Hollywood Spectator (1931)

4 Hollywood Spectator years must have stored up a lot of things that he would like to say to the people who make pictures. We talked it over, with the result that we have a new member of the Spectator staff. The Spectator itself as an institution has no opinions. It hereafter will present regularly the opinions of three people, in order, myself, Sherwood and Dalton Trumbo. My only request to my associates was that they were to pan me on their pages when I write things they don’t like. Bob Sherwood, the base ingrate, has started it already. You will notice that with this issue the name of the magazine has been changed. Instead of The Film Spectator, we now have the Hollywood Spectator. We made the change to permit logically the inclusion in its pages of comment on subjects other than the screen. We have increased the size to provide room for contributions from our readers, and we hope that they will make generous use of our pages. We have changed the typographical appearance to make the paper more readable. ▼ ▼ Mr. SHERWOOD is now in Hollywood and while he is here will give Spectator readers the benefit of such observations as he makes. When he returns to his home in New York, he will discuss Hollywood as he sees it from that distance and probably will include in his department expert comments on current stage offerings. Our new associate editor still is a young man and what he has done so brilliantly in the past may be accepted only as an indication of what we may expect from him in the future. I am proud of the fact that I will be associated with him during his expanding years and that his best thoughts upon the subjects he will discuss will be available to Spectator readers. I am proud also of the fact that the Spectator, by persuading him to become a member of its staff, is instrumental in making him a part of Hollywood, even though he will reside in New York. The Spectator welcomes Bob Sherwood cordially. I am confident that its readers will welcome him with equal cordiality. ▼ v y A Genius? NICHOLAS M. ScheNCK, president of Metro-GoldwynMayer, says that if there be such a thing as a genius, Irving Thalberg is one. It does not require genius to make pictures in the manner that Irving makes them. After the last Novarro picture was previewed two reels were cut out of it and retakes were shot to patch up the hole. If those two reels should not be in the picture, a production executive of ordinary intelligence, much less a genius, would have known that they never should have been shot. The money that the reels cost should have gone to M-G-M shareholders instead of into the cutting-room rubbish cans. ▼ ▼ The Metro method of making pictures is the most absurd that prevails in any studio. Directors are hurried, harassed and hampered by lack of money, but after a picture is shot unlimited time and money are expended in patching it up until it meets a certain entertainment standard. If this standard can not be reached, the picture is not released. By this method Metro avoids having absolute flops, but it does not avoid having gigantic losses represented by dead film in forgotten vaults. No, not a genius. Any picture ever made by Irving could be duplicated for half the cost by anyone with a slight knowledge of production and a sound knowledge of the fundamentals of screen art. y y y Silence A CORRESPONDENT wants to know when I am going to cease insisting that Hollywood should make silent pictures again. I wasn’t aware that I was insisting upon any such thing. I have been urging Hollywood to make motion pictures again. The only perfect motion picture is one that contains no audible dialogue or sound effects, though a motion picture of a sort can contain a little of both, but it is not a motion picture if it uses dialogue to tell its story. It is a photographed play, and the present financial plight of the film industry is due to the fact that the public has grown weary of viewing photographed plays. When I say that Hollywood should return to the business that made it one of the outstanding communities of the world, I do not mean that it should go back to silence as abruptly as it left it. I mean that it should return to the business of telling its stories with the camera. This necessarily does not preclude the use of some audible dialogue. In the silent days we did not succeed as we should have in developing the titleless picture, and it is too much to expect now that we can develop screen art far enough to enable it entirely to eliminate audible dialogue. There is no reason why we should not use dialogue to displace the printed titles, but we should not use it beyond that point. ▼▼ Three years AGO when talking pictures first began to assume a definite form, I stated in the Spectator that the problem the sound camera presented was the judicious use of silence. Silence was and always will be the most valuable element of screen art, as it establishes the effectiveness of filmic motion and permits its function as the story-telling agency. When silence predominates in a film production, it enhances by contrast the potency of the spoken word. Talking pictures have lost favor with the public because they scorn silence and rely wholly upon the voice in telling their stories. Formerly the mission of the camera was to record action. Now its chief mission is to record conversations. Dialogue has become an important element of our screen entertainment, not because it is a natural element, but because producers have given it a false importance. Despite the fact that it has brought the industry to the verge of bankruptcy, Hollywood still reaches out to the rest of the world for more dialogue writers to add to its distress. When a story is being put in form for shooting no consideration seems to be given to its suitability for presentation with a maximum of motion and a minimum of dialogue. As long as this folly is practiced the financial stability of the industry will be threatened.