Select Pictures Magazine (1918)

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SELECT PICTURES MAGAZINE Page 3 Constance in Comedy plus Drama T HE excellence of Constance Talmadge! This is a subject that is becoming more and more popular with critical reviewers who are watching her work as a comedienne. She is developing a new style of light comedy that is all her own, and with each*picture she demonstrates more fully her right to be considered one of the biggest stars of the screen. Constance is in a class by herself. There is no one on the screen today who is doing the same sort of work that she is. She has a field of her own in which she reigns supreme. Her field is good, clean comedy; not the hit-or-miss variety of slap-stick comedy, but drawing-room come- dy — comedy plus drama. If you want to know why the effervescent and always delightful Constance is the queen of high comedy it is because, as she says, she likes comedy parts better than others, and wants to play in them always. She likes comedy parts because she loves fun more than anything else in the world, and she loves fun because she’s eighteen! “When I play a comedy part I can get into the spirit of it so easily” says Constance. “I understand it; it seems so much more true to the life I know, than parts that call for the depiction of suffering. Later I may grow to like emotional roles, but just now I like my parts to be happy parts, char- acters to make the people who see me happy.” There is a spontaneity and joyous quality about the fun-making of Constance that goes straight to the hearts of her audiences, making them her friends for life. In real life she is one of the most likeable of girls, and she puts this same ele- ment of friendliness into her pictures. Constance Talmadge is as different from her sister as one could imagine, and yet there are moments when she looks and acts so much like Norma that the similarity is almost uncanny. She is tall; Norma is petite. She is fair with the warmth of summer; Norma is dark with the dusky mystery of trop- ical night. And yet the family character is obvious, and makes them sisters in more than name. Constance hates men! She said so! “Idon’tlike men,” says Constance. “I mean I don’t like most men. I never could marry a man who wore tan but- toned shoes, or ate spinach, or carried an umbrella, or had a beard, or said, ‘I’m feeling badly’, or wore a ring on his middle finger, or sang tenor. Of course there are plenty of other things which might forever bar him from becom- ing my lawful protec- tor, but those are the seven deadly sins.” (This may be temper- ament but as accom- plished an artist as Constance, is entitled to it.) Constance Tal- madge, since she first sprang into fame on the screen with her portrayal of the Mountain Girl in D. W. Griffith’s great drama, “Intolerance,” has steadily proved her ability to portray dashing, vivacious roles. Her Select Pic- tures have afforded her splendid opportunities and she has taken full advantage of every one. “A Lady’s Name”, her newest success, in which she is presented by Lewis J. Selznick, comes from the pen of Cyril Harcourt, who wrote “A Pair of Silk Stockings” in which Miss Tal- madge starred recently. It is a delightful comedy of surprisingly original situations, and she is given excellent support by a well trained cast. Three guesses. What’s Constance worrying about?