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! STAR |
: DUST I
2 M.ovie • Ra dio *
★ ★
★ ★★By VIRGINIA VALE ★★★
, "T~'HOSE awards made by the
1 Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences are still caus
ing violent debates all over Holly
wood. Executives of the Screen
Actors Guild and the Screen Writ
ers Guild telegraphed the mem
bers the ifay before the awards were
made, urging them not to attend the
presentation banquet. They charged
that the academy is producer-con
trolled. and that studio politics con
trolled the giving ot
the awards. Of course
the Academy heads
denied that, and the
battle has been on
ever since. It is
claimed that Bette
Davis was given the
prize for the best per
formance given by a
woman during the
year, not because of
her work in “Danger
ous,” but because she
didn't get the award
last year for her performance in “01
Human Bondage.” It is urged that
Victor McLaglen, who won the prize
for the men, gave just one good per
formance, in “The Informer,” whereas
Charles Laughton and Paul Muni eacl>
gave several. In fact, there are argu
meats about everything but that be
lated award of D. W. Griffith for his
work in the days before there was any
Academy. People wept when Henry
Walthall introduced D. W.
—★—
They’re rewriting Ken Maynard’v
new picture, because the lioness who
acted in it was killed recently. (You
may have seen her in “Sequoia.”)
The company was on location, and the
lioness went out for some exercise. In
California there’s a bounty of $80 or
mountain lions, and a prospector
thought this was just one more lion,
and shot her.
If you want to go into the movies,
you’ll be interested in the news that
several of the big companies are plan
ning to develop their own actors, by
establishing schools in New York. In
fact, Paramount already has such ^
school, and RKO and Metro are think
ing of following their example. It’s all
caused by the fact that the picture
companies have not been able to re-
eruit suitable players from the stage
They’ve scoured the field of vaude
ville, radio, night clubs and college
dramatic societies, and have concluded
that training schools are the best solu
tion of the problem.
—★—
Walt Disney has a school, too, de
voted to training artists to animate the
Disney pictures. Recently he adver
tised for help, and only fifty people
out of the 1,700 who answered made
the grade. Now he’s advertising again.
The candidates whom he accepts re
ceive a small salary while they’re
learning the work, and then go on the
pay roll as animators.
—★—
Randolph Scott, who went into pic
tures, not because he was stellar ma
terial, but because it looked like a
good way to make a living, is to be
starred in “The Last of the Mohi
cans.” ^
John Boies had to cut short his
personal appearance tour and rush
back to Hollywood to
be starred in “White
Fang.” Incidentally, if
you have to diet to
keep your weight down
John can sympathize
with you. He starts
the day by drinking
lemon juice in hot
water, and the big mo
ment of dinner, for
him, is t\?o lamb
chops.
John Boles
Jean Hersholt gives such an excel
lent performance in “The Country Doc
tor” that his old contract was torn
up and a new one, with the salary
doubled, was given him.
—-k—
Sunny O’Dea, who danced so well
in Eddie Cantor’s “Strike Me Pink’
that she’s headed for the top in pic
tures, still has to go to school in the
studio, because she’s not yet eighteen
The fact that she has already made a
name for herself as a dancer in New
York and London makes not the slight
cst difference.
—k—
Gary Cooper’s wife, Sandra, who
doesn’t care for the movie spotlights
has made a reputation in spite of her
self ; she’s known as one of the best
dressed women in Hollywood. The
other is Kay Francis.
—k—
ODDS AND ENDS . . . Pauline Starke,
ahom some of you will remember from
ber movie days, is to be starred in a stage
P^ a y • . . Grace Moore doesn’t want to
make any more movies . . . Mary Brian is
back from England . . . Jack Benny is
thinking of really learning to play the
‘ t°lin—with Rubinoff as his teacher . . .
'ever has Freddie Bartholomew given a
more moving performance than in the
sketch he did on the Rudy Vallee pro
%ram recently . . . Boake Carter, news
r “mmentator, made 2,172 consecutive
broadcasts—then he came down with the
g'tppe, and had to miss one, and he’ll
neier get over it.
