Judge — August 1934 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Judge THE MOVIES By PARE LORENTZ Midsummer Notes The Star System NCE. a producer has discovered a box office draw he im- O mediately sets out to make the golden goose lay eggs overtime and by the time the first year of the star’s popu larity has been counted up that star already has begun to fade. The current be ation in movies is a five year old child, Shirl She has made four pictures to ies, and box office boys alike are hys terical over the child’s talents. By the time the ten cent store magazines have discovered just what sort of food the little lady likes to eat; whether she loves mumsie or poppit ad x office ser Temple. date. The fans, eri : who she would like to marry when she lady be whether she wants to be ows up: 1 mother, actress or wife a There's a woman stowaway on board, sir!” she probably will have appeared in seven more pictures—and ? | the public will be sick of her every mannerism, which they been developed had any director or producer wanted to go will know as well as they know the intimate characteristics to the trouble, of their immediate families, But the answer is the boys are running themselves right The fact is, the public is sick of Hollywood's faces. There out of business by the paradox of the star system. By the | hasn't been a real vivid actress, a distinct personality, devel: time they have promoted a personality, spent millions ex- | oped in Hollywood since La Garbo first demonstrated the ple g it, and pushed the star into six feature movies, they horror of it all in “The Flesh and the Devil.” The only two also have put themselves down for large salary contracts men who have brought individual style, personality and some Thus they have to use the star in ler to squeeze all the f talent to the movies within the past years were nil money they can out of the property they have made valu- ) annings and Charles Laughton—both of them character able; and the more pictures the star makes the less value he actors. or she has to the public. There have been dozens of talented pe buried under a There have been dozens of talented actresses and actors cloud of agents, supervisors and options who might have on the coast who, given the slightest time could have director, “en developed quickly into é just as valuable movie players as any of the all too familiar leading actors | currently appearing in pictures, Ray- mond Massey and Philip Merivale, to mention two fairly well known players . in their own 4 and Dorothea Wieck and Rene Clair’s Annabella, to mention two successful European actre cither were miscast or not cast at all during their rece! But, talented se en of the Coopers and Gables and They may be able to. guar- es on interior moy because the public will go to see them, but t public is growing older, and, from t corpora it sojourn on the otherwise, we antee on rey » just a little weary. The Directors HERE hasn't been nofa rial idea in Hollywood since Mamoulian for hat he learned from Rene Clair, The t i the direc river when the talkies came in. While the producers and supervisors were ny new direct t even ors sold themselves wringing their hands in ignorance, ut- terly at a loss to know what to do with 20 comicbooks.com