Exhibitors Herald (1927)

20 STUDIO SECTION OF March 26, 1927 Three Minutes to Get a Good Gag Among the Difficult Production Jobs Is That of Providing the Director with Humorous Stunts By D. E. BURROWS him, Mervyn had forgotten all about it. It’s a great game, this making two smile-provoking situations grow where only one — or none — grew before. Anybody who thinks it is easy to coax a laugh out of a motion-picture audience at just the right time, has an awful experience ahead of him if he happens to win himself a chance to demonstrate that theory on a motionpicture set. “You have to ‘sell’ a piece of comedy as you sell a pair of shoes,” Mervyn tells us, “first to the director, the produc MERVYN LE ROY is comedy constructor for First tion manager and National. I HAD been wandering on the beautiful new First National Studio lot on the outskirts of Burbank, California, heading in the general direction of a set whereon Colleen Moore was celluloiding dramatic moments for “Twinkletoes” — when suddenly— I espied a lad. “Come, come, boy, what great grief has come into your life? Who and why are you?” “I — I am — Mmm — Mervyn — Mervyn LeRoy,” he responded, “and I’m stumped !” “Stumped ?” “Stumped for a stunt,” he cried, “cornered for a catchline; sunk without trace by a fleeting amnesia, or amoeba, or whatever’s the most popular description of sudden softening of the medulla oblongata 1” “All of which means — ?” “That I have just three minutes to think up a ‘gag’ for this next scene.” He leaped to his feet. “I’ve got it!” he shrieked, “and you gave it to me! See you later!” That’s Mervyn LeRoy, First National’s comedy constructor. The next time I saw the actor, and then to the public. “That’s the reason,” this clever young “gag man” continues — he despises that term, by the way — “I try all the time for smiles, rather than guffaws. Sudden bursts of laughter are apt to be blowouts of your presentation balloon; smiles and chuckles are the gases which keep it floating through the ambient atmosphere of public interest !” Not so bad for a yoimg feller who was doing “short turns and encores” in vaudeville a few years back! LeRoy considers “Sally” and “Irene” as ideal vehicles for comedy expression, even though he had a hand in them himself. He gives most of the credit, however, to John McCormick, general manager of West Coast production for First National and producer of Miss Moore’s pictures — “the quickest man in the country to scent a bona fide laugh and stalk it to its lair” — and to Colleen Moore herself, whose “super-developed sense of humor extends from the medulla oblongata to the lower cuticle of each pedal extremity,” and to whom “it is only necessary to give the outline of a humorous stunt, and she’ll improve on it.” Mervyn says a comparatively small percentage of directors are experts in bagging laughs. That’s the reason for the “comedy constructor.” He has unbounded faith in Alfred Green, with whom he has been associated the past three years. “You never know where the next ‘hunch’ is coming from,” LeRoy asservates; “I try to find a laugh in everything that comes to my notice — and to get the other fellow’s reaction to it. You can find humor everywhere, if you keep your eyes open for it —even a bee or a butterfly may supply it, while the lower animals, such as cats, dogs and monkeys, are natural-born comedians. “We can’t hope to make everybody laugh — my motto is to try to get the greatest number of laughs out of the greatest number of people — the kind of laughs which will stick with them after they have left the theatre, and make them boosters for our product.” Mervyn’s ambition is to direct “drama filled with human comedy” or “comedies filled with human drama,” or something of the sort. In any case he’s on the right trail to Somewhere — which is fair enough. Court Made Theatre For Insurance Trial ( special to the Herald) KANSAS CITY. March 22.— The unusual spectacle of motion pictures as evidence in a federal court trial in Kansas City was witnessed last week. J. Goldberg & Sons Structural Steel Company was the plaintiff, the defendants being nine insurance companies. The plaintiff contended fire caused the destruction of a Kansas City building, the defendants alleging overloading. The courtroom was equipped for presentation of a 61m, which showed Bremen preparing to salvage a wall of the building.