Evening star., 1940-01-03

WIllCiI 1lc ID QudA4lcu W opcdh Will
day afternoon in his smoke filled
drawing room CA, Car 90 en- route
to Atlanta Uhe critics having met
him in Baltimore). Most perform
ers look upon writer's simply as the
reason they are not the No. l box
Office draw, the Booth or the Bern
hardt, of their generation. If a
writer could be other than that,
the average player would be glad
so to inform any interviewer, bliss
fully, ignoring the truth that an
interviewer, in his humble way, also
is a dealer in words.
Laughton is not like that. OF
writer's, he admits longing for the
day when the literature of the
screen will produce its own Shaw,
Maugham, or someone of similar
artistic dimensions. He regards it
as unfortunate for the motion pic
ture and the creative genius of lit
erature that they have such COM
plete mutual misunderstanding.
On the part of the latter, natur-
ally fellow with a great flair for
Incidence and a correlative aver
sion to hard work, Mr. Laughton
can see a reason for his disinter-
est in writing strictly for pictures.
Such a writer" he says. will
have to learn to think in different
terms. He will have to write in
images instead of words. That
won't be easy. Of course, although
Vaughan, Shaw and Welles all
have told me that they wished they
were young enough to undertake
it,"
Of the record. Laughton thinks
they are. He even has argued with
them about it but he finds that 1t
is one of the troubles with writers
that once they have made up their
minds, there is little anyone can
do about it. Especially there is
nothing an actor can do about it,
even If he happens to be one of
those rare players who sees the
play as the thing.
The actor now to be seen at
Keiths in "The Hunchback of
Notre Dame" Chats the plug, is
not limited to the subject of writer's
when he is talking with people who
have notebooks in their hands.
He is an interviewee after this
departments own (shriveled heart
when he agrees, speaking of per-
formers, that the greatest actor is
the greatest ham. He is the same
when it comes to his opinion that
Clark Gable and Gary Cooper are
two of the best performers on the
screen because they can make mil
lions of their fans forget they are
acting, that they can be themselves
and the character they are playing
at one and the same time.
The etiquette Of his profession
keeps Laughton from making COM
parsons between this director and
that, this writer and the other one,
ETC., but it does not deter him from
expressing an enormous admira-
ton for Leo McCarey. McCarey,
who recently was injured in an au-
tomobile mishap, is the director
who introduced Laughton to the
American public in "Ruggles of Red
Cap" as American thing as any
English actor ever dared to play.
He also is the cinema genius whose
most recent picture, Love Affair"
with Charles Boyer and Irene
Dunno, was a 10-best picture in
1899.
"A great genius" says Laughton,
the man whose fair for accurate
description once inspired him to
describe himself as looking like the
rear end of an elephant.
\ + X
OF his current picture, "The
Hunchback of Notre Dame" Laugh
ton is more full of admiration for its
long dead author, Victor Hugo, than
for any of its other merits. Greatest
scene in it, he thinks, is the pillory
passage in which he and his asso-
ciates have no dialogue.
1T is one of the greatest bits Of
pantomime ever written" he says,
land it was played (not played it,
just as Hugo wrote it,"
When a member of the less virile
sex among his interviewers coun-
tered with the observation that the
scene made her i'll, Laughton's an
Swer was:
THAT is what makes 1t good"
X X X X
Laughton's sincerity is matched
apparently, at any rate) by his ad-
miration of the quality in Others It
is evident in his praise of the writing
style of Elsa Manchester, his wife,
whose Charles Laughton and I"
is an unminced word portrait Of
pair of fascinating professionals.
I'm trying to urge her to write
more" he says. "She has good
style"
A critic who interviewed him in a
smoky drawing room can agree that
she at least made Laughton sound
I