® Western Newspaper Union.
Bette Davis
Color and Cushions Surround a Mezokovesd Baby.
Prepare by the National Geographic Society.
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
X T ANTED, female servant;
\ \/ wages by the month to be
Y y clothes, potatoes, carrots,
beans—and sixty cents.”
This is not a line from a musical
comedy, or a funny movie subtitle, but
the translation of a bona tide “want-
ad.”
In an American newspaper it might
reasonably have aroused curiosity, if
not investigation by a local union, but
ft caused no unusual stir among the
crowd of peasants in the small town of
Mezokovesd in Hungary, as the town
crier shouted it out. There was all the
weekly news, as well as the rest of the
“advertising” to be heard. The oral
Journalists of Mezokovesd were inform
ing the townspeople of the week’s
events, at the usual Sunday morning
gathering.
Even witli Lenten restrictions, there
Is little curbing of gaiety among the
peasants on their treasured weekly
holiday in Mezokovesd. True, you may
have no opportunity of seeing a mar
riage dance. Nevertheless, the air is
full of merry excitement and happy
chattering. And no one can smile more
wholeheartedly and infectiously than
the young Hungarian girl 1
Mezokovesd is a most typical of Hun
garian villages; there the traveler may
see the real peasant life of the coun
try. The town’s population is some 20.-
000; it is about three hours’ ride to the
east of Budapest, and only two trains
a day make the trip.
Sunday afternoons the healthy lot
of villagers parade in their festival
finery, the heavily embroidered cos
tumes ablaze with bright colors. And
of a Sunday morning the life of the
town centers in the church, always
crowded to the doors, and in the
weekly “newspaper.”
At ten o’clock on Sunday morning
•you find the streets almost deserted.
It is a brisk day and you are glad to
have the protection of a heavy coat.
The sun teases you faintly at intervals,
which is especially vexing, since you
have a camera and copious material
for pictures.
First Church, Then News.
You walk to the center of the town,
some distance from the railroad sta
tion, and enter the church. If it were
not for the saving landmark of the
church steeple, it would be easy to get
lost in any Hungarian town.
There is little standing room in the
church, and you find the air too incense
laden to linger long. Besides, your
presence causes much curiosity, so that
the chanting women, with shawl-cov
ered heads, and the men, telling their
beads, are being distracted from their
devotion. So you leave and walk about
the square, marveling occasionally at
the sight of an American-made prod
uct in one of the shop windows. And
presently the church bells announce the
close of the service.
Then the church doors open and
crowds of black-clad figures pour out.
As if waiting for this signal, two gen
darmes take their places on opposite
sides of the large square in front of
the church and begin to beat a vigorous
tattoo on their drums. From the church
the people gather in two crowds about
these oilicials, who draw forth impor
tant-looking documents of paper and
begin their reading.
It is an education and a revelation
to hear the news of Mezokovesd. “A
cow was lost on Tuesday. If anyone
has found her let him report to the
town headquarters.”
There is a long list of farms to rent
and sell; plows to rent, servants to
hire. The usual monthly wage of the
servants is seldom more than three or
four pengos (a pengo is worth about
thirty cents) added to certain supplies
and their needed clothing. It is suffi
cient, no doubt; their wants are few.
Any national news of importance is
told; new laws are read. It is an amus
ingly terse, clear effort, when one con
templates the columns of unread copy
in our own metropolitan papers.
Sunday Afternoon Parade.
This rite over, the peasants depart
to their homes and the town is sud
denly as quiet as on a week day, for
during the week all the young men and
women are out in the fields, and only
the very old and the very young re
main In the village.
Dinner, and then you are among the
gaily dressed crowds, on their weekly
parade about the town. They wait al
ways until the afternoon before don
ning their gorgeous costumes and then
they pour into the streets like the
sudden blossoming of a garden. In
deed, the pretty aprons are surpris
ingly like gardens, or bright flowers in
a basket, or clusters of posies in the
sunlight.
