EPIDEMIC OF COLD FEET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 May 1940, Page 9

EPIDEMIC OF COLD FEET

lil HOLL’,'WOOD FILM COLONY,

HEROES" AND THE WAR

Those intrepid Hollywood heroes who perform such dashing deeds of derring do on the screen would seem to prefer to exhibit their courage exclusively for the film cameras, 'writes Malcolm Phillips in the “"Pieture.goer."

At any rate, the suggestion that some oif them should come io England to make pictures has brought about an alarming epidemic of cold feet in the film colony. Hollywood, which so gallantly cocked a snook at the dictators 18 months ago and charged its British residents witii cowardice after Munich, seems to have lost some of its bravado now that the guns have begun to speak. American companies are anxious tc utilise the revenue "frozen" in England through the war. The obvious solution is to produce pictures here that will sell in the United States.

To ensure their popularity in the United States it would be necessary to employ a certain number of Hollywood names in these pictures. Producers were prepared to go ahead and risk some of their million-dollar stellar investments. but their plans have met an unexpected setback at the hands of the stars.

The glamour girls and boys, in fact, to quote the account of the well-in-formed New York Times, have shown “a militant disinterest in venturing into the war zzone, and many who have been approached have pointed out that although air raids have not yet proved a serious menace, with the advent of spring the danger will probably be increased.”

! Quite rightly no studio can compel ■ any player to come to London. Robert Montgomery, who is an adventurous spirit, volunteered, so has Ray Milland, but no other ranking star approached felt like serving his art at the expense of the risk of getting his manly beauty mixed up with a blitzkrieg bomb. No one can blame the Hollywood hemen (ersatz) for wanting to stay at home where there are plenty of stunt artists to be called on where there is any danger. I would strongly advise them, however, to avoid Technicolour pictures in future. The latest processes reproduce some wonderful shades of yellow. CLAUDETTE COLBERT EARNS BIG SALARY. The American Treasury Department has just issued a list of all the people who were paid salaries of more, than £15,000 in one year, writes Hubert Cole in the “Picturegoer.” The period was 1938, so the statistics are a little over a year old, but they’re very interesting. There are four hundred people in the list. The man at the top is the head of a soap company. Hollywood supplies a large proportion of the total —eightyfour out of the four hundred. -But the surprising thing is the star who comes cut top of the Hollywood section and right into sixth place for the whole of the United States. Rubbing shoulders with the captains of industry and kings of commerce is little Lily Chauchoin, whom we know as Claudette Colbert. Claudette, in 1938, earned over 300,000 dollars — which at the present rate ..of exchange would work out at something like £75,000. Even allowing for taxes at the highest rate, Claudette would still have something like £7OO a wee'e (every week) to do just what she darned well pleased with. That was in 1938. It’s possible that Claudette is not earning as much now —but not very probable. For a considerable time, she has been trying to keep her earnings down, i.ot up. That was simply because the more she earned the more the income tax man took. She got very little re-

ward for the extra money. It seems a little remarkable to me that, after hearing that Miss Colbert got paid more than any other star in Hollywood, I started to think of her recent films —and I couldn’t remember any of them. I had to look them up. They turned out to be “it’s a Wonderful World” and -Midnight.” Before that, she did “Zaza,” “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife” and "Tovarich.” She has since finished “Drums Along the Mohawk” —but that hasn't yet come our way.

It isn’t ’a very prepossessing batch. "Tovarich” was very good, and “Bluebeard's Eighth Wife” wasn't at all bad —but we saw both of those in the first half of 1938. They were made in 1937. It wasn't on account of them that Claudette collected that tax-free £7OO a week.

“Zaza,” “Midnight," and “It's a Wonderful World" are the pictures that Claudette got paid most of that money for: I can’t think that they were altogether worth it. Mark you, I m not saying Claudette herself wasn't worth the money. She has almost everything that goes to make up the perfect star —sex appeal, intelligence, acting ability. But the films she plays in arc not always worthy of her time and talent. She’s been exercising her power of selection on the parts she plays and the parts she doesn’t play for some years. She’s .been concentrating on variety. So we had her playing sophisticated comedy in “Midnight" and -It’s a Wonderful World," sentimental melodrama in "Zaza.” and historical heroics in “Drums Along the Mohawk.” Similarly, dn the past, she was superlatively good in a string of light comedies, of which "It Happened One Night" was only one example among many, yet spoilt her average by throwing in some masterpieces of misplaced hokum as Poppeia, Cleopatra and the Maid of Salem.

Most comedy stars get a hankering to give up comedy. It isn't always just that they want to play Hamlet or Ophelia instead. It is because comedy —at least, modern comedy—is a rather tricky thing to handle. The characters in a sophisticated, wisecracking, ultraluxurious comedy are not always sympathetic. They are a little too pampered.

You need to be in a happy and almost tolerant frame of mind to watch a young woman getting all excited and temperamental about the minor snags in her life when she is living on several thousands a year in the lap of luxury. Those penthouse problems seem much too insignificant when you measure them up against your own urgent worries of buying the Sunday joint and finding the money for the rent and the kids' schooling and maybe a five-bob bottle of port at Christmas.