The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Among the Magazines Conducted by N. L. G. THE LADIES HOME JOURNAL is rendering a real service to the movies n the interesting series of articles by eading members of the dramatic profes- ion. The August number contains "John barrymore Writes on the Movies." A good many thoughtful people have vondered about the attitude of the really :reat actor toward the motion picture; they lave wondered why so many artists from he real stage—or so few—have turned to he screen. This article goes far toward mswering these and other questions. What first draws an artist to try the icreen? Mr. Barrymore is precise upon his point. "At first the pictures did not interest me. \fter a fashion I liked to see one, but, hen as now, a moving picture of a swarm )f bees interested me more than most of he so-called photoplays. Frankly, the in- [ucement that the pictures held out to me vas money." The initial achievement is likely to prove in immense disappointment, not only to he actor's public but to the actor himself. Ne. have all shuddered at the ghastly re- mits achieved by stage celebrities when hey made their first essay at a movie. Re- all Forbes Robertson, Robert Mantell, Ger- ildine Farrar, Nazimova, and, very re- :ently, Guy Bates Post as the photographic nonstrosity in the Masquerader. Mr. Bar- ymore freely admits himself guilty also. "I found in my first picture that I over- icted many of the scenes, that missing the ;timulus of the audience I became indis- creet. In the theatre there is a certain eeling you get through vibration from the >eople who record and receive your effects. . . In the movies you must create all his yourself. ... I had been prewarned, :nd in my first film comedy I had a sort of eeling that if I worked hard enough I •ould make the electricians and the camera nan laugh and they would take the place of the theatrical audience. The result was woeful and unreal." Even in so recent a picture as his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is surprising to learn of Mr. Barrymore's almost complete dissatisfaction with the finished product. "I read the book again and again. I talked it over with the director hour after hour. I became saturated with the story and steeped in it. I was impressed with the eerie quality and hoped to transfer some of this to the screen. We had a good scenario, and yet when I saw the pic- ture, as released, just one incident was right, and that the one in which Dr. Jekyll tells his valet that a man described as Hyde is to run his house." It is inevitable that a cultured mind should have higher thoughts about the new medium—should look for better signs of greatness than the pay envelope which stands as final evidence in the minds of the average of moviedom. "I have changed my ideas about the movies. They are well worth doing if they can be done right. But when I have tried to get things right in the movies I have felt a certain responsibility for what we let loose upon the world. . . . It is not so much a matter of morals . . . but rather the responsibility that this perme- ating power gives us to set people wrong, to give them half a truth, to educate them falsely. A lecturer can tell only what he knows. If he is wrong he can soon be put right. The old-time medicine man who gave a fake show and sold bogus reme- dies was a piker in his potential power for harm alongside of the movie-producer. . . . We of the movies have the power to let loose a tiger in the minds of the young." In the situation as it stands today Mr. Barrymore sees both grave defects and ele- ments of promise. "The movies are todayin a parlous way, and the obvious unimaginative stories are responsible. The audiences are tired of it 257