Silver Screen (Nov 1930-Oct 1931)

Silver Screen for January 193 59 The Greatest Star in Hollywood [Continued from page 32] have sky-rocketed and vanished into the limbo of forgotten things. Pickford cuts her curls, Clara Bow plays hearts, Harry Langdon gets a Hamlet complex, Colleen Moore leaves Hollywood for the stage, ad infinatum, world without end, amen. Unquestionably Dick's early training and education influenced his beginnings and that foundation has proven of solid and lasting quality. When considering the why and wherefore of Barthelmess' long and successful career it is well to remember that foundation. No man ever really gets away from it. Heredity and environment do make the man, no matter what skeptics may say. Unquestionably his artistic and temperamental heritage are vital factors in his work. From his mother he has inherited the fire and brilliance that mark his interpretations. His moody aspect and his deep, unforgettable eyes are hers. While he was growing up, Richard Barthelmess spent many hours standing behind wings during the production of a play. Many more hours he sat and gazed dreamily at the experienced actor in a studio. Often he went to see a John Barrymore play and spent his visit not to enjoy the show so much as to study the famous Barrymore technique. He had left Trinity College before his senior year. His mind was definitely set that acting was to be his life-work. There was nothing of the stage-struck youth about his early attitude. He had deliberately chosen the stage because he thought it a good money-making business. With this state of mind he set out to learn all he could about acting and the drama. Today, after thirteen years, he is one of few actors who can sit in story conferences and argue stories just as readily as an author, who can discuss directorial points with the greatest of directors. The fact is that Richard Barthelmess is one actor who is not directed; I have never seen a director presume to tell him how a scene should be played. If anything, I have seen him suggest to directors that such-and-such a thing be done, which invariably resulted in a superlative scene for which the director received critical encomiums upon the release of the picture. From beginning to end, from the purchase of a story to the final cutting, Barthelmess is interested and has a sure hand in its development. No phase of it escapes his interest and concern. DICK is an inveterate reader. He is unique in that he not only boasts a large library but also knows what is in the books he owns. In addition, he reads the best and latest magazines. These two points, coupled with his semi-annual visits to New York, his periodic globe-trotting and his general interest in public affairs, give him a breadth of view and an up-to-dateness highly important in a business that depends largely on its timeliness. He makes it a business to see the latest pictures, believing that it is of inestimable value to him to know what type of pictures are succeeding and what are not. If it were at all possible to touch the one vital secret of his success, I should say that it was "thought". I mean the mechanism of actual thinking. He thinks things out. I remember an incident that will serve as an excellent example of what I mean. It happened during the making of "The Noose", generally conceded one of his finest characterizations. Director John Francis Dillon outlined the action of the scene to the principals and Barthelmess. Then he suggested that they go through it. Barthelmess looked puzzled a minute and said, "^eH^ what am I thinking of in this scene?" Again the director repeated the business of the scene, but Barthelmess interrupted: "You don't understand. Jack. What I want to know is what is going on in my mind when I do these things? What am I thinking about? If I knovv_ that, the acting will take care of itself." That's the Barthelmess formula. SIX or seven years ago it would not have been possible to have a "Dawn Patrol". Barthelmess was not ripe for such work. His public were not prepared for it. They demanded the wistful boy of "Tol'able David". The constantly suffering boy that won him his early following, which following he has held so staunchly. But time changes all things. Barthelmess knows that, and thinks about it. The thing he would not have attempted five years ago he dares today — and with unqualified success. Today, with maturity of mind and body, with more sophisticated audiences to appeal to, with an altered public attitude, he is not afraid to delineate a prize-fighter or a gangster or a hardboiled, unsympathetic seaman. Another thing about this Barthelmess. He has sense enough to know that his pictures are known as Barthelmess productions, therefore anything of merit in his pictures will redound to his credit. Therefore, if a leading woman or a male support gives a great performance or comes near stealing the picture, the credit is, in the final analysis, to the star who made the picture. Dozens of leading ladies have come near stealing Barthelmess pictures. And men, too. There was Bill Powell in "The Bright Shawl", Ernest Torrence in "Tol'able David", and only recently Doug Fairbanks, Jr., and Neil Hamilton in "The Dawn Patrol". What happened? Nothing except that such excellencies of acting and performance are expected in Barthelmess productions and such expectations are box-office — which, in terms of groceries and transAtlantic suites spells a flock of comfort in one's old age. Richard Barthelmess is even now looking ahead and dreaming of the things he would like to do. And when the time is ripe, he will. Speechless .MeaAFewHbrds Would Have Made Me But Now I Can Pace the largest Audience Without ATrace of Stage Fright! THE annual banquet of our Association — the biggest men in the industry present — and witliout warning the Chairman called on me to speak — and my mind went blank I I half rose, bowed awlcwardly and mumbled, "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me to-day," and dropped back in my chair. Speechless — when a few words would have made me I If I could have made a simple little speech — giving my opinion of trade conditions in a concise, witty, interesting way, I know I would have been made for life ! 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