(2 of 3)
When Universal bought the picture rights to Hans Fallada's moving novel, Variety suggested a cinema version entitled: "Little Man, So What?" Little Man, What Now is not one of Director Borzage's best pictures but it has the qualities of intelligence, honesty and observance which are indelibly part of his style. Douglass Montgomery gives a quiet, unmannered and understanding performance. Margaret Sullavan, whose brilliant acting in Only Yesterday made her Hollywood's brightest prospect since Katherine Hepburn, makes Little Man, What Now her picture. Good shot: Lammchen conversing with Hans while riding on a merry-go-round, one sentence with each circuit.
Margaret Sullavan got her role in Only Yesterday because Director John Stahl supposed that if a better known actress took the part of the deserted sweetheart, cinemaddicts would have difficulty in believing that a hero could so easily forget her. She liked her work in that picture so little that she refused to see it, finally sent her colored maid Lisbeth to investigate. Lisbeth reported the picture was wonderful and had made her cry. Said Margaret Sullavan: "Now I know it must be terrible." When the late Lilyan Tashman congratulated her, Margaret Sullavan thanked her curtly. Said Cinemactress Tashman: "Someone should teach that girl some manners." If Margaret Sullavan lacks manners, it is not the fault of her upbringing. She was born in Norfolk, Va. in 1909, sent to Chatham Episcopal Institute where she played her first role in the commencement play, and to Sullins College. Her father gave her permission to study dancing for a year. She went to Boston, switched from dancing to the theatre, played juvenile leads in Cape Cod stock companies. When she first went to Hollywood, she had had more stage experience than Katherine Hepburn : a year in Elmer Harris's The Modern Virgin, a season on the road in Strictly Dishonorable, the ingenue role in Dinner at Eight for two months.
In Hollywood, Miss Sullavan follows the current fashion for shyness. She keeps an official residence with a secretary to answer telephone calls, lives in a small house with Lisbeth, uses no makeup, dresses in moccasins, old sweater & trousers. She swims 30 times up & down her pool every morning, 30 more times every evening, attends no Hollywood parties even when they are given by Universal's Carl Laemmle Jr. Stubborn about her own affairs, she replies to studio requests to have a crooked tooth in the left side of her mouth straightened by saying she prefers it crooked. Studio officials last autumn persuaded her to have a mole on the left side of her face removed. She disappeared for four days until the mole had completely vanished. In 1931, while she was acting at West Falmouth, Mass., she married a member of the company named Henry Fonda, now appearing in Manhattan in New Faces. They were divorced last winter. She makes $1,200 a week, banks $1,000, likes to cook chicken livers and sweetbreads, enjoys fishing and is agreeable to hooking her own worms. Her next picture will be The Good Fairy, from Ferenc Molnar's play.