Screenland (May-Oct 1938)

SHUNNED AT SCHOOL BECAUS^OFPIMPLES? Take steps to tree your blood of skin-defiling poisons often upset your system. At th same tune waste poisons from the intestinal tra ct may Tollect in the blood stream . . . bubble out on vour skin in disfiguring pimples. You want to rid your blood of these skinirrStinTpoisons. Thousands have succeeded — ust by eating Fleischmann's Yeast 3 cakes a dav The millions of tiny, living plants in eacKe help you keep these^oisons outtf your blood, give you clearer, smooths sKm. Many get splendid results m 30 days or les^ Dotft waPste time and run the risk of permanently damaged skin. Start eating Fleischmann's Yeast today! MAIDEN, MOVIE ACTRESS, MATRON! That's the tantalizing title of one of our many vivid features scheduled for the June issue. Only in Hollywood can a story like this be written, for only in Hollywood can a girl pack a lifetime of exciting experience into twenty-odd years! But that's only one of the stones scheduled for you. There's a most unusual interview with Melvyn Douglas, that suave leading man, which shows him in a new light— an account in his own words ot the urge which has driven him to take off impulsively, at a moment s notice, for stranqe lands and exotic climes. In spite of all that has been written about bad breath, thousands still lose friends through this unpleasant fault. Yet sour stomach with its resultant bad breath is frequently only the result of constipation. Just as loss of appetite, early weakness, nervousness, mental dullness, can all be caused by it. So keep regular. And if you need to assist Nature, use Dr. Edwards Olive Tablets. This mild laxative brings relief, yet is always gentle Extremely important, too, * the mild stimulation it gives the flow of bile from the liver, without the discomfort of drastic, irritating drugs.That's why millions use Olive Tablets yearly. At your druggists, 15& 30^, 600. 96 except a frown and suggestion of hurt pride. I can't believe she would be one to inspire a moody idealist of the Hecht breed" And we always thought Sylvia was one of our better emotional actresses ! And this, I think, will give you a rough idea of how Hollywood was received m New York this season. Mrs. Pat Campbell herself couldn't have been more scathing. Neither Miriam Hopkins nor Katharine Hepburn would take a chance on throwing their little white bodies to the lions m the arena this year. Miriam, a clever actress if there ever was one, decided that the ^heatre Guild's "Wine of Choice" wasnt all that she had hoped it to be, so she left the .how in Pittsburgh; and Claudia Morgan daughter of Ralph, stepped into the lead and took Mr. Behrman's newestplay into Broadwav, where it was received with .rreat apathy. Of it a reviewer said, In rWine of Choice' S. N. Behrman seems to have more on his mind than he has on the stao-e which is an easy way to nurture a flop"' Miriam is probably thanking her stars she left the cast before Broadway. As for Hepburn, a little something happened in Chicago last year that made her think twice before leaping. Brooks Atkinson ot the New York Times went to Chicago to catch Hepburn in "Jane Eyre" for a Sunday column for his paper. And when Katharine read the panning he gave her it brought back all the cruel memories of "The Lake" and she wisely decided to deprive New York of "Jane Eyre" and spend the theatrical season making pictures instead. And a very good choice too for not only was Hepburn practically abandoned by her "true love," the stage but Hollywood was getting pretty tired of her too and her picture career was rumored at an end But now, instead of a bunch of humiliating New York reviews, she has a. Sensational hit in "Bringing Up Baby" and once more the Hepburn film stock is soaring. Maybe she appreciates Hollywood— ^Henry^Fonda and "Blow Ye Windsblew right off of Broadway after a few performances. But good old Hollywood was waiting with open arms and Hank walked into "Jezebel," opposite Bette Davis, which picture will be one of the hits of the spring. I do hope Mr. Fonda's acting won t be too "precious" for Critic Leo Gaffney. Well when I heard that Sylvia Sidney was back in Hollywood and doing a picture called "You and Me" with George Raft, and that Miriam had opened her hill-top home and informed her agent she was "available" for pictures, and that Freddie was reading screen scripts instead of play scripts for a change I thought to myself Poor dears, how torn and bloody they must feel how my heart bleeds for their inured pride. How humiliating to discover