Life — May 10, 1928 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

Pi wor id_ =. nary repay TAP Gi af Several Personalities € ¥, sae 9 Bi ‘Tnere are times when a foreign language seems almost useless as a means of com- munication, as, for example, when you are explaining over the telephone to a Hungarian typewriter-dealer that it is the shift-key and not the margin-release that needs fixing. There are other times when you don’t even have to know a word of what is being said. Usually, in these lat- ter cases, one of the two parties concerned has something rather vivid in the way of personality. ; We have been subjected to the spell of four professional personalities within the past two weeks, and the ones which we understood least were the ones belonging to English-speaking artists. George Robey in London and Josephine Baker in Vi- enna spoke English, but, so far as we were concerned, they might as well not have been speaking at all. Raquel Meller and Maurice Chevalier in Paris used Spanish and French, respectively, but the seemed like our sister and brother. Well, perhaps not sister exactly. It is pretty late to write of Raquel Meller, and we have no intention of making an old fool of ourself in print over her again. A man has to have a little pride. But she is in Paris once more, in a bad little revue called “Le Luxe de Paris” which she turns into a memorable affair along about eleven o'clock. Her new songs are not very good, and the vamps-till- ready while she changes her costumes are longer than ever, but who cares? She comes on finally, and sings something, and several hundred hearts stand still. There is, however, one precarious mo. ment when, through a purely technical flaw in the staging, this remarkable sonality is almost entirely dissipated, A blue spotlight is thrown on her as she sings a song dressed in the white robes of a nun, and there occurs a strange neu- tralization of tones which kills entirely the projection of anything more potent than her voice—which isn’t very Potent when isolated. It is a terrifying moment for a Raquel Meller fan, akin to the one in which a child discovers the improbability of San. ta Claus, but it is quickly over, the lights go on, the black eyes start their work and the spell is on again. It does, however, make you stop and think. If a blue spotlight can dispel the personality which is Raquel Meller, what is our civilization coming to? Another projection of personality almost as strong as that of the Spanish chanteuse is Maurice Chevalier’s in the new revue at the Casino de Paris. This young tan, should he ever decide to come to Ameri- ca, ought to have no trouble in knocking cold several large areas of the female population, as well as making a tidy sum on his merits as an entertainer. It isn't fair to the rest of us boys that anyone should be so personable and so amusing Motuer: Is that you, darling? Unravorep Cito: No, Mother, it’s only me. comicbooks.com