Clive Brook — Clive Without an Angle (1926) 🇺🇸
Unless I told you, you might never know it — as there is nothing in the text to hint at it — but this is perhaps the most extraordinary interview with a picture star that you have ever read. I might even go so far as to say, that has ever been written.
The subject matter is Clive Brook, and though you may suppose, from the foregoing paragraph, that I am going to dash into some unusual literary antics about Clive, such is not the case. No, this amazing eccentricity of which I have spoken lies in the omission of certain journalistic principles rather than in the commission of merit. For this is a story without an angle.
Now, an angle to an interview is what Jack Gilbert is to the box office — practically indispensable. It is the model over which a player's personality is draped. For instance, quoting Mary Pickford on her happy marriage to Douglas is an angle for a story on Mary — not a particularly good one, but an angle just the same. Quoting Theda Bara on technical improvements and changes in screen technique since her Fox days, is an angle on Theda. Biographies are an angle. Even pure personality sketches are usually draped over some rack. You see what I mean? I doubt if you have ever read an interview that has not expounded some particular angular backbone, in one way or another. That is, up to now.
And don't think that it is through carelessness that I leave Clive angle-less like this. I've given the matter a lot of thought. It struck me that Mr. Brook might be tied up with something like, "What an Englishman thinks of American women," or "What an actor thinks about between scenes," or "Why I married a non-professional," but I gave these angles up without much of a struggle, as they are terrible, anyway, and have been done too often to be even badly distinctive.
Clive, I felt, deserved something different. I've felt that way ever since I saw him in "Three Faces East." Now, as everybody else has an angle, what could be more from the beaten path than to leave Clive without one? That may not be good journalism, but it's great logic. When, by appointment, I met him for lunch, he was as ignorant of anything underhand as a babe in arms, and probably thought he was going to be written up with an angle just like any other actor. I could tell that, because he talked logically, easily, and well. He finished his current subject to the final period before he took up another one. He had been a reporter in England long before he had become an actor, so his experience came in handy. He talked somewhat under the general heading of "business-man actor," and I might have run the yarn under something like that, if I had wanted to run it under anything at all. But I didn't, and I don't, so hang on while we take the corners, and don't be surprised at anything short of incoherency, and not too surprised at that.
We ate at the Athletic Club, which is a nice place to eat — more conservative than Montmartre, and not so stodgy as the hotels. After we had been seated next to one of the big windows, Clive told me it was rather an inopportune occasion for an interview, as he was sunk in a mood — a pessimistic mood. He was, he said — mind you, all in good broad English a's — rather happy in his melancholia. But I wasn't to judge him entirely by that. Sometimes he was of quite a pleasant disposition. He told me this as he sat scribbling our order of vegetables and salads on a pad, in an elegantly illegible hand. I noticed that he looked, in person, exactly as he does on the screen, which is to say, very handsome. Which is to say, very handsome, indeed.
Just by way of cheering him up, I told him I had been completely jittery over his performance in "Three Faces East."
"You liked that?" he asked. "I guess it wasn't bad — I couldn't sit through it myself, though. Walked out on it — halfway through. Absolutely walked out. I thought the photography on me was terrible. Couldn't stand to look at it. That's vain, isn't it? I think we people in pictures are all more or less inflated with vanity. Can't help it. But then, I told you I was in a pessimistic mood. Probably feel differently about it tomorrow."
The waiter at his elbow, said, "Beg pardon, sir," pointing to one of Clive's hieroglyphics, "is this 'pumpkin pie?' "
"Pumpkin pie?" repeated Clive, staring at it. "No, 'orangeade.' You can bring the pie, though, if you prefer. Doesn't make any difference.
"What were we talking about? Oh, yes — vanity. I suppose you can blame this on vanity, too, but I hate to see the way pictures are cut. I mean: you are doing a heavy piece of work — as long as we are talking about 'Three Faces East,' take that death scene — it seems to me that that should have held on until its logical conclusion, instead of cutting away to Zeppelins, air raids, and so forth. No doubt I'm wrong about that. I suppose those cuts make it more interesting to the audience, and make the suspense keener, but then, look at that beautiful love scene in The Big Parade. Held on indefinitely without cutting away. Terribly impressive, I thought."
I said I thought so, too. And then I told Clive that story that Donald Ogden Stewart tells in The Crazy Fool. A scenario writer is outlining the plot of his latest script to a bored audience. His general theme concerns Roman history, and he is describing in particular the scene of a Roman gentleman at the bath
"And then;" says the scenario writer, "we cut awav to the White House."
"What for?" asks the bored audience, suddenly becoming interested.
"For contrast," says the scenario writer.
"Exactly," said Clive. "Ha! Exactly what I mean."
In a little while, he said, "How long have you been doing this work?"
I told him.
"Really? And how do you like it?"
I told him that, too.
"I used to be a reporter of a sort. In England. Used to report murders and such. And then I did some war corresponding, also."
In case you don't know, a man who reports murders on any paper is pretty likely to be a star reporter, although Clive didn't say so. Another thing he forgot to mention is that he enlisted as a private and rose to the rank of major in the British machine-gun corps, and during the war, somewhere around 1918, sustained such shocks as caused amnesia. He was sent back to England, was retired on a pension, and by slow degrees, he recovered. However, not sufficiently to enable him to remember these little things during the course of an interview. Recitation of the facts of his biography seemed to interest him not the slightest. Yes, his first stage engagement was in London, with Fay Compton, in Fair and Warmer. Yes, he had also played in "Sacred and Profane Love." Pictures were nice. They were particularly nice when one played with Corinne Griffith. "Declassée" had been his favorite film. He had played an American Jew. Imagine an Englishman who looks like an Englishman, playing an American Jew!
Just then, the waiter brought the check. There wasn't much excuse for lingering, so we left.
He drove me home, and as I got out, he said, "I've enjoyed this immensely. It was nice of you to see me — very nice."
Well, that's the end of the story, as you can't continue to probe a man who has just turned a corner out of your line of vision.
Maybe you think this story is light. Maybe you think it is even frivolous. But you've got to hand it this: it's distinctive. You can run through it with a fine comb, and you won't find an angle anywhere.
Clive Brook told Dorothy Manners he had been a reporter once himself — in England.
Photo by: Albert Witzel (1879–1929)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, September 1926