Cecil B. DeMille, feeling that it was about time for him to be delivered of another spectacular picture, produced The Sign of the Cross, a combination of mob scenes, religion, sex, and movie stars that was heralded as being "bigger than The Ten Commandments." The critics didn't care much for Nat Pendleton's strolling through the picture, using American slang, but the public loved all of it, especially the Christian-eating lions.
Tallulah Bankhead, after a vain struggle to get her acting talents recognized at home, went to England and rapidly became one of the foremost attractions of the London stage. Brought back by Paramount, she made a number of films which--largely because of miscasting and indifferent stories--were not successful.
Clowns traditionally want to play Hamlet. Occasionally, too, a leading man forsakes glamour and takes a fling at gooseflesh-raising. John Barrymore made a silent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in 1920, that terrified his fans, and in '32, Fredric March starred in the same story, giving a performance that established him as a first-rate actor and won him an Academy award.
Two of the most successful zanies on the screen are Laurel and Hardy, whose short pictures have been contributing to the hilarity of the movies since the silent days. One of the best and most idiotic of their melees was Brats, produced by Hal Roach.
Still another play to reach the screen that year was Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. It was no easy job to compress a play that took five hours to perform into a film lasting about two, but M-G-M's director, Robert Z. Leonard, managed it. He even made the asides intelligible to the audience. Norma Shearer played the lead, with Clark Gable, here kissing her hand, as the doctor.
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