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Show iiiiXj I-okig at I II II llUi II II II I "THE hardest thing about making mak-ing a movie is landing the job to make it." This disarming statement state-ment comes from Edmund Goulding, Gould-ing, who, if he doesn't know all there is to know about directing pictures, pic-tures, can at least give lessons to nine out of ten of his contemporaries. contempora-ries. What was your favorite picture? "Dark Victory"? "Grand Hotel"? "The Old Maid"? "Rip Tide"? "The Devil's Holiday"? "Love"? "White Banners"? "The Trespasser"? "The Constant Nymph"? "Claudia"? Goulding directed them all, and many more. Rugged Individualist Goulding is like no one else here. His technique is his and his alone. He welcomes temperament The tougher they come the better he I I likes 'em. There is so much to write about Goulding that in this article you can get only a glimpse of the i. d s "1 man. When I say ,: ' ,. '""" that he is fabu- -'. lous I'm pulling V , my punches. J .yJ '", s - I'll let Eddie 4 "Z'x? , talk. I quote: 'A' , S "Most of the : 7 people who have ; ' yT V inte rested m e a r e f those who are in some kind of spot Edmund They were either Gouldinff beginning or desperately des-perately anxious Blng Crosby, a natural . . . Bankhead, beautiful, vital . . . Constance Bennett, so positive posi-tive . . , Alex Smith, so nervous . . . Dolores Moran, so green . . . Joyce Reynolds, so young . . . Gig Young, so anxious . . . Geraldine Fitzgerald, Fitz-gerald, so Irishly indifferent . . . Louise Hayward, Noel Coward's tip and mine . . . David Niven, so refreshing re-freshing . . . Fay Baintcr, so scared of the movies . . . Helen nayes (for whom he wrote 'Dancing Mothers') Moth-ers') . . . Paul Lukas, so bothered about our language . . . Richard Barthclmas, so ambitious. . . . Some weird fate brings me into other oth-er people's lives when they need me. "Show me someone trembling, perspiring, fearing they're not good, hoping they will get by someone to whom the enterprise means life or death and I become their soldier. Begins With Research "I want to know all about them. I want to enter their lives, know all their problems; their aches, pains, fears, apprehensions, and hopes. I'm paid well for my trouble, because be-cause there is great strength to be given by someone who digs and understands un-derstands more than surface problems." prob-lems." As this is being written Edmund Goulding is doing what he considers consid-ers the most important picture of his career. It's "Of Human Bondage," Bond-age," the Somerset Maugham story that catapulted Bette Davis to stardom. star-dom. Her part of Mildred, the cockney cock-ney . girl who wrecks the life of Philip Carey, is being taken in the present version by Eleanor Parker. Goulding's method of conditioning Eleanor, an almost unknown, for the important role Is typical of his thoroughness. He went down on the set of "Between "Be-tween Two Worlds" to see her. She was very beautiful, quiet, more unlike un-like Mildred than anyone he'd ever seen. Eleanor said: "Of course I want1 to play the part of Mildred, but I'm ! sure I can't." "What makes you so cocksure you can't do it?" asked Eddie. J She answered: "Well, it takes an, actress, and you've got to be Eng-. lish." Eddie continued the narrative: . "Well something happened then. It ' was instinctive, it was a challenge. ' It was my ego. I guess. 1 "I asked her to sneak away when she could, talk cockney with me. I , got the English actreSs Doris Lloyd to help her. At the end of the week ' I knew she could do It "I worked with her like a psychia-' trlst Altogether it took two and a , half solid months of work to play ' around with that girl until she blindly blind-ly believed in me. "We made the test and I will' stake my reputation in the theater' and films on the statement that El- " eanor Parker is as great and excit- 1 ing, as thrilling and promising an actress as I've ever directed." Writer, composer ("Love, Thy ! Magic Spell Is Everywhere"), art-' 1st, world traveler, student Eddie! Goulding is above all things a hu-i man being whose entire time and effort are spent on knowing and un-1 derstanding people. He loves peo-1 pie. Blonde Tresses Are Going 1 Lana Turner is a big girl now, so her hair will be cut short for "Week-End "Week-End at the Waldorf." She had quite a time with that blonde halo while playing a WAC. They parted and braided it, and wound it around her head. . . . Gregory Ratoff, a Russian, Rus-sian, borrowed Sergt. Bob Davis, an Englishman, from the "Winged Victory" Vic-tory" set to teach MacMurray, an Irishman, a guttural German accent ac-cent for a scene In "Where Do We Go From Here?" burlesquing an 18th century Hitler. |