Their embroidery is peculiar to Hun
gary. Small pieces of it, on sale at
one of the homes may be too gaudy to
attract some travelers; but on a black
apron and a tightly fitting Jacket, it
seems most appropriate and quaint.
The men of the town are quite as
ornately garbed as the women. They
are smartly dressed in black velvet
trousers made much like riding
breeches, short jackets, and leather
boots shined to a glow. Some of them
also wear the long black aprons em
broidered by a doting mother or an
adoring and dutiful sweetheart. And
all of them wear green hats, round and
high—shaped somewhat like a derby—
with feathers of varying size and color
perched on the side. A fetching lot of
fellows, and not slow at flirting with
the girls.
But the Sunday parades are not
courting parties. Far from it. The men
keep to themselves, and the women
walk apart from them, for etiquette in
Mezokovesd does not permit any prom
enading in couples. Not even the mar
ried ones walk together.
And so the boys contrive their own
little fun as they pass the maidens—
calling to them, teasing them by pulling
at one corner of their aprons, or tweak
ing u long braid of hair. Shiny faces
blush and the girls giggle—and prob
ably think it the very best part of the
entire day! Unmarried girls always go
bareheaded, even in the winter months.
It is only after the marriage service
that a young girl may put up her hair
and wear the distinctive headdress of
the married woman.
Then the hair ribbons are dispensed
with and the long braids are wound
about the head, so that a cone-shaped
cap can be pinned on. Over this is
placed tlie satin shawl that marks the
girl as a young matron.
The new brides are easily found.
They will be walking together, few of
them more than eighteen years old,
and some several years younger, still
giggling when they pass their young
husbands, and proudly conscious of
their new coiffures
Courting and Marriage.
Courting? Oh, yes, when they meet
at the Sunday balls. And at home, too.
But the mother is always present there,
and it is more an ordeal than a pleas
ure. But every Sunday afternoon, ex
cept during Lent, they hold a dance,
and the young people find it very sat
isfactory for getting acquainted and
falling in love.
When a boy has found his chosen
wife, and she looks favorably on him,
the young man asks her father. If the
father is willing, the young fellow
sends two of his friends to ask for
mally for her hand, and this is consid
ered the official announcement of the
couple’s engagement.
Then follows the wedding at a Sun
day dance. The bride, incidentally,
must have complete furnishings for
her new house, including linens and
clothes for herself. Usually some money
or a cow goes with her, too. A father
of many daughters has his hands full
to get her dowry together.
But her trousseau isn’t so formidable
as it would seem to us. Her new home
consists of one or two rooms. Fur
nishings are few and simple. And the
linens and embroideries that she brings
are those she has worked at from early
childhood days with this very occa
sion In mind.
There are no regular streets except
ing the main thoroughfares in Mezo
kovesd. You go this way and that, off
at an angle here, and shortly find your
self in a maze of pathways, and in the
midst of countless snowy white houses,
and yards of hay, straw and barns.
Giggling girls who follow you are
overjoyed to pose for their pictures.
They tell you that they all have been
married within the last few weeks, and
that within the next month they will g«
off to the fields with their husbands.
Uncommon
Sense 'I John Blake
©. Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
Perhaps a great violinist is to be
excused for thinking or talking more
about music than
Lopsided about anything else.
Tongues 11 may l,e thnt an
° Inventor Is entitled
to bore his friends and acquaintances
by conversing about his hobby day in
and day out.
But such people are geniuses and
therefore exceptions.
However, the person who talks shop
and thinks shop constantly soon be
comes a nuisance. He leads a lop
sided life.
He is a burden to everybody with
whom he comes into contact.
You may be “hipped” on your call
ing, but don’t think that other people
are.
A person’s knowledge of his own
trade is enhanced by general informa
tion and by outside reading.
If he can talk with some degree of
intelligence about matters thnt are
of interest to those whom he is
speaking to he will cease to be a bore,
and become good company.
