Silver Screen (Nov 1931-Oct 1932)

Silver Screen for December 1931 59 Are You Helen Hayes Conscious? [Continued from page 25] course. One doesn't spend almost an entire lifetime in the theatre without accumulating a long list of acquaintances and friends. Her first trip through the studio was a constant procession of droppings-in-to-see people and of gay hellos. The telephone at her home and in her new green-and-silver dressing room rang constantly. There was no swank, no big-star highhattishness about this young lady from Broadway. She has had homes all over the country. Coming to Hollywood was merely moving into another, which she had often visited but in which she had never lived. I met Miss Hayes on one of the sound stages in the M-G-M studios. She was quite grand that day, that is, as grand as an even five feet and a hundred pounds and twinkling brown eyes can be grand. She was dressed in a very low-cut and very trainy white satin evening gown of a yesterdav's generation. Her brownishblonde hair was piled high in little ringlets o^ her head. "They say that making motion pictures is like eating olives, you have to learn to like them both," she laughed, settling down gingerly in a folding chair so as not to muss the white satin folds of her gown. "They sort of bewilder you at first. It's so different from what you expect. "I have learned one thing, however," she went on, seriously now, "and that is a great new respect for the picture actors. I might as well confess that we veterans of the stage looked with a sort of mature condescension on their artistic ability. We didn't take them seriously as actors. We admitted the force of their personalities and decided that it was through a screenable charm that they gained their great personality. "But after a few weeks of experience in their game, I've come to the conclusion that they are far greater artists than any one gives them credit for being. They work under difficulties which people of the stage don't know how to face. We, at least, can build our scenes, naturally and in ascending force. They have to cut off their emotions at dramatic moments and start right in again where they left off in a former scene. I take my hat off to them, everyone." This, from Helen Hayes, whom many critics have acclaimed as the greatest of the younger generation of American actresses. "You see," she continued, "I have known nothing but the stage all my life. I started when I was six, playing a child's part in the stock company in my home town of Washington. The manager liked me and through the next several seasons, he called me whenever there was a juvenile part in the plays." Then Lew Fields came to town and saw the child Helen. "If you and the Httle girl ever come to New York, look me up," he told Mrs. Brown, Helen's mother, while Helen listened with wide eyes, "and I'll find a place for her." A year or so later mother and daughter went up to New York and followed Mr. Fields' instructions. Within a very few weeks Helen was playing a child comedy sketch with the Lew Fields' company. From fourteen to seventeen Helen went to school at a Washington convent. She won all the debating contests, was the ring leader in all the school theatricals ancl seriously considered giving up her stage ambitions to become a nun. But when she was offered the leading role in "Pollyanna", because the New York managers had not forgotten the little girl who "lilted", she packed her bag and her mother and was back on Broadway before her family realized what was hap pening. And, until June of this year, she has continued on the stage. It was "Coquette" which brought her her greatest fame and her greatest happiness. During the time of playing the little southern girl who walked quietly out of the room and shot herself, she met and married young Charles MacArthur, newspaper man, playwright and very swell person. And it was also during "Coquette" that Mary MacArthur was born and became famed as "The Act of God" baby because a court ruled that a baby came under the Act of God classification for which theatrical contracts might be terminated. "Before Mary was born, I never planned very definitely for the future," Miss Hayes said that day on the sound stage, "I always thought of myself as acting until I was too old to act any more. I couldn't imagine any life away from the theatre. "But now I have very definite plans as to the future. I want to work for ten more years. Then I will retire and settle down to a quiet life with Charlie and Mary. Mary will be almost twelve then and she'll need me more than she does now when she's such a tiny thing." Miss Hayes stood up because her maid wanted to fix her dress for the next scene. As she powdered her face she laughed, "Oh, I've discovered another thing, too, and that's the fact that I have a face. On the stage it didn't matter. But when I'm in front of the cameras, I get all faceconscious." Sam Goldwyn and Ronald Colman must have gotten Helen-Hayes-face-conscious too, for hardly had Helen taken a deep breath after completing her first picture than she was summoned over to the United Artists lot to play the little nurse who loved a doctor in "Arrowsmith". A great team that — Helen Hayes and Ronald Colman! You'll love it. GAY DIPLOMAT. Well, here's your newest THE heart-throb, girls, step Good right up and meet Mr. (Radio) Ivan Lebedeff, the near est thing we have to the late Rudy Valentino on the Hollywood diet. In this one han plays a handsome spv commanded to make love to heaiitilul ladies tor intormation. There's an exciting climax. Genevieve 1 obin and Betty Compson are two of the beautiful ladies. GRAFT It's an old, old story fair but still rather exciting. (Universal) Another dumb news paper reporter sets out to catch a murderer and clean up a city. Of course the dopey news hound wins out in the end by dumping all manner of crooks and nundcrers on the city editor's desk with the scoop of the year. l?.egis Toomey and Sue Carol are in it. „_,.#,.—« GUILTY HANDS Do you want lo he bafGood fled? Well, try this mys (M-G-M) tcrv thriller. Lionel Barrvmore, as a retired district attorney. commits a murder, fastens the blame on an Talkies in Tabloid [Continued from page 10] other, and then manages things the way he , wants them, until— Kay Francis and Madge Evans are splendid. >—'#"— I LIKE YOUR If it's romance you want, NERVE try this one. Young lair Doug does a Fairbanks ^First Naiional) Senior and cavorts all over South America, rescuing a damsel in distress, climbing balconies, and doing daring deeds. I^oretta ^oung is the damsel. LARCENY LANE Here s grand entertainSblendid mcnt. )ames Cagney (Warners) pi.,ys ^ si'nall town bell hop with ambitions for big town shakedown. He picks a girl and they spend a successful season of gyping. But the girl goes noble and marries a society youth and fcagnev loses interest in his racket. There's a sinprise ending that's a knock-out. Joan Blondell is the girl. '—'■%> THE SIN OF Get out vour MADELON CLAUDET handkerchief. Fair (M-C-M) |,„. ^\^\^ is an okl-lashioned weepic. Neil Hamilton is up to his old tricks again luring a ])retty girl a\\'ay on the pretense of marriage. He disappears and Lewis Stone is left to console the girl (Helen Hayes) who has a baby and a lot of disillusions. Helen has to become a bad girl to be a good mother— or osmething like that. ■ — — " MAD GENIUS. A powerful picture with THE .John Barrvmore turning Good in an im])ressi\e per (Tarners) formance. He plays a cripple who longs to be a great dancer and fuKills his own dreams through a foundling whom he trains. There is a blood-curdling climax. MAGNIFICENT ll^iis picture is Ruth LIE, THE Chatterton and not nuith Fair else. If you're a Chat (Paramoiinl) K-rton fan you'll bug it to yoin heart, and if nou'h' i\ot you'll probably be bored. Ruth phus the role of .1 hard-boiled little cafe singer who impei sonales a famous I'icnch actress to appeas;' a blind bo\ (Ralph Bellam\). Stuart l-'.rwin gives a spletulid pet foi niann'. [Coiilinucd (lu /"ii;c <)l']