Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1920)

4^ Photoplay ScENARioiST. (takes the piece of truth and examines it curiously as tltoug/i he had never seen anything quite like it before) I don't know about this. I ll have to follow the Easiest Way and you know that s quite hard. (After a good deal of manipulation Scenarioist manages to force the truth into box which quivers reproachfully.) Art. Wonderful! Why, this seems to remind me of other times, long, long ago! Knowledge. Of course it does, Art, only you die and are reborn so often it's hard for you to remember. Try to think — Aeschylus — the Law of Dramatic Catastrophe. Art. It's all coming back to me. The inexntable punishment of the Transgressor. How our poor woman will suffer, not in one splendid sacrifice, but through all the sordid details, of quarrels, deceits, disease, and mutual infidelity. Scenarioist. (greatly alarmed) Stop! Stop! This is much too much! Suppose Oodlesovitz should come in and hear you! (Art and Knowledge continue talking, paying no attention to him, until, suddenly, lid of Box Office Idea falls with a loud click.) Art. Did you hear that? Magazine Knowledge, (looking at box) Why, it's shut, tight! {Together they rush touards box, and shake it, trying to force ideas and pieces of truth into it.) Scenarioist. Children! Children! Do be careful! Oodlesovitz says it's never safe to monkey with the Box OfSce. (Unfortunately Scenarioist's warning comes too late. The Box Office Idea stirs, then suddenly topples over on Art and Knowledge, flattening them out completely