Evening star., 1933-11-15

You might have smiled a little If
you could have seen him. Because
MUM Is fundamentally cheerful per-
son, given to sly puns, and, we suspect,
bad verse, and generally happy war
rior In the service of the theater. But
at the moment he was showed under
with old age and trying to project him
self as far as possible into years that
were almost half century ahead OF
him. He was frankly not himself.
MUM is by all odds the most serious
worker in the cinema. When he has
to grow old he is old. He gets him
self all worked up until he actually be-
lieves himself to be almost out of COM
mission. He won't see friends, he won't
go anywhere, except from his home to
his dressing room and from his dressing
room onto the lot I'D ask you to din
ner" he said in an apologetic voice.
sbut / couldn't really talk to you. /
can't really do anything these days
Look how old ! am. It's gotten way
under my skin. / can scarcely be civil
TO people, I've gotten SO grouchy and
encient."
He tried to laugh, but you could see
that he was quite sincere. When Mum
works he puts the past behind him
and slaps himself wholesale into what
ever he is doing. His role, that OF Grin
Nordholm in "The World Changes" Is
one of those American pseudo-caval-
cade businesses, In which he must
progress from youth to old age. Youth,
for Mr.. Muni, is cinch, but old age
is q long and bitter grind.
For this grind he would rise at in
the morning, get himself to the studio
three quarters of an hour later and
emerge from his dressing room about two
hours after that, after q makeup siege
that would have done credit to Brother
Frankenstein. You couldn't possibly
have recognized him unless you detected
that snap In his eyes which is one OF
the NUM- characteristics. He could stop
for moment and talk to you, but, as
Mrs. MUM said, who sat in a chair
watching her husband (from dawn until
dusk), He Is lost to the world until
the picture Is over"
Thus, the workings of great actor,
since undeniably NUM- is one of the few
real magicians of the stage and screen.
He won't rest while the bacon's in the
fire; he won't do anything but think
anc talk and possibly dream the day
and age in which he Is meant to be
at that moment.
!. We haven't seen his new film, but
we are certain that MUM is splendid in
It. Such care as he takes cannot help
but being properly rewarded. No man
who works as hard as he does over a
fiim could ever turn in mediocre per-
formance If he looked as much like
an old man on the set as he did when
we saw him, the chances are 10 to
that the camera cannot have lied IN
transferring him to the screen. AS far
as we could see, he was a grand old
man.
ONE Of the pleasanter screen an
nouncements is that 'Disraeli,"
George Arliss' best film, will be re-
issued in the near future.
This is the picture which Arliss has
never been able to outdo-and which
was perhaps the only feather in the
Arliss-W Warner Bros. cap. Subsequently
Arliss suffered dour fate, leaping from
crag to crag with great good humor.
but invariably ending up with some
cinematic script far beneath his tai
ents. Even "Voltaire," to our way of
thinking, was very poor fim-in
which MFR. Arliss struggled and
scratched away--but in which his noble
efforts could not outdo the general
cheapness Of the affair.
And you should have heard Charles
Laughton's comments on Miss Doris
Kenyon's performance as Nine. Du
Pompadour. They were not compli-
mentary.
A CCORDING to yesterdays Film
( Daily Bernard Shaw has given in
This means that the White.haired bard
of London has said "yes" to the films,
and that his Devils Disciple will be
turned into screen play for the his
Kenneth MacGowan, who is by way Of
being Clifford Brooke crony, ar
ranged all this.
X
ID -K-O KEITHS THEATER-which
= is having q restless time these
days, what with Midshipmen Jacks and
AIIGTI0N CAIES-Eu -EufTIIRE nAYG