Evening star., 1940-09-01

The setup is perfect. The result is awful
On rose-Colored couch three beautiful
girls are knitting sweaters; in corner
charming lass in a blue gown is mapping in a
love seat, her legs over one end, while near by
girl in red dress lies on the floor. gazing
reflectively at the ceiling.
A young man is reading the funny paper,
another is playing solitaire; third is hunChed
up in chair with his shoes off.
Nobody is even talking.
There is stir in the adjoining room and
in the doorway appears girl OF such beauty
that even these others seem plain. She is
dressed in white. Her hair is deep, rich
brown above cameolike face, and her red,
expressive lips are strikingly lovely; but it is
fier eyes that you see most, and longest.
These are large, dark. and, like her lips,
barely conceal soft, appealing smile.
The effect on the somnambulant party is
immediate The girl on the floor gets up; the
man puts on his shoes; the sleeping beauty on
the love seat wakes up and pats her hair.
Olivia de Havilland, the star of the picture,
has arrived, and it's time to go to work.
Some people" an electrician whispers to
an assistant CdIneIdIIldn, ndVc dill lIlc LUCK.
Born with face like that"
But Miss de Havilland has spent the last
six months persuading her studio to discount
these more static phases of her charm: to quit
casting her as super doll with real hair and
eyes that open and shut, to let her get in there
and pitch. That is to say, she has successfully
trampled mderfoot the luck" of being too
81 IL
appealing pair of eyes in Hollywood She has
surmounted the handicap Ito serious actress
of being born with face like that"
Too beautiful to be real.
Dreom Girl
i HIS impression had been enhanced by the
roles - rather, by the role - in which, up to
Gone With The Wind, she had been cast per-
~sistently ever since she entered movies five
years ago. 1t seems that all the old prints
handed down from a more romantic age had
shown somebody in the splitting image of Miss
de Havilland leaning from tower, hands
clasped, while below stood some kind of
medieval general bearing the enemy's scalp
on his spear. 1t was clear that she was a down.
right natural as the Dream Girl for whose
lovely hand all battles had been fought since
the beginning Of time.
So she instantly was typed as the standard
movie version of Reward For Valor, for whose
hand Enrol Flynn was killing all the pirates
or lancing all the bad knights. This was occa-
sionaly varied by having such actors as
Fredric March, Brian Aherne and George
Brent 60 in to bat for Flynn; but always the
hero came bounding into the last scene usu-
ally by way of some kind of parapet, to claim
Olivia as first prize.
She had to labor under such monikers as
Hernia, Arabella, Angela Elsa, Germaine
and Maid Marian, and if these names alone
do not reflect the general idea, here are the
titles of pictures from which, respectively
they were taken: Midsummer Nights Dream
captain Blood, Anthony Adverse, The Charge
of the Light Brigade, The Great Garrick and
Robin Hood.
In such roles Miss de Havilland was an
exceedingly valuable bit of bric-a -brac to
the studio and the script writer's Here was
an actress who, just by appearing at the right
moment. could pull together any picture con-
ceived in the romantic tradition. However
vague or complicated the reason for all the
shouting and fighting and shooting of arrows
or firing of cannon, when the conquering hero
held her up to show the audience what he had
won, all became clear. The picture then had
Reason that nobody could miss; whatever