Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

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On a Harlow set you can expect the thermometer to do anything except drop below freezing. Jean kids everyone from the moment she arrives on the set until she leaves and naturally she is the favorite of the technicians and prop men who go for that palsy-walsy stuff. Between scenes Jean swaps stories with the boys and plays her phonograph and there is a gay, carnival spirit about the whole set. Jean goes in for light music, especially dance records, though there are days when she dotes on Gilbert and Sullivan operas. I visited Jean on the "Wife versus Secretary" set not long ago and was introduced to a cute puppy dachshund, a gift from Walter Wanger, who was making himself quite at home (the puppy, not Walter Wanger), on Mr. Metro's rug, but what are a few dog biscuit crumbs to Mr. Metro? "He's so naughty," said Jean, taking me into her portable dressing-room, "I had to cover my beautiful rug with linoleum." The linoleum in turn was covered with newspapers. "Stand by, and see some fun," one of the assistant something-or-others muttered in my ear, "we're going to play a gag on Jean." So I stood by and the director called for a "take" and Jean put fresh powder on her face, and the assistant something-or-other bellowed "lights" and the director said "action" and Jean started telling Clark Gable about the private life of a private secretary — when suddenly Clark moved away from the desk and there behind him was a little two-foot water hydrant in a patch of artificial grass which the puppy was chewing on for dear life. Jean looked terribly surprised, everyone shrieked and had hysterics, and Jean made a speech thanking the boys for their assistance in the young pup's education. And then the business of picture-making proceeded as usual. Jean started choking for love of Gable, ("emoting" we calls it in Hollywood), the mercury hit the ceiling. A Myrna Loy set is the exact opposite of a Harlow set. There is no music on a Loy set, no kidding back and forth, no puppies, and no gags. Myrna is a very calm, poised person who will be most polite if you speak to her first but if you think she's going to cross the stage and start a conversation with you, you are sadly mistaken. All her leading men get a terrific shock when they meet Myrna on a set for the first time. She looks so glamorous and sensuous on the screen that half the male population of America is secretly in love with her, and of course the Hollywood leading men think that Myrna will live up to her billjng. But imagine their surprise when she gives them a cool "How do you do" and promptly retires to a far corner of the set and starts reading a book. None of that "Hi, Toots" business about Myrna. She claims that she likes people but is terribly shy, but I rather fancy that our Myrna likes it like that. Last month I think I told you about Spencer Tracy nearly going nuts on the "Whipsaw" set because he thought Myrna didn't like him simply because she wouldn't gab with him between scenes. (Myrna isn't the gossipy type.) When Myrna was finally told that she had brought out Mr. Tracy's inferiority complex and practically ruined him as an actor she immediately sent for an old phonograph of the 1910 vintage and a cracked record of The Old Gray Marc, informed Mr. Tracy that she was really just as glamorous as his other leading women, and thereby saved him from a nervous breakdown. The Loy has humor, plenty of humor, when she wants to exercise it. I suppose we will have to give Myrna's set a cool, collected fifty-five, (Myrna is the fresh air type), but I wouldn't answer for that thermometer when Myrna starts a sex scene — for when Myrna puts her mind on a little sex in the cinema she, just like the mercury, sizzles. But the mercury, my pet, will drop like the stock market when the scene is over and Miss Loy returns to her corner and the Garbo silences. Once, only once, have I seen Myrna lose that inscrutable calm, but it has endeared her to me forever. It was at a luncheon in her dressing-room and four times she had tried to butter a piece of toast and four times the phone had rung. "Damn that phone," said Miss Loy, and even I couldn't have put more feeling into it. The coldest I have ever been, figuratively and literally speaking, was on a Dietrich set with von Sternberg directing. Mercy, we'll have to get hot water bottles for the thermometers if he directs her after we get them installed. The day I wandered on the "Scarlet Empress" set, (visitors not allowed), I felt like Jane Eyre lost on the English moors. There were at least twentyfive extras and five principals sitting around waiting for the scene to be rehearsed ; but it was as quiet as a tomb, no one chatted, you just sat and shivered in the draughts. I wanted to go but was afraid to move, and it took me hours and three martinis to thaw out later. I hear that since Frank Borzage and Henry Hathaway started directing Marlene, the sun has actually dribbled through the impenetrable gloom, that flowers have bloomed and children have laughed. Well, I just can't wait for Mr. von Sternberg to direct Jean Harlow. About the gayest sets in town are those presided over by Carole Lombard, noisy at times, perhaps, and the mercury in our little thermometer would jiggle all around, but laughs you'll get and how. Everybody's welcome on a Lombard set and the more the merrier, with Carole in the middle of everything. "Don't go now," Carole will say when the director gives her the high sign, "I've got to make this scene. It'll only take a minute and I'll be right back." She gets insulted if you leave. Luise Rainer is one of those serious people who concentrate on acting when they're on the set. They may be a lot of fun off, but in there with the lights and the celluloid and the mike they are actresses, and you are fully aware of it and you don't talk to them. Miriam Hopkins, too, is quite serious on her set, but she makes up for it in her dressing-room. Katharine Hepburn we'll have to give a very erratic thermometer to as Katy has her days when she is the life of the party and interested in every one, and then she has her days when she is the great actress and you are but a bit of dirt beneath her feet. There are those old meanies who would have you believe that Miss Katy is awfully sweet to her fellow man right after she has had a flop, but when she has had a successful picture she is just Madame Bernhardt herself. If those old meanies know what they're talking about she ought to be about the sweetest star in Hollywood now and say pretty things to the photographers and fan writers, for "Sylvia Scarlett' is what in Hollywood patois is called a stinkeroo.