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From Hollywood Conducted by M. T. O. The Personnel of the "Movies" ONE of the motion picture "fan" magazines of the month publishes an article on "Where the moving picture directors come from." It affords a few interesting moments, and suggests a line of thought. It reminds me, some- how, of the population of California: no- body was ever really born there—they all came from somewhere else. And ap- parently nobody was ever really born, so to speak, in the moving picture busi- ness. The article in question tells, for example, of directors recruited from the stage, the editor's desk, the arts—I mean bona fide arts, you know, like painting and sculpture—the army, the navy, the circus tent, the law, the football field, the speedway, the barbershop, the medical profession—and what you will. Of course everything has to have a beginning some time, and the motion pic- ture business is still, in the matter of years, in the beginning stages. So we mustn't be too hard on it. Still, we must face facts, and one of them is that the personnel of the motion picture industry still leaves much—oh, much!—to be de- sired. It is not that a barber, or a doctor, or a sailor, or a lawyer may not make an entirely satisfactory movie director or scenario writer. There is many a square peg in a round hole the world over; and if a bootblack, a hairdresser, a dressmaker, or the traffic man on the corner is unhappy in his chosen work, and feels that the only medium for the expression of his true self is the screen, I am far from discouraging him. He may be a genius in disguise. But genius is a rare thing, and most of the misfits who tumbled into the movies in the be- ginning have never discovered that thl are just as much misfits there as thl ever were. One sees readily enough how this col dition came about. The first mushroori growth of the movies, the big returl and quick profits, and the more or les unorganized conditions which prevail! at the outset, presented an inviting pro! pect to the numerous Micawbers whi were "waiting for something to turn ul They made all haste to include then selves in a good thing, and they maj money, even if they did not make goJ pictures. And now I am including pro ducers, cameramen, scenario writers-4 everybody in the movies. For it is quit logical and perfectly believable that i the directors sprang from divers curiou origins, the same may be true of the res of the movie personnel in equal measure Q.E.D. So these barbers, these racing driver^ these football heroes, and these nevm paper reporters made movies—mad them very badly too, at first. But w liked them, bad as they were: we mus have, for the movies flourished witha great flourish. Then time went on, and with it well some of the ex-automobile-salesmen. an< the ex-circus men, and the ex-colleg< heroes. One wonders where they did g< —the magazine article did not say. The: had made enough money to satisfy then for a while, perhaps, or something els< "turned up" and they drifted on. At an} rate, they disappeared. Some, on tin other hand, stayed with the game, an< eventually learned something about it And some there were, of that first batcl of ex-something-or-others, who stayec 300