A boy with a new job may be ex
cused for harping on it.
But a man who can think of only
one thing—his own profession or busi
ness, and brings it up at every op
portunity is by way of being a pest.
• • •
If you want to be "good company”
and who does not, listen considerably
more than you speak, and speak as
little as possible about your own voca
tion and its difficulties and delights,
and the progress you are making in it.
Talk shop, if you must to your shop
mates, but even they deserve and will
appreciate a rest from the same old
topics, discussed in the same old way.
General conversation, if conducted
intelligently, is stimulating and profit
able.
An exchange of views and ideas Is
a stimulant to anyone who Is not a
loquacious egoist who is never happy
tinless he is doing all the talking him
self.
Such a person is a lopsided think
er, and lie leads a lopsided life.
• • •
Learn to talk convincingly, but sparingly.
If your views are asked for, give
them.
But beware of being a chatterbox,
whose only speech concerns your onfy
little circle of ideas, and who is never
satisfied unless all the talking Is done
by one tongue, when there are so many
other tongues which are eager to be
employed.
Talking is an art, if well done.
It is a difficult art, lint practice it
for a while and you will find that it
was well worth all the trouble you
took to cultivate it.
• • •
The early settlers in America con
tinued to suffer from raids by the In
dians till they and
Why Crooks their wives and chll-
Prosper dren were ,n fear
of their lives.
The result was the I’equot Mas
sacre. It was a hideous thing, but it
put an end to fright in New England
for a long time.
The honest and decent people in this
country outnumber the crooks many
hundred to one.
But the crooks are organized. More
over they are as a rule marked men
and when cornered they know that
they must fight for their lives or die.
The people whom they victimize read
of a gunman massacre in the news
paper and say aloud or to themselves,
“Something ought to he done about
this atrocity,” and then turn the news
paper over to the stock market column
or the news from Washington or the
yacht race.
• * *
There is no organized crime in this
country which could not be stopped in
six months if the people realized what
it meant, and made up their minds that
a stop must be put to it.
The depredations of organized crowds
of murderers and robbers and yegg-
men in New York would be ended in
a few weeks if those who read about
them took the trouble to think what It
means to the people of a great city to
be victims, or innocent bystanders at
a shooting spree.
We are as a race and as a nation
unthinking and heedless.
Things happen too fast among us,
and are so Interesting and exciting
while they are going on that they do
not sink very deep.
But if the population of the city
could be lined up along Fifth avenue
and shown a gang raid or a bomb
throwing battle, there would be no
more of that sort of thing for a long,
iong time to come.
• * »
Once let citizens of New York or any
other city picture to themselves what
a menace is organised crime—including
graft, and that would be abofft all.
In the West it was necessary to or
ganize vigilance committees when des
peradoes began to make trouble.
The committee armed its members,
sent them out to put an end to the
peril of banditry, and that was that.
As a nation we lack imagination. Not
till we correct that fault will outlaws have
their own way, and make a success of the
criminal business.
How soon it will be I have no guess.
But unless the criminals abate their
present activity, it will be very soon,
ta my opinion.
A scare is always provocative of
neasures to restore peace and quiet
Let Age and Youth Agree to
Differ: A Form of Agreement
©
Conclusion of Sage on the
Problem of Life’s
Contrasts.
One of the most serious of life’s
contrasts is the continual mlsunder
standing which arises between old
age nnd youth. It is trite but true
that from time immemorial age has
been dissatisfied with youth and
youth has resented the Implication
Though we ourselves had no such
temptations as beset the young
people of today, nevertheless our
parents were Just as anxious about
our doings as any parent now could
be. To us, their children, the prob
lems of this perplexing day seem In
tricate in comparison. R. L. S.
thought it out in this fashion: Let
them (age and youth) ngree to differ,
for who knows but what agreeing
to differ may not be n form of agree
ment, rather than a form of differ
ence?
