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.
Hollywood Glorifies the Goof
W
HEN you saw Bill Powell (in 'Libeled Lady")
falling splat on his face in the trout stream, you probably thought it was a double. It wasn't. It was Bill, himself. Bill, the adept at light, sophisticated, subtle comedy, descending to what we commonly call slapstick stuff. I saw him working on this sequence for several days. When I finally saw the picture, and heard the roars of diaphragmatic laughter that this scene evoked, I became convinced that His Majesty the Goof has come into his kingdom.
Now, there's nothing very subtle in seeing Bill Powell, attired in the latest from Abercrombie and Fitch, apparently doing his darndest to drink a trout stream dry; neither is there anything very subtle in Jean Harlow's frantic cries of, "I wanna get married, — NOW!" in the same picture; nor in dainty Myrna Loy's succinct remark concerning a whiskey with a champagne chaser in "After the Thin Man;" nor in the ladylike Irene Dunn's giddy didoes in "Theodora Goes Wild;" nor in Jeanette McDonald's ludicrous fall in "San Francisco." The virus, goof, has infected even these, and other people, who are not, legitimately, goofs as we know them. And hasn't it made the box office bell ring? And doesn't it prove that the world loves to laugh ? That the world loves its goofs? (Or is it plural, geef ?) (l Certainly, the past season has brought us its quota of artistic," and, in some cases, extremely lugubrious pictures; but far more significant (and welcome), at least m my humble (and probably lowbrow) opinion has been the general enthusiastic appreciation of The Goof.
I have become acutely goof -conscious. I remember that when Twentieth Century-Fox bought the rights to Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, you fans flooded that studio with demands that Arthur Treacher be cast in the role
24
If you think the screen jesters are funny in pictures, just meet them in person in this story. Arthur Treacher, for instance, in two poses at left, makes you chuckle without even trying. Martha Raye, above, is a study in versatility of expression.
of that pluperfect gentleman's gentleman. Which shows that you know your Wodehouse, and know your Treacher, in spite of the fact that you had seen very little of him. However, the studio bowed to your good judgment.
I thought that Treacher would be a good start for a story about The Goof. I telephoned him.
"Would you mind," I enquired, mildly, "if I came 'round and talked to you about the trials and delights of being a goof ?"
He said, "Haw!" (You've heard him.) "Haw! How awfully decent of you, old chap ! Of course. Come 'round about cocktail time, what, — er — that is, I mean to say, you're not on the wagon, or anything, are you ?" I reassured him on this point. "What a comfort," he boomed. "Haw! See you about five, then; ta-ta. Oh, say, you're sure you're not mistaking me for Joe Penner? Isn't he the goose man?"
"I didn't say 'goose' ", I explained patiently, "I said 'goof.' And Joe Penner's not a goose man; he's a duck