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NEWS of the TALKIES
Brian Aherne Causes A Major
Hollywood Sensation
A TAN of the moment in Hollywood is
Brian Aherne. It's difficult for
Hollywood to be spontaneously sur
prised any more. There are so many
people busy blowing prophetic trum
pets for every possible event.
£SUL Aiierne, aiuei six ycais as uixp
of its quietest citizens, has . sprung a
surprise which has set the whole film
colony talking about him.
And they started talking after, not
before the preview of 'Juarez,' the film
that stars Paul Muni as Juraz, Bette
Davis as the Empress Carlota — and
Brian Aherne as Emperor Maximilian
of Mexico.
Here are just a few of the American
critics' comments on 'Juarez': —
'Brian Aherne steals 'Juarez' while
Juarez is busy liberating Mexico '
'Muni does not dominate this film
as he did his previous pictures ... em
phasis is constantly on Maximilian . .
Aherne seldom has appeared to such
advantage.'
'Vast credit . . . must fall to Paul
Muni . . . Bette Davis must be con
ceded a major achievement . . . Brian
Aherne, however, draws rave applause
for a remarkably significant perform
ance.'
'He makes Maximilian,' continues
the last review, 'a wholly sympathetic.
and invariably dominant, figure '
On the following day, the same
paper comments: — 'The town is still
talking about Brian Aherne's theft
of 'Juarez,' principally because he had
the best part — but how he did act it.'
The crux, however, of all this 'rave
applause' is not just praise for a good
performance, but the element of sur
prise.
That is the element which may
make this success the stimuliant
Aherne's career needed.
He has given good performances be
fore. But he has somehow never
achieved the screen success he was
capable of.
It would be unfair to say Aherne
had never really clicked in Hollywood.
He and Hollywood just never man
aged to click together.
Six years ago, when, after months
of persuasion, he was finally lured to
Hollywood to appear in 'Trie Song of
Songs,' Aherne was frankly more in
terested in stage than screen.
He did some good work— especially
as the dry Scot in 'What Every
Woman Knows'1 and Lewis in 'The
Fountain.'
But he refused to tie himself down
to any studio. His pictures were few
and unregulated. After each one he
packed up and trained off for a long
spell on the stage.
Such dilettante methods don't es
tablish stars. Then, about two years
ago, when Aherne began to be more
disposed to take films seriously, he
just didn't get the kind of pictures
which establish stars.
He made a magnificently romantic
hero of 'Beloved Enemy.' The film
was good — but no record-beater.
'The Great Garrick' and 'Merrily
We Live' were not impressive enough
films to help their hero make any
new impression on the film public.
Naturally, the more used people.
grew to accepting Aherne as a lesser
star, the more unlikely it became that
he would snap out of that status.
When Warners engaged Aherne to
play Maximilian to Bette Davis's
Carlota and Paul Muni's Juarez, not
an eyebrow flickered in Hollywood.
Nobody expected anything from the
casting, not even Warners or Aherne.
Warner's obviously meant 'Juarez'
to be a starring vehicle for Muni. The
defeated puppet Emperor Maximilian
always seemed the least colorful of
the three characters.
Most people surreptitiously sup
posed Aherne had been chosen be
cause he was the only actor of ade
quate prestige who made up to a good
likeness of Maximilian.
These are the circumstances that
combined to make Aherne's wholesale
'theft' of 'Juarez' a major Holly
wood sensation, says London 'Film
Weekly.'
It's the kind of unpredictable sen
sation which occasionally happens,
despite the most careful regulation of
the machinery of film production.
For Aherne, it's just the kind of
sensation he needed to turn him from
a second-string star into a man who'll
be getting the pick of Hollywood's best
parts from now on.
? ? * »
PARAMOUNT talent scouts are
scouring the world's music centres
to find a paragon who can 'sing like
jeanette MacDonald, Lily Pons and
Grace Moore and act like Bette Davis,'
to star in 'The Life of Victor Herbert.'
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