Cinema: The Farmer's Daughter

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Sunset & Main. Hollywood still strains the outsider's credulity and the insider's nerves. It still has more feuds than Tennessee, more phonies than Times Square, queerer logic than Wonderland, and stranger mores than almost any place in or out of this world. But, fearful of its reputation—which at times has been several degrees below zero—it knocks itself out trying to convince the world that Sunset Boulevard is just an extension of Main Street. For the past decade, the U.S. has been flooded with pictures of stars scrubbing their floors, baking cakes, sewing clothes and doing everything but breastfeeding their own babies. At a recent meeting of Hollywood pressagents, Producer William (Forever Amber) Perlberg scolded: "You have taken the glamor out of the business . . . Would you want to go to the theater and pay money to see the girl next door?"

Some Hollywood bigwigs, notably MGM's Dore Schary, welcome the glamor recession: they feel that the public has matured intellectually as well as morally, that today not the star but the screenplay's the thing. But the majority of producers insist that what Hollywood needs is a return to the oldest lure of all. They are taking hasty steps to reglamorize their "properties." Typical recent case: Darryl F. Zanuck ordered Jeanne Grain out of her demure aprons and put her into bathing suits, which she fills more than adequately. And they are searching feverishly for the girl who can put glamor back in business.

Between such fixed but aging stars as Irene Dunne, 43, Joan Crawford, 43, Loretta Young, 38, and the swarming clouds of hopeful young starlets, a constellation of new stars is emerging. Among them:

Esther Williams, 29, who has risen from the watery mediocrity of a dozen swimming pictures to become the nation's No. 2 female box-office star (No. 1: Betty Grable, 34). From Chillicothe, Ohio to South America to Hong Kong, moviegoers have enthusiastically succumbed to her smiling, wholesome, dismayingly athletic but very American brand of sex.

Betty Mutton, 30, who sang, shouted and bounced her way to the top in the musicomedy field.

Elizabeth Taylor, 19, an authentic beauty with eyes like melting diamonds who can, given the right direction, almost act. Her latest and best part: the rich girl in A Place in the Sun, movie version of Dreiser's American Tragedy.

Shelley Winters, 28, a slangy Brooklyn blonde who is the freshest and most promising of Hollywood newcomers. After two years of hip-swinging parts, she finally got a serious role in A Place in the Sun, in which, with stationary hips and considerable skill, she plays a drab little factory girl.

Jennifer Jones, 31, carefully groomed by Husband David Selznick ever since The Song of Bernadette for top dramatic roles, has serious ambitions as an actress. Her next part: Sister Carrie, opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Notable offscreen achievement: her recent tour of Korea, visiting over 4,000 wounded soldiers, -with none of the publicity ballyhoo that usually attends Hollywood's overseas missions of mercy.

Susan Hayward, 32, a pert-nosed, durable redhead who after 29 routine pictures is being molded to super siren parts. Her current picture: David and Bathsheba.

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