CURTAIN CALLS ANOTHER: ANOTHER CHANCE FOR IRENE DUNNE

Professional theatergoers are constantly being asked the question, "Who is your favorite actress or actor?" and they usually reply with a rather haughty tone, "We have no favorites; we judge all on their work!"

 That, of course, is half-truth. I think most critics try to dissociate themselves from their personal friendships or preferences, and I think they do a pretty good job of it on the whole. But by and large, there are certain persons in the theater who entertain of amuse them more readily than others.

 In my case Joe E. Brown, Edward Everett Horton, W.C. Fields and Alan Mowbray can make me laugh any time they want to make the effort - and I don´t know Mowbray at all. Ronald Colman, Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson and Alan Hale can always hold my interest. Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes, Margaret Sullavan and Irene Dunne can always get me into a theater on my day off.

 From time to time I have publicly chided all of them perhaps more often than I have praised them, yet I´m constantly aware of their competence in their chosen fields, and conscious of the fact that thea are always giving their best, which, certainly, is all anyone could ask.

 

 As a consequence, I was very happy to meet <miss Dunne on the Colunbia lot, where she is making "Over 21".

 In all the years that I did Hollywood interviews, at intervals of six or eight weeks, I never happened to be near where she was, and for some unexplainable reason I never asked to be transported to her home or to ask that she come to the studio for a special date.

 Once I had a fleeting glance of her driving along in her car on the Universal lot. That was years ago. She was keeping an appointment that, I believe, led to a role in "Show Boat" or it may have been some other musical - it doesn´t really matter.

 When I reached Columbia studios, which are located in Los Angeles rather than Hollywood, with Mike Newman as cicerone, I asked to look a the "Call Sheet" and noticed that four productions were under way - "Kiss And Tell," which had 29 days to go; "Over 21," which could take 40 days; "Boston Blackie," which had three days to go, and "A Thousand And One Nights," which was merely in course of production.

 These call sheets list the names of the directors and the actors who are to work that day as well as the stage on which they will work. Columbia lists only the last names, and, frankly, I didn´t connect "Dunne" with Irene Dunne. She may not like it, when and if she read this essay, but I went on the set to talk to Charles Vidor, the director.

 

Vidor like many other successful Hollywood directors, speaks with an accent - seems to be he´s an Austrian - but he knows his way around and he isn´t afraid to discuss his pictures.

 In the last year he has turned out several top-flight films, including "A Song To Remember" and, despite the fact the the last one is making a great deal of money, he isn´t very happy about it.

 "We could have done much better," he sighed. "It was a pleasant picture, yes, but we could have had a script that adhered closed to the fact, and performances that were somewhat more intelligent. You liked Muni? Well, I believe he has done much better work. We have all done much better work, and I hope ond day will do much better work".

 And presently he was off to supervise another scene, one in which a baby was to be involved. Audiences love babies and dogs, directors and actors go stark raving mad when ever they become involved with them. Vidor, middle-aged, stocky and agreeable, was rambling around in a battered trench-coat when I saw him, looking far more than a visiting than a successful film director.

 

 As he left, the studio representative accompanying me - I wish I could remember names as well as Mr. Simms of Seattle was able to do - asked casually if I´d like to talk to Irene Dunne. I managed to keep my composure and grunt it would be all right with me, but probably anything but all right with her.

 A little bit to my surprise she was strolling over in a split second with hand outstretched and a friendly smile - a woman somewhat smaller than I had expected from her screen appearances, and one with a bloom of youth that did not come out of a cosmetic can. We did the usual sparring for a minute and then the talk shiffted to New York where both of us had been show-shopping not so long ago.

 Her trip was more recent. She had seen Frank Fay in "Harvey" and was entranced; she had seen "Bloomer Girl" and was delighted; she had seen "Voice Of The Turtle" and was annoyed.

 I guess I must have looked a little startled, because she smiled and explained.

 

 "Oh, I´m not saying anything to you I haven´t already said to Maggie Sullavan," she said.

 "I don´t think I´m a prude. Maybe I just wasn´t in the mood. You see, it was only a short time before that I´d been on a week-end party with these kids - young girls and soldiers on furlough - and it had all been so clean and bouncy, that "Voice Of The Turtle" rather soured it for me.

 "I enjoyed the technique employed by John van Druten, and was captivated by the performances of Maggie, Elliot Nugent and Audrey Christie, but the story made me a little ill. I guess I´m just not sophisticated."

 This coming from the woman who has specialized in sophisticated comedies on the screen for years may seem a little strange, but Miss Dunne was perfectly sincere and while I can´t agree with her, at least I can see her viewpoint.

 

 She did like "Over 21," however, and not merely because she is playing the Ruth Gordon role in the screen version. I wondered why because I had seen Miss Gordon in the show in New York last Spring and my personal opinion, publicly expressed, was that it smelt to high heaven.

 "Maybe so," Miss Dunne said, with a characteristic giggle, "but it is true to life and I think in the film version it is even more so. Now we have brought the story up so that it deals with post-war problems. I´ll grant that when I saw it the theme was somewhat out-dated, but that is corrected, I believe, now.

 "What I liked about it on the stage was that it was so true and at the same time so amusing - wives are always responsible for their husbands´ progress, aren´t they?"

 "Good grief, how ridiculous - ," I began, but Miss Dunne was laughing as she waved goodbye and returned to the baby scene.

 That´s the way with dames, they never want to argue - I should scratch her from my list of favorites...No, everyone´s entitled to another chance. No one can say that Soanes, the cad, wouldn´t give Irene Dunne hers.

 

(Oakland Tribune, Thursday, Feb. 22, 1945)