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Motion Picture (1941) - Aside from the Glamour

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"I got all I want of the stage during my recent engagement in a touring company of Stage Door," she smiled. "The monotony of it became unendurable. The same thing night after night for weeks on end. The only possible attraction the stage would have for me now is to play in a repertory company. Playing a part on the screen also becomes monotonous, but there is always the assurance that in a few weeks the picture will be finished and that there is usually a brief vacation for you before you begin another film."

When a lady combines a personal loveliness with an alert and confident mind, the result is apt to be arresting. Arresting is the word for Joan Bennett. A rush of events had filled her visit in New York—renewing old confidences with her mother. (This was the last time Joan was to see her mother alive. A few days after returning to Hollywood she was called East by the sudden death of her mother—the late Adrienne Morrison of stage fame.) Seeing a Broadway show or two, stopping in at a few of the night clubs, making side trips to Washington, Boston and other cities. And in the center, as the chief reason for her New York visit, the premiere of Walter Wanger's production of Foreign Correspondent. She was proud of its success, of the acclaim given its stars, Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, and its director, Alfred Hitchcock.

"I'd like to see all of Hitchcock's pictures, especially the one where an important scene is played only by a man's hand, which you see on the banister as he walks downstairs," she said. "Hitchcock believes in letting the audience use its imagination."

She found her own imagination stimulated by Foreign Correspondent, in spite of her familiarity with the dialogue and situations. She had seen numerous "rushes" of the film in Hollywood, but she adds she is not the movie addict her husband is. "He can't get enough of pictures," she laughed.