Screenland (Sept 1922–Feb 1923)

HOU.VWOOO CALIFORNIA new, beauteous human appearing within their aura seems more utterly desirable than the last? On the whole, when we appreciate the peculiarly provocative circumstances under which these superlatively attractive persons meet each other, the wonder is that they can ever concentrate on one love long enough to get a divorce and remarry. In fact, it is comparatively easy for us to understand their plethora of new loves. Our only trouble is to discover how they ever could have discarded the old. For instance, we can quite appreciate how Mary could love Douglas as well as Owen, and it seemed so hard to have to believe all those unpleasant things about Owen in order that Mary might shed him for Douglas, or all those unpleasant things about Douglas that his former wife might release him in favor of Mary. Especially after we had sighed soulfully over lovely stills of Doug and the first Mrs. Doug with dear, little Doug junior, and over equally engaging stills of Mary and Owen in their home garden. It troubles us to think that the first Mrs. Doug had ceased to appreciate Doug's charms, just because Mary had begun to appreciate them too. Or that Owen should have ceased to adore Mary just because Mary adored Doug, or even that Mary should have ceased to appreciate the established charms of Owen when Doug appeared within her orbit. Our sympathies are called upon to be so violently partisan so very temporarily and it's very confusing. It CAN be seen that the whole secret of successful passionate romanticism is in at least temporary but exceeding fervent concentration. One mustn't leave a shred of it hanging over on to the previous great and eternal love. All or nothing while it lasts, you understand. But it is a great factor in the development of Art. You may have observed that both Doug and Charlie rose to higher flights of superfection in their Art directly they had succumbed to the lures of a grand passion. Not until Charlie. Chaplin's blisteringlv swift-burning affair with Mildred Harris was he proclaimed the greatest dramatic actor in our time. No. sirs. Before that he was just a slapstick comedian. His loves up to that time had been too discreetly mild. But with the advent of Mildred, supplanting what we had fondly hoped was a budding romance with Edna, he just leapt into fame. And by the time the Mildred passion was dead and expensively buried, and hectic rumors anent Mays and Claires started booming, even the highest-browed world critics were prepared to proclaim Charlie the superlative leader of his profession. Mildred herself had sighed in the more modest ranks of her Art until the passionate Charlie incident. After that, with her love dying in splendid pain, she was heralded as an honest-to-goodness actress. That is probably the whole secret. Art demands that it be won by passionate heart-suffering. And there can be no great and noble suffering where there has been no passionately furious love. It has been much the same with all geniuses through history. They just had to love ardently and have their hearts utterly crushed and mangled half a dozen times before the real merit of their genius captured the world. TTaKE Pauline Frederick. Do you suppose she could have achieved the standing in the profession that has been hers if she had remained an unkissed virgin woman? One marriage, one passion and one disastrous heart-break set her feet upon the road. The second sent her salary whizzing up to dizzy heights. Oh, Willard Mack can take some credit to himself for that. And now, with a nice new medical husband, one of two alternatives confront her. Either she will retire into sweet perpetual domes ticity with her doctor-husband No. 3, settling down to hearth and home and suburban righteousness, or, by breaking her heart just once more, she may rise to heights undreamed of as an emotional dramatic actress of real class. We have seen for ourselves that the secure, mildly happy marital suburban home stuff affords postively no urge for greater and vaster development of genius. Jack Pickford is getting along pretty well with his sumptuous romantic love experiences. Without them I fear he would merely have remained Mary's brother. But that family knows the value of heart-throbs and heartbreaks— even Lottie has done her bit towards maintaining the loftily emotional family traditions. Of course, when we come to Gloria Swanson, we have another glittering example. Even Gloria's mamma courageously contributed to the family romance. Gloria herself grows professionally more distinguished with every heart pang. She, too, married for passionate love, accepting the private name of Mrs. Sanborn with sweet sacrificial docility in the great cause of romance. And she "experienced maternity" to round it out with that completeness which the novelists and sentimentalists assure us consecrates the union. But an inexorable Fate, for the sake of her Art, snatched this pangful passionate marital love from her that greater genius might be born in suffering. But she is not going to be allowed to wilt in her bereaved sorrow. Instinctively we feel another grandc passion looming on the horizon for Gloria, directly the gentleman can shed his own former grand passion. In the meantime, Mr. Sanborn has been doing what he can to bring solace to Peggy Hopkins Joyce — that young lady whose various millionairy heart-pangs and ruthless romantic debacles are rapidly fitting her for great emotional roles — ahem! So you see nobody's love is allowed to go to waste — it is merely a case of fertile transplanting — the separating and cutting-back processes that make for the greater glory of the well-cared-for garden. BlANCHE SWEET and Marshall Neilan (although his bungalow is too small to hold them both) are still insisting upon the vitality of their romance. But one does feel that the gardener is at work, pruning, cutting out the dead wood — and preparing for a little repotting. And, as with our amazing orange groves, it is beautiful to see a tree bearing both fruit and flower at the self-same time— the flower preparing for the next year's crop, while the fruit consummates that of the previous season. So far, Bebe Daniels has not been officially and maritally proclaimed amongst the ranks of the great romanticists. But as her fame grows we feel the great romantic influences at work. Whether Peggy took Jack Dempsey away from Bebe or Bebe took Jack away from Peggy is somewhat confused in our minds — but anyway it seems evident that the champion pugilist is some sort of an instrument of romantic Fate for the greater glory of these young women's professional genius. The Gish girls have been a trifle slow in culling the expansive inspiration of romance and its heart-breaks. However, Dorothy took a header not so very long ago which may yet help along the exquisitely painful path of genius. So far, there is marked evidence of conservatism and maternal guidance. But Constance Talmadge snatched the passionate romance and the exquisite suffering almost in one mouthful. Why should her millionaire tobacconist husband begrudge her this tremendous inspiration in her Art? He should be humbly grateful that Fate chose him as the worthy instrument. Connie, you will observe, is already benefiting by the hectic emotional heart-breaking experience — we have her publicity man's word for it that her Art is greater than ever before. 42