Constance Bennett — Reckless and Charming (1930) 🇺🇸
Five or six years ago a new personality streaked like a comet across the film horizon, blinding us with a beauty as intense as a white flame, and was gone, leaving nothing but the memory of a few characterizations almost perfectly done. Her name was Constance Bennett.
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Strange, incomprehensible almost, that eye-searing beauty was used to decoy men to their ruin, temporarily, anyhow. There seemed no reason for it. Her beauty was the type we like to see safely folded in the hero's arms in the last hundred feet, and to know that fair face would not be pricked by life's thorns — not while our hero could prevent it. No, sir!
But things like that never happened to the girl in those days. In the last reel she always went dejectedly — more or less — down life's by-paths, her discontented mouth puckered into a shape you'd just love to kiss, while the sappy hero turned, albeit reluctantly, to the more wholesome, but certainly less attractive mate his director had selected for him.
Perhaps the movie magnates, with more vision than they are credited with, realized that such beauty and charm were too potent to remain the exclusive property of one man. The world would be paying court to the household of any man lucky enough to win her. Whatever the reason, this girl still in her teens, played sophisticated roles as they have never been played before or since; played them without benefit of any of the artifices usually employed for such parts since movies began. No obvious make-up, no startling coiffures, no outlandish clothes, and no seductive wiles. She just walked onto a set dressed like one of Chanel's prize exhibits, with that come-hither look in her eyes and, believe me, they came. The fact that at the end they left her was less a credit to their taste than to any lack of charm on her part.
During her two years on the screen she free-lanced all over the place. It was not until she played in "Sally, Irene, and Mary" that M.-G.-M. signed her to a five-year contract calling for fifty-two weeks of work a year. Six weeks after signing the contract she went to New York, married, and left the screen flat.
After that her erstwhile screen lovers turned to the other interests furnished them by the casting directors, and not quite so discontentedly to "True Blue" Lou at the end.
Now, after the lapse above noted, this girl comes back — still looking like one of Chanel's exhibits, but with that discontented expression about the mouth all gone, and with that devastating wit and beauty more fully matured.
News of her return flashed to the four corners of the earth, and there was a mad scramble on the part of everybody who ever heard of a fan magazine, or who knew how to dot an "i," to get a story, and — oh, yes — an interview.
She looked at me out of the calmest gray eyes I've ever seen, and extended her hand. Like William Gaxton, in "A Connecticut Yankee," I began immediately to carol
Oh, gee! Oh, gosh! She started talking, but for all I knew she could have been telling me that "The Birth of a Nation" was a great picture. News of the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment would scarcely have impressed me — just then. The husky undertones of her voice, vibrating with something that — er — something that — that — well, you know how it is! Finally somebody, some kind soul, held a bottle of strong-smelling stuff under my nose. I took a swig — sniff, I mean — sat up and began to pay attention.
She was telling me how she happened to sign her present contract. Her old agreement with M.-G.-M. had still a year or so to run, when she was approached by Ufa to make two pictures in Germany. She telephoned Metro-Goldwyn and asked if they would release her. They tried to cajole her into coming back to America to work. Constance opened her gray eyes wide in astonishment. At least, I imagine she did. It's a trick she has. "Why should I? It means giving up my friends, my home, my life on the Continent. Here I can make two or three pictures and still do the things I want."
After several phone calls across the Atlantic — or maybe it was the Pacific, because when you listen to that husky voice and she gazes at you with that far-away look in her eyes, time and place mean nothing — M.-G.-M. released her, and Constance prepared to depart, bag and baggage, for Germany.
This story has got to be good, so for the sake of adding a little dramatic interest, we'll say that as she was turning the key in the lock, the phone rang once more. With a smothered "Bother!" she unlocked the door, and went back into the house to answer it — the maids had all gone already, you see — and who do you suppose it was Right! Joseph P. Kennedy begging her to rally to the aid of dear, old Pathé, who was fighting a losing game in the battle of the centuries.
Constance, who is a game sport and loves to take a chance, boosted her salary until it looked like the French war debt, and waited. Mr. Kennedy, who is a conservative business man, and not a game sport, said "Utsnay," or words to that effect, and fainted.
Hearing nothing further, Constance hung up the receiver, locked the door, and proceeded on her way. She got as far as the railroad station this time, when she was summoned to the phone, and Mr. Kennedy, having revived, informed her that she would be cheap at twice the price, or words to that effect, and invited her to take possession of a dressing room on the Pathé lot.
To me Constance typifies Park Avenue. To put it vulgarly, she has that indefinable something that spells "class." I don't know what, if any, finishing school she attended. If she did, her school can point with pride to her as a Grade A specimen of its product. She has a remarkable sense of humor, coupled with the knack of chatting freely and easily to put you at ease. Yet, with it all, there is something dignified about her.. I cannot conceive of any one becoming unduly familiar, nor can I picture any one presuming to take liberties with her.
Probably more has been written about the Bennett temperament than almost any other subject in filmdom, and yet it really is not temperament. It is simply an overpowering inclination to obey that impulse, whatever said impulse may be, and to let the consequences take care of themselves. This trait is dominant in all the Bennett sisters, Joan and Barbara, as well as Constance.
A great deal of notoriety has been given the lack of understanding and affection existing between the sisters, yet Constance often refers to them both. Joan she speaks of most often, possibly because she is the little sister, or because of her sudden and sensational rise to fame. "She's a darling," or "Isn't she a dear?" are most often the gist of her remarks. They never think of each other as rivals, as they feel there is plenty of room at the top for them both.
Joan thinks Constance one of the most finished actresses on the screen.
With it all, there is a marked difference between the two. Constance is more worldly, more sophisticated; Joan is sweeter and gentler. Constance has a more vivid personality — a more direct magnetism. Joan grows on you, and you like her better as you come to know her. Barbara is the least known of the three on the screen, although better known, perhaps, as a dancer. She has made but two films, "Syncopation" and "Mother's Boy."
Joan's pictures have followed each other with bewildering speed. "Bulldog Drummond," "Three Live Ghosts," Disraeli, "The Mississippi Gambler," and "Puttin' on the Ritz."
The two things all three sisters have in common are their recklessness and their charm.
About the only thing left to tell you is that when you want to see sophisticated entertainment, plus looks, plus clothes, plus the ability to wear them, and to listen to a voice that sends little shivers up your spine, go to see Constance Bennett.
Constance Bennett wears clothes with a way all her own.
Photo by: Edwin Bower Hesser (1893–1962)
Constance Bennett has calm, gray eyes and a voice with husky undertones that quite disturbed Mr. Mook.
Miss Bennett's quiet sense of humor is maintained at no sacrifice of dignity.
Photo by: Elmer Fryer (1898–1944)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, February 1930