason until it is obscured or lost and only the impression remains that I am high-hat or temperamental — or 'difficult.' "I don't mind visitors — under certain conditions. When I was working on 'Fugitive' I had a particularly difficult scene to do. I had just been handed the lines and we were going to run through it a few times. I am naturally nervous and selfconscious. I can't jump into a mood — I have to build myself into one. I have to have time to feel my way into a scene and during that time I give far from a finished performance. Well, suddenly I looked up and there were fifty visitors on my set. Fifty, by actual count, and all of them gaping at me ! If an actor is to have any boxoffice draw it has to be because the public thinks he is good. While I'm rehearsing I am not good. I'm experimenting. Now, if I had gone ahead and rehearsed before those visitors they would have thought me awkward, incompetent, and a lot of other