Motion Picture News (Oct-Dec 1930)

October 11, 1930 Motion Picture N etus 47 *PS <S0*L ^T1CE leedle yarn about one of the big BroadI way boys who came out to write dialog on the XYZ lot. His script was O.K. — swell, in fact — and the picture was shooting when the big execs took a look at the rushes and decided that one scene was all wrong. Hurry call to the dialog writer to do his stuff that night. All work suspended until he should bring in his script in the morning. The middle of the next afternoon the high priced dialog writer crawled back on the lot, weary and red eyed — but not from burning the midnight oil. He'd been burning up something quite different, and he didn't have a line of dialog to show for it. Execs surrounded him anxiously. "Where iss the new version? Let's see it, queek!" The big writer looked at them sadly. Tears came to his eyes. "Men," he said magnificently, "I haven't got it. It wasn't good enough ! So I tore it up." Did they believe him? Sure. Wasn't he a genius? Weren't they paying the fellow a number of grand a week? Sure they believed him. Nice leedle yarn, eh? And if you don't believe it, it merely proves that you simply don't know your Hollywood. — Talking Screen. If the motion picture industry and the amusement business in general is in need of any one thing, it is a tolerant and boosting attitude of the press. If criticism is not constructive, it should be withheld. The best brains possible are being employed in the industries, whose success is the result of courageous trial and error, the "do and dare," which has brought unquestioned prosperity despite knocking, ridiculing and sarcasm. It is noteworthy that not a single one of these horned and barbed vitriol throwers has elevated himself correspondingly. — Inside Facts, Los Angeles, * * * Strange things transpire under the Hollywood sun but none are stranger than the determination of the folks who make the movies to be different at all costs. The insistent struggle for distinction is as unending— and quite as important — as the fight to the top. The crest of individuality is the peg over which publicity, public attention and other what-nots, so dear to the heart of the actor, is draped. Thus, Clara Bow dyes her hair flamingo; Alice White goes sockless: Joan Crawford carries dolls; Ruth Roland zvears tiaras; Charlie Farrell owns a Ford. — Screenland. Many and devious are the ways in which the American film producers are tackling what probably is the most difficult problem of the moment — the second conquest of the foreign market. In several of the larger studios considerable activity is to be observed in the special departments created for the emergency. Others are trailing along, watching closely, waiting to see what happens before following the leader. And things should be happening very soon. — Baltimore Times. Force of Habit Hollywood — A bunch dow nat Malibu was digging into one of the Sunday night snacks that the habitues of the beach colony throw for their guests. Included was a young juvenile who is about to get his first real break via a big picture shortly to make its debut. He was eating, drinking or sipping his soup standing. "Why not sit down," someone inquired. "I've been walking around so long looking for a job that I don't know* how," was the snappy rejoinder. HP HERE is every reason to believe that within a year movies will not be of the same monotonous form and character. At the present time the large companies have succeeded in producing their movies with rigid constructions. The actual form, the technique of the film, has no more variation from day to day than a Ford chassis. Occasionally some daring producer will tack on a cigar lighter, a new coat of paint, or an extra tire, but the form of the movie has, with a few rare exceptions, remained static ever since Hollywood began its great era of sound. Strangely enough even the public seems to have felt the monotony despite the theory that nothing is too terrible for a movie fan. Whatever the reason, the great corporations have discovered suddenly that the gold is not cascading into the cashier's drawer as it once did. (An unnamed New York bank) has issued a report on the infant industry, characterizing it as a mushroom growth, unsound and risky. All of which is no news to the producers. But it may bring home to the gentlemen once again that, despite the opinion of the Supreme Court, in which the august jurists held the movies were "concerned with industry — not with art, news or opinion,'' even the most loyal movie fan needs some meat along with his cheap pastry. — Judge. THE Paramount Department of Nomenclature lets it be known that Charles Ruggles, who has been agreeably inoffensive until now, will henceforth be known as "Charlie" Ruggles. The change, announces the studio lord chamberlain, was effected "virtually by popular request," Mr. Ruggles acceding graciously to public importuning. Well. Let's go a little farther along this route and see what else can be done in changing or expanding the labels of some of the betterknown players. "Georgie Porgie" Bancroft sounds feasible. Louis ("Cuddles") Wolheim and "Davie" Torrance have possibilities. "Ray" Novarro, "Bennie" Lyon, "Maisie" Pickford, "lackie-Boy" Oakie, "Teddie" Lowe, and "Bazzie" Rathbone are some of the names which may leap out at you from the billboards unless, as a member of the somewhat vaguely denned public which governs such matters, you register a protest with the chaplain of your nearest cinema house. — Cenema, Neiv York. * * * "More often than not the picture advertised as risque in the lobby is found to be wholly innocuous, and, it may be added, to the disappointment of a large part of the audience. Obviously, the lay censors of our films go no farther into the subject than the theatre lobby. "Irreconcilable enemies of censorship are in accord with this new policy of honest advertising. They criticize the movie industry for permitting such a short-sighted policy to survive so long, for they must have known that through it they were playing into the hands of the censorship crowd. . . ." — Asbury Park, .V. J., Press. * * * "Figures don't lie, but liars do some nifty figuring." Which has to do directly with the figuring by some of the industry's leaders with reference to the actual position of the independent theatre owner in the motion picture industry. If all independent theatre operators were properly organized, there would be no need for the present controversy over the true position of the independent vs. the producerchain operator. — Greater Amusements, Minneapolis. One can no more speak of bad music than one can speak of bad sunshine; there is no such thing. — DeCasseres in Life. "Chattering in the audience drowns a lot of the ' sound during a talkie film," says a critic. But not nearly enough. — London Humorist. * * * Currently the most popular movie stars, according to the verdict of the box offices, are the following : Paramount — Clara Bow, Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll. M.-G.-M. — Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer and Ramon Novarro. R.-K.-O. — Bebe Daniels, Richard Dix and Sue Carol. Pathe — Ann Harding, Helen Twelvetrees and Constance Bennett. Fox — Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell and Fifi d'Orsay. Universal — John Boles. First National — Richard Barthelmess, Doug Fairbanks, Jr., and Loretta Young. United Artists — Chester Morris, Ronald Colman and Joan Bennett. — N. Y. News. Since the war, Hollywood has been all cluttered up zvith royalty. Honest-togoodness ex-Highnesses are hidden in the spinach. And there's a phoney prince for every premiere. But this didn't prevent a lady celeb seeker from trying to impress Alice Joyce, ivhom she met for the first time. "Why," said the lion-hunter to the aristocratic Alice, "I actually dined with a Russian Grand Duke!" "Really?" replied Alice, "I teas more forutnate. I didn't!" — Talking Screen. She Knows Hollywood — Instead of starting scenes with the command, "camera," Paul Stein, now directing Constance Bennett in "Sin Takes a Holiday" for Pathe, calls "shoot." Rehearsal was about to begin for a love scene in a boudoir. "Are we ready?" called Stein. "Then shoot!" "Gee!" whispered an excited extra girl. "The husband must be coming