Silver Screen (Nov 1933–Apr 1934)

52 Silver Screen for March 1934 Clicked TwiCe [Continued from page 17] was suited to pictures, and persuasion couldn't convince him otherwise. He raced about wildly, attempting to silence the nagging voice which told him that the things he was doing were pretty futile— that his place was on the stage and that the films weren't for him. He took a plane that night, and it seemed that one of the most promising screen careers of the decade had terminated. Certainly that was the way it looked when, months later, I went down from New York to catch him in a show in Philadelphia. I found him in a blaze of energy and playing to delighted crowds. The stage-door alley was packed with autograph seekers. "Isn't it great!" he exclaimed when we were back at the hotel. "This is something pictures can't give— this keyed-up feeling that you get from an audience in the flesh." "But those girls," I pointed out, "weren't hanging around to get a look at the Theatre Guild's pride and grief. They wanted to see the guy who played in 'Paid' and 'Five and Ten' and 'Waterloo Bridge.' Or am I being coarse?" His face clouded and I saw that despite his exuberance he had had the same thought. The general release of his pictures, particularly the last ones— "Waterloo Bridge" and "A House Divided," in which he had found his best camera angles— had shown clearly that he was wrong in his belief that he was not a screen, type. Yet, despite the clamor for his services in Hollywood, he continued on in an undistinguished season in New York. Returning to his Pasadena home for a summer vacation, he kept stoutly to his position of passing up the films. Unable to remain idle, he played a few weeks with the Pasadena Community Theatre, and once more was off for New York. "Maybe I'm a fool," he told me just before he left. "Things look bad back on Broadway, and Heaven knows the movie money wouldn't be unwelcome. And, then, it looks more and more all the time as if pictures are becoming the theatre of today. But I don't mind being broke if I can do the sort of things I like. No salary is large enough to make a dull role attractive— and it's only those awfully stupid straight parts that I've been offered here." Back in the Big Town he appeared in two plays, "Men Must Fight" and "American Dream." Both were marked down on the theatrical scoreboard as flops, and while they gave Doug the satisfaction of roles into which he really could set his teeth, they were woefully neglectful of his bank account. There is a general understanding that Doug is independently wealthy, an idea fostered by his spendthrift ways. But he is not moneyed— he has the same financial troubles which beset most of us. And often more so, due to the extravagance of his habits. "I can't help it," he admits blythely. "I've never been able to feel that money isn't a whole lot more fun to spend than to keep. I like good luggage and clothes and fine wines; I like to live well. If it keeps me broke in doing so, all right. Ever stop to think that that's a swell way to keep young?" Getting poor by spending is doubtless a pleasanter task than being so from scratch, but broke or not Doug is not one to take unwelcome work merely to obtain the w.k. root of all evil. Instead of taking picture offers in the East, he once more returned to Pasadena for summer stock— this time to repeat his New York and London hit in "Volpone." Again, impressed by his performance, the picture men approached him. We were swimming one afternoon when he suddenly went down to the bottom of the pool and stayed there for a long time. "Maybe he's sulking," Tommy Wanamaker suggested. But pretty soon he came up with the worried look which means he's been thinking. "Ah," we jeered, "effect shot of a Young Man with a Problem." "No problem," he said. "Just a kind of feeling that maybe I'm a chump for the ages. I was offered another contract this morning— another long-termer. That makes two. For five years. Five years! Good God, imagine being tied to a place for that long, having to do any role shoved at you! Any wonder that I told them to go stick—" He jumped back in the water and stayed under for so long that we were talking over dynamiting for the body when he came plunging back out. "If they'd only let you pick your spots!" he yelled. "But they won't— want to have you sewed up so they'll benefit too if you click in a good role. So they insist you sign a termer before they pass out the plum. Can't blame 'em, I suppose— but it's surely tough on people who hate restrictions, being tied up to one company." One of Doug's few delusions is that he has a fine singing voice. Suddenly he began to bray a ditty about the blues being all around his bed. Wanamaker and I went and hid in the water. When we came out Doug was balancing a highball glass on his forehead. "Guess it's about time to be making a start back East to see what's what on Broadway." "There's a broken manager for every light on Times Square," I pointed out. "You're like the guy who searched all over the world for diamonds, never looking for them where hey were— in his own backyard." "Maybe. Hollywood is my backyard, true enough, and certainly the diamonds are here. Looks like it's just a matter of us not being able to get together on a friendly basis." And then suddenly that happy condition arrived. Although not signed to one of the hated long-termers, Doug was given the part of Laurie opposite Katharine Hepburn in "Little Women." When the picture was finished and the raves over, his work echoed so loudly that they were heard down the street at Paramount. Whereupon he got the only male role in the fascinating special, "Eight Girls in a Boat." Now RKORadio wants him back for one of those super-super things. Which may show that diamonds yield themselves gracefully when the proper time comes. I said so the other afternoon as we sat immersed in a philosophical speakeasy glow. "Very nifty," he answered, "and it's also nice to be on the receiving end of some checks again— but I don't know. Actually I'm just as uncertain as to what the score is as I ever was. "I've got to keep going. My work is my life, and to get static in it would be fatal. A lot of people think I'm screwy, but I think there are a few of you who understand that in my own way I'm trying to be true to myself. And that's the important thing. It's killing to be a square peg in a round hole— and I don't know yet if this is my racket. I'm beginning to believe that it is, and that perhaps I've been mistaken in keeping away from it as long as I have. "Yet that's nothing new for me. I've made mistakes all my life, fallen down and got up and gone on. I remember some lines about mistakes that I once read: 'But that's no matter— tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . and one fine morning—' "That's it! To keep on trying— because after all it's the search that's the kick of life, and not the rewards!" Which explains perhaps why Douglass Montgomery has the distinction of being "The Star Who Clicked Twice." you know it very well." Mrs. Pat, whose acidulous remarks to the screen's "great" made dinner conversation in the past, hasn't been quite so verbose this trip— so far. Though she did tell Lilyan Tashman off at a recent party. Lil arrived wearing one of her smart creations from New York, and all the ladies were gurgling over it and admiring the birds of paradise that swept over the face. Mrs. Pat stood it as long as she could. "My dear," she said at last, "you look exactly like an English sheep dog in that extraordinary hat." Mrs. Pat didn't have to wTork that morning, but she thought it wouldn't hurt to drop around and talk to Director Goulding again about the possibility of getting little Moonbeam a part in the picture. Little Moonbeam (not to be confused with Moonyeen, the lady who got herself killed in "Smilin' Thru") is a white Pekingese who played with Mrs. Pat on the NewT York stage in "The Party," and he is quite stage JTvip 1 lCle [Continued from page 15] struck. In fact, as Mrs. Pat informed Eddie, he is pouting with Metro because he hasn't been allowed to act in any of their pictures. Well, I don't know whether Moonbeam got the job or not, but I do know that his fond mistress has a trust fund for him, and if she dies first he is to be kept in choice bones for the rest of his life. While Mrs. Pat argued it out with the director over her darling's prowess before the camera, I moved over to Lil Tashman's dressing room. Lil was supposed to be learning lines for her next scene where, as Norma's sister, she crashes a sedate English party stinking drunk. But learning lines to Lil is only a matter of seconds. She glances at the script for two seconds, then talks to ten different people on ten different subjects for an hour or so, and then arrives on the set letter perfect in her dialogue. This is the first time that Lil has worked on the Metro lot since she and Norma played together in "The Trial of Mary Duga.n," which was one of Metro's first talkies. She's an ardent Shearer fan and thinks that Norma is the best dressed of the screen stars— which always makes Norma laugh— and makes me laugh, too, when I think of the bare feet and the fog in her hair. Also, for the first time, La Tashman is wearing gowns designed by Adrian, and the studio is still gasping over her comments on a little tri-cornered creation Adrian whipped up for the Tashman head. "That," said Lil, "is too extreme." Which is the first time that Tashman has even admitted her limitations. Because of the daring style innovations of Norma's elaborate wardrobe in this picture, the studio has given orders that no full length "still" be made of her for publication until after the release of the picture. Isn't that exciting? I hear that what Adrian has done to the silhouette is something that will change your life. Can you wait!