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A stubborn seeker after realism Stevens relies heavily on a "reflective technique," i.e., an actor's reaction to a line or situation. At times he resorts to trickery to get the proper reaction. On Shane one old standby worked perfectly with Villain Jack Palance, who seemed unable to turn on the right expression of amused contempt in one scene. Actor Elisha Cook Jr. had an angry line: "You're a no-good, lying Yankee!" Palance's facial expression earned too much contempt and not enough amusement. Finally, Stevens took Cook aside for a whispered moment. When the camera turned again, Cook read his line: "You're a no-good, lying Yankee—and a sonofabitch too!" Stevens got his take, and the extra epithet was merely cut out of the sound track later. At other imes, Stevens is willing to sacrifice realism for graceful movement. As an ex-cameraman, he knows that a man getting off a horse looks better than a man mounting one; thus, he has been known to shoot his actor dismounting and then reverse the motion of the film.
For a man who has just brought in such a sure-fire moneymaker as Shane (cost of the picture: $3,100,000), Stevens last week found himself, by a curious Hollywood paradox, without a job. Shane was his last picture for Paramount, which like most companies, likes to have more say in a project than Stevens is willing to permit. I don't think [big companies] see a motion picture for what it's worth. They see it only in terms of product . . . They don't consider what an attraction can be or should be [but] keep looking for assurances of having seen it before. That alone eliminates the possibility of a picture being interesting." Stevens plans to "go ahead and make another picture that suits my standards . . . When, how and where, I don't know ... I'm taking my time now . . . When l Iook at Cecil B. DeMilIe (71), I realize you shouldn't even start to think of yourself as on top of your game till you're his age. I expect to be in pictures a long time."
By the Light of the Silvery Moon (Warner) has a couple of pleasant young people, Doris Day and Gordon MacRae singing a number of pleasant old songs, e.g. If You Were the Only Girl, My Home Town Is a One-Horse Town —but Its Big Enough for Me, and the title tune. Unfortunately, there is also a screenplay. Too vaguely based on Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories, the picture unreels some foolishly romantic complications in a small Indiana town at the threshold of the Jazz Age. Among those present: a stuffy paterfamilias (Leon Ames), an understanding mother (Rosemary DeCamp), a comic maid (Mary Wickes), an unruly youngster (Billy Gray), a pet turkey named Gregory. With its sleighrides, ice-skating parties and other Technicolored bucolics, By the Light of the Silvery Moon is so relentlessly wholesome that moviegoers may wish for the Dead End kids to drop in.