Lady Shine, In her attempt to live
her own life after fifty years of be
ing a satellite in the wake of a dis
tinguished husband, is criticized by
some as devoid of maternal love in
wishing to live apart from her fam
ily. But is not life in most families
a proof of the saying that a prophet
is not without honor save in ids own
country? The desire to explore
one’s individual country becomes
rather Important ns life recedes with
all passions spent.
So much is now being written
about flaming youth that it will soon
believe that the whole stage of life
was meant for the presentation of
its own play and the footlights sole
ly to exhibit its own charms. Well,
so lie it, since upon its shoulders
must fall the work of the world. Sir
Edmund Gosse in writing his “Fa
ther and Son,” endured severe criti
cism because lie said too much
(later, because lie said too little) in
trying to present the influence of a
strictly puritanical father upon a
son whose attitude toward life had
changed. Stevenson’s comment upon
the book helped to smooth over the
harshness of such criticism when he
After First Look, Dumb-bell
Longed to Look for Life
It is true that once in a while, at
a dinner, for Instance, a woman is
put next to a man who stolidly
stares at ills plate and answers “yes”
or “no” to . everything she says,
writes Emily I’ost in the New York
Herald Tribune.
I remember one occasion when a
certain very attractive young wom
an struggled throughout the soup
course and the flsh course and half
way through the meat course with
out getting so much as a glance in
her direction. Finnlly she said firm
ly:
“Will you please turn your head
and look at me?”
He turned a face that was quite
blank unless slightly raised eyebrows
meant a glimmer of Inquiry.
“I want to be sure you know,” said
she, “that I’ve tried my best to talk
to you, and now I’m going to try no
more.”
Whereupon she turned to the man
on the other side.
The end of this incident sounds
like fiction, but I vouch for Its truth.
She is now the wife of the first man.
said thnt it was a very delicate task,
very delicately done. Published in
1007, it was, to use the author's
words, a record of a struggle be
tween two temperaments, two con
sciences, nnd almost two epochs.
It seems to me that Mr. Brownell
in his “Standards,” has found the
keynote to the lack of harmony be
tween the two generations when ha
says that youth fails to consider how
much more crowded the pigeon
holes of age are than its own, and
how much more irksome it is to ar
range their contents, and that, in
conjunction with the proverbial
egotism of youth, Is the whole cause
of the difficulties thnt nrise.
A case in point is the talk between
the aged Belarius and the two sone
of Cymbeline before they learn of
their princely heritage. Belarius tells
at length about the charms of moun
tain life m Wales, adding that It is
nobler than attending for a check,
richer than doing nothing for a bau
ble, prouder than rustling in unpaid
silk. They listen respectfully and
reply:
Haply this life is best
If quiet life be best, sweeter to yon
That have a sharper known, well cor
responding
With your stiff age; but unto us it la
A cell of Ignorance, traveling abed.
What should we speak of
When we are as old as you? when
we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark Decem
ber, how
In this, our pinching cave, shall ws
discourse
The freezing hours away? We have
seen nothing.
How hard it is to hide Lae sparks
of nature, says Belarius to himself!
M. O. W., in Indianapolis News.
Spirited Pup Is Easy
to Do in Cross Stitch
PATTERN B40»
Isn’t lie versatile—this pup that
can wash, Iron, sew and even play a
violin? Just having him around—on
tea towels or scarf ends, will bright
en your day. Brighten, too, ths
hours you spend embroidering his
amusing antics In cross stitch.
They’re ever so easy to do—with
crosses 8 to the inch, and before you
know it you’ve one for each day of
the week. Use a variety of colors,
or two shades of any color thnt yon
like.
In pattern 5493 you will find a
transfer pattern of seven motifs av
eraging 5 by 8 Inches; color sugges
tions; material requirements; illus
trations of ail the stitches that ara
needed.
Send 15 cents In stamps or coina
(coins preferred) to Tiie Sewing Cir
cle, Household Arts Department, 259
West Fourteenth Street, New York,
N. Y.