that your "true love" has betrayed you. They'll be sour, I said, they'll be so bitter about New York and critics . that wormwood will drop from their hps. After all vou can't expect the idolized gods ana Goddesses of Hollywood to be snubbed by Broadway and feel awfully gay about it! But I had a surprise coming to me. How did they take their defeat? Like real shorts Not a bitter or a sour note could I find. When the Freddie Marches and Director John Cromwell discovered that the critics had gone thumbs-down on their play they took the hint and closed at the end of six Performances But no sulking no pouting, no excuses, no calling critics names. With rare good humor (and the Marches, they say, lost plenty o dough in the play) they took space m the aa ver ising columns of all the Manhattan Tew papers and had reprinted a cartoon from the New Yorker magazine— a cartoon whkh shows one trapeze artist dropping , ht companion and as his companion falls SCREENLAND through the air he murmurs, "Oops— sorry." The cartoon was signed: Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, and John Cromwell. It was a most graceful exit line. All New York thought it sporting and practically forgave the Marches for making pictures. Neither could I discover any wormwood about Miriam Hopkins. "It was a lot of fun, really," said Miriam. "I adore Mr. Behrman and his plays but I simply didn't think the part in this play right for me so I left the cast before it went in to New York. No, I'm not at all discouraged. I have several plays in mind for next season. I love Hollywood now— I didn't used to, you know, but of course the theatre always has been, and alwavs will be, mv true love. Sylvia Sidney was in a wonderful mood when I found her. "I haven't had so much fun in ten years," said Sylvia, "not since I played New York in 'Bad Girl.' There is something so exciting, so exhilarating about the theatre— you don't find that m pictures. Of course I'm going to do another play on Broadway next fall. I'll probably usher the season in again. As a matter of fact I may join a stock company in New Jersey this summer. I recently bought an old Dutch farmhouse surrounded by several hundred acres in Flemington, only an hour and fifteen minutes away from New York, and I hear there's a summer stock company in the neighboring town. I can drive over every night and put on greasepaint." I have seen Sylvia, who is rather a tempestuous little person, fly into a beautiful rage when she read a panning given her by one of the half-baked Hollywood critics. So naturally I thought she would have plenty of acid remarks to make about the professional panners on Broadway — but Sylvia has changed, or something. "Yes, some of the critics got pretty rough with me," said Sylvia with a smile, "but so did the fans. I was sitting in the Rivoli Theatre one night when the trailer for 'Dead End' came on the screen. Suddenly, following the beautiful New York skyline, there was a close-up of me. Huh, sneered the woman next to me, 'there she is crying again.' A week later curiosity o-ot the better of me and I decided to see myself in 'Dead End.' You know I have a phobia about seeing myself on the screen it makes me sick, that's probably one ot the reasons I hate pictures and love the stage. Anyway, I was sitting there loathing myself when the woman back of me said to her companion, 'Look at her. What a deadpan ! That's what Hollywood does to a person. No expression. A perfect deadpan '' From then on whenever I came on the screen she sniffed, 'Deadpan.' Finally when the lights came on after the picture the desire to be the grand Hollywood cinema star seized me and I turned around and stared at the woman. When she recognizes me I said to myself, I will slap her down with something particularly crushing and fill her with shame. She looked at me straight in the eye, without the slightest an of recognition, and turned to her companion once more and said, 'Sylvia has no emotion. A perfect deadpan. We L when, your public doesn't even recognize you, you can't get grand with them ! "The New York critics? Didnt I hate them for their reviews? No-because m most instances they were perfectly right. Did I tell you about the evening 1 ran nto Tallulah Bankhead at one of the night clubs? It was shortly after 'Cleopatra had flopped. Sheila Barrett gave one of her famous impersonations of Ta ulah and at the end of the applause Tallulah rose and said 'Your impersonation of me is very cruel. But not nearly so cruel as George Jean Nathan's review of my play. Butyou both are right.' "