Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 1, 1927 How Is Your Inferiority Complex This Fine Day? The Oldtimer Tells the Banker and the Critic Some Things They Didn’t Know About the Motion Picture Business As Reported By Merritt Crawford UT HE trouble with the film business,” said the Oldtimer, “is its ‘inferiority complex.’ You run into it at every turn nowadays and it makes folks like me wish for the days when movies was just plain movies, and we didn’t hear all this “arty” claptrap and high brow bullwah about what the motion picture ought to be, from people who have about as much showmanship in ’em as a hen has teeth.” “‘Inferiority complex?’” queried the Banker, who had just joined the party in their corner of the Hunting Room at the Astor. “Strange I’ve never noticed any of it about motion picture people. In fact I’ve always felt that their ‘complex,’ if any, was exactly the reverse. Why you’d think they were doing you a favor, when they ask for a S50.000 loan on a negative that may turn out to be worth five cents a pound.” He looked about the table, as the others smiled. Only The State Righter, who felt that he alone might be entitled to have an “inferiority complex,” looked at all puzzled. The Critic stuck out his chest and puffed at his cigar. Shows Itself in Odd and Various Ways “‘Inferiority complex’?” queried the the Oldtimer, “and ‘inferiority' complex,’ I meant. It shows itself in various ways, but you’ve all got it. Everybody' in this room has got it.” He waved his hand inclusively at the other tables where sat the high and low of filmdom, the wise and the would be’s, the princes, poohbahs and hasbeens of the domain of King Celluloid. “I’ve got it — you’ve got it — the rest of ’em have got it,” continued the Oldtimer. “Otherwise, why should we always be on the defensive, always apologizing to ourselves or some one else for being on earth, always alibi-ing?” “Well, just what do you mean by ‘inferiority complex?’” interpolated the Critic craftily, consciously conscious of his own literate superiority. “It’s a Freudian term, with a definition a yard and a half long, you know, and means a lot of things.” “Sure it means a ‘lot of things,’ ” returned the Oldtimer. “A heluva lot. But as I take it, it means a sense or belief in the superiority of some one or something else, which we consciously or unconsciously resent and try to conceal. How’ll that do?” “Well enough, I guess,” replied the Critic, yawning. “I didn’t know you had been reading up on Freud.” “I haven't,” answered the Oldtimer briefly'. “I got the idea from a scenario.” The others at the table laughed and the Oldtimer went on. “If this business didn’t have an ‘inferiority complex’ as big as a hump on a camel, I ask yrou, why should the screen continue to look up to the stage and defer to it, as it does, as if it were a superior art, when every'one knows that the motion picture has progressed more in ten years than its one-time rival has in a hundred, and has left the spoken drama, y'ou might say, at the post, in the race for popular favor? “As a combination of almost all the arts and a new one all on its own, the motion picture shouldn’t kowtow to any of the others, yet its protagonists continually pretend that the future film supply must come from these other and lesser arts, which supposedly have a corner on all original ideas, novel situations and plots. “If this isn’t an ‘inferiority complex,’ tell me what is?” The Oldtimer looked at the State Righter who winced visibly, while the Critic and the Banker both looked relieved. They both had feared mention of personalities. “If y'our ‘inferiority complex’ hadn’t kidded you into trailing the big fellows,” he said to the State Righter, brutally, “and prevented y'ou from putting out the pictures, which your natural showmanly experience and inclination would have made you do otherwise, you wouldn’t be hanging on the hind tail now. Ninety-five Percent of Us Just Trail “Not that y'ou are a bit better or worse than the rest of us,” he added. “You’ve merely been made the goat because you were sitting in the wrong place. Sooner or later we are all going to get it in the neck, unless we reform.” The Oldtimer gloomily paused for a reply', but got none, except a rather sarcastic glance from the State Righter. “The trouble is,” he went on, biting off the end of a fresh cigar, “that ninety-five per cent, of us just trail. We’re always trying to imitate the other fellow’s success. We don’t recognize our own ‘inferiority complex’ but kid ourselves into thinking we’re just smart for doing it. “The other five per cent, do — being the real showmen — but being generally' only' showmen, and the other things they are only incidentally', exhibit their ‘complex’ in other ways. “Take most oi" our well known magnates, the big successes and the lesser, who are all basically showmen or they wouldn’t be where they are, even by accident. Some show their ‘inferiority complex’ by' letting their high brow production men, directors, scenarists and publicity purveyors run them ragged, because neither can talk the language of the other. Education takes its toll from brains that haven’t it — for awhile. “Others try to kid themselves and the rest of the world by using the well known high hat method of impressing others with their assumed and recently acquired superiority and to some extent they get away with it. “These are the guy's, who send out word to y'ou or me, who knew ’em when, that they'Ye ‘in conference,’ when we call, or have their secretaries suggest that the appointment book is ‘so full’ we’d better call ‘early next week.’ Later we may see ’em here at the Astor eating a two-hour lunch and discussing nothing more important than last Saturday'^ golf score.” “I disagree with you there,” said the Banker. “All the big men of the film business, I know, and I know most of them, are extremely busy men.” That’s the Cause for All Our “Yes Men” “Admitted,” returned the Oldtimer, “but the rest of it goes just the same. Check it up, if yrou don’t believe me. You’ll find them all about the same, except when it comes down to a question of pure showmanship, where they are right at home. Then it will be y'ou, who will have the ‘inferiority complex,’ providing, of course, that some of your money is involved. You can put it in, but only' they can pull it out. “Out of this condition has grown the great army of ‘y'es-men’ and job-holders, which honeycomb most of our studios today. The best thing most of ’em do is to play upon the big chief’s ‘inferiority complex,’ so that they can hold on to their jobs and jealously keep anything new or original in the way of initiative or brains from getting in. “How do they do it ? . Figure it out for y'ourself. I don’t need to tell you. “This doesn’t apply so much to the sales or distribution ends of the business, which are organized on more efficiently' standardized business lines, and executives have to stand or fall on direct results, with fewer opportunities to alibi. But here again we also have a peculiar development of the ‘inferiority complex,’ I’m shooting at. “If the production end is the heart of the industry, why publicity and advertising, in (Continued on page 75)