WESTER ROLE FOR COOPER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 19, 6 February 1937, Page 14

WESTER ROLE FOR COOPER

Shifting to his left hand a-strange little key which, on enquiry, proved to be an unobtrusive means of letting off the static electricity generated by tbe thiok cqrpets in his suite at Essex House, Ceeil B. de Mille recently greeted us cordially, invited us in, and told us all about his latest production "The Plainsman," in which Gary Cooper, after certain dubious experiments with sentiment and Marlene Dietrich. is going to prove that he is a lie-man after all, writes B. R. Crisler in the "New York Times." The quietest, most selfcontained, and most distinguished-look-ing producer we have ever met (and, incidentally, the only on© who uses the Benjamin Franklin or lightning-rod method on common doorknobs), Mr de MilJe feels that he has in "The Plainsman" not only a good Western, which would be a novelty in itself, but a revolutionary Western. Th© picture will probably be the first of its kind without cattle, a sheriff, Jattle rustlers, or at least a posse, perJiaps the first to treat the actual history of the plains with any degree of respect and, certainly, the first with a social purpose. (it will expose a group which in Washington, during the Indian. wars, sold repeating rifles left over from the Spanish war to the Indians, while General Custer's troops had only 8ingle-shot carbines). Mr de Mille hopes that this film, which he has been ushering about on what he calls a "transcontinental preview" (testing audience reactions in strategic spots throughout the country), will restore the tone of an epoch in American his-' tory, which, unfortunately, seems to have been rendered somewhat decJasse by the dime novel. Its hero will be Wild Bill Hickok (Mr Cooper), a genfcle man who at one time embodied in his dangerous person the only law there was in his section of the West. The versatile Mr Cooper, it appears, is the best actor at drawing a six-gun that Mr de Mille ever saw, and that is praise. But the return to the holster, ha says, is even more remarkabie than the draw. Movement is not only faster than the eye but is faster than the slow motion machine on which it was analysed recently by certain curious persons in the Paramount laboratory, who failed miserably to discover the secret.