Evening star., 1934-07-03

Fundamentally, the ballyhoo boys
for flickerS are shreWd, imaginative
gentlemen with prodigious talents for
building up legends and personalities
around former chorus girls and shoe
statesmen. 1t is only when they sit
down to address a few words to the
drama scribes that suddenly there
sweeps over them the state of mind
of sentimental Victorian novel,
ist. Lush phrases, a tenderness al
most incredible in eX-neWSpapermen
and circus barkers, stream forth from
their souls Even when they have
been dispensing stories via the hand
out for years, and never yet seen a
newspaper that would print the yarns
in their original over-ripe form, they
stick unwaveringly to the style.
Sooner or later each and every one
of their stories is in turn rewritten,
the Juice drained off and the meat
boiled down. The drama desk does
that work. Whatever the new style,
it is at least not that of a handout
Not to disparage those excellent in
StitutionS. The news contained in
them is invaluable to every commen-
tator on the films. But never will we
cease to wonder over the naivete of
the men who pen quite seriously such
an item as the one quoted below:
Being a screen star is very nice,
Clark Gable remarked, and he
wouldn't have missed it for anything.
But being a star all the time is like
eating too much chocolate cake, it
becomes Saccharine.
so he goes hunting.
"'You could be king of the world.
with all the power and glory imagin-
able he said, and one night alone in
a mountain forest would be convincing
proof that you were only one man, a
puny thing against the grandeur and
force of nature.
And it's just that feeling, he con-
tinued, that most stars need. It's the
most bhsSful. humaniZing thing pos
sible. You become person instead of
a personality and the change is great.
Gable, tanned and deep-cheSted,
returned from just such an expedition
recently to co-Star with Joan Crawford
in Sacred and Profane Love-, which
Clarence Brown is directing at M-G-M,
He is proudly showing photographs he
took of his game-mountain lions,
bear and string of jack rabbits.
The health aspect, Gable said, is
as important as the psychological The
strain of picture work requires relaxa-
ton, and for myself l can find it only
In a complete change of scene.
4 Y +
WE WHO are somewhat removed
from the heart beat of the indus
Try are supposed to believe, apparently,
that such stirring little items as the
above are the meat and drink Of
movie fans. The first-hand pulse
holders. men on the scene of action,
tell us SO.
More amusing yet are the SpurtS OF
indignation which burst forth occa-
sionally from those handsomely
trained cerebra of blurb writers. For
example. not long ago there drifted
in a loud, typewriter howl about the
vulgar curiosity of the common
peepul' in biting, fighting and claw
ing to get near a film stars funeral.
All the stars, it seems. while they
are willing to sacrifice their hearts
and souls to a dreary life before the
camera, either movie or newspaper,
would like to be planted privately.
Obviously that is a reasonable request,
albeit people trained for years at the
fine art of standing in mobS to watch
a cinema celebrity walk. might be
expected out of habit to do the same
thing when she was carried away to
her last resting place.
Granting the premise, however, that
public curiosity at movie funerals
sometimes is positively indecent. then
what? Say that Rudolph Valentines
funeral was barbaric show (but who
hired that solid line of foreign cars?
The public?), admit that it was in
human to jam the Lilyan Tashman
rites so violently that police had to
rescue her husband from the crush
conceded, all that. And what about
the Dorothy Dell funeral?
All, yes. That was the incident
which prompted the press agents re-
cent TRADE in the first place. He
again complained. And in closing
casually remarked that Miss Dell. just
before her death had been working in
O picture with young Shirley Temple.