Silver Screen (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

anything nicer than starting with Bette and, for my own part, I'd be perfectly satisfied to finish up with Bette, too. (You see, Bette, how easy I make things for you? You don't even have to wait for Leap Year). For the first time in years she plays the part of a rich girl in a modern era. She belongs to a wealthy Long Island set which plays hard— but clean. Their credo is the thoroughbred and his courage. While the sands of life run against her in this picture, the films may never focus on a more gallant figure than Bette as Julie Traherne. When the story opens a shadow of illness has fallen upon her but it is something she brushes aside until her friends force her to consult Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent). He quickly diagnoses her case, without letting her know, but she doesn't like the questions he has asked and the answers he has supplied. "I'm sorry to have wasted so much of your time," she says frigidly as she starts for the door, "but this is my last interview with doctors." "That's right," he needles her. "Run away because you're frightened." "That isn't true," she blazes, whirling on him. "Oh, yes it is," he retorts. "That's why you held certain things back from Dr. Parons. You were afraid to admit them. You didn't tell him you've been having these headaches for months— but you have— and they've been getting worse lately, until now you're never free of them. And your eyes have been cutting up, too— just as though someone were shutting a pair of folding doors, until your vision is almost cut in half. You pretended it was imagination, but it isn't. Then that queer, dull feeling in your right arm. You couldn't laugh that off. I'll tell you how you got those burns— a cigarette! It burned your fingers and you never felt it because your tactile nerves are paralyzed. Your memory is all shot to pieces. You can't concentrate. Look at your bridge scores!" Ha, Dr. Brent, you should look at mine! "It's a lie!" Bette fumes. "I'm well! Why do you bully me like this?" "Cut!" calls Director Edmund Goulding. So I draw a breath and look around. There is a huge basket of flowers which Bette sent Mr. Goulding at the start of the picture. And that is just another indication of Bette's character. Upset as she is over her separation from her husband, she still thinks of others and makes gestures like that! "Hi, son," she greets me. "If you're still around when we knock off for the day, drop over to my dressing room and have a cocktail. You should feel at home there. I've just moved into the one your frieind Kay Fran "Thanks For Everything." Jack Oakie, Binnie Barnes, Adolphe Menjou, Arleen Whalen and Jack Haley. Shirley Temple in the char acter of "The Little Prin Alice Faye and Constance Bennett fight, slap, punch and cis used to have." wrestle for "Tail "I'll be there if I spin." have to miss my train," I promise. And then I get a load of Mr. Brent. For the first time in a couple of years he's wearing a mustache. "Ah, the Gable influence," I jibe him. But George only grins. "It does look kind of scrubby, doesn't it?" Well, there's no fun needling people who spike your guns so I meander on to another stage and it happens to be the one where "Crime Is A Racket" is shooting. I forgot to mention that Billy Halop (one of the Dead End kids) is also in this picture. He plays Gale's brother. Harvey Stephens (a private patrolman, whatever that is) is her fiance. Billy is a promising youngster until he meets Humph, a seasoned, though small-time crook, ten or eleven years Billy's senior. Neither Gale nor Harvey is able to break up the friendship. One night Harvey waits for Humph in Kelly's poolroom and saloon. "Off ya' beat, ain't ya, Burke?" Humph inquires truculently. "Yeah— this is just a little overtime job," Harvey replies, looking him over slowly. "Ya might find overtime don't pay down here," Humph counters. "That's just what I told Johnny (Billy)," Harvey retorts levelly. "Listen, Burke," Bogart bristles, "if Johnny's lucky enough to be a friend of mine, that's our business. So lay off him, see?" "I know your business, Wilson," Harvey comes back quietly. "You're a cheap, small-time crook. And some day I'm going to put you where you belong." With that he turns and goes up the steps and I turn and go right over to where Gale is sitting on the side f *™ lines. "Dick!" she yells. "Fancy meeting you here! Before I forget it, I'm living in the home of a friend for a month. It's one of those old mansions over in the Wilshire District and it's really something. I'm entertaining like mad this month while I have all the trimmings with which to be really elegant. You'd better drop over for dinner one night because for all I know it's the only time in my life I may ever have all the trimmings." "You may count on me," I assure her. "In fact, you may count on me tonight because I'm leaving around eleven to be gone a month. "How lovely!" Gale murmurs without thinking. "I mean, how lovely that you can have a month off." All of a sudden I find myself wondering if Gale did say it without thinking, but I dismiss the idea with a pooh, because Gale is the one person I know who really thinks Hollywood is wonderful and who is constantly surprised because people are nice to her. She needn't be surprised because she is one of the nicest people I know. In case you don't remember, Gale was the fourth daughter in "Four Daughters"— the one who wasn't a Lane Sister (No, Lola, no dig is intended. You were all swell). Suddenly it is 4:00 o'clock and I learn through underground sources that the Bette Davis company has already knocked off work so I amble over to the Davis dressing room where Bette helps herself to a cigarette and me to a [Continued on page 58] for January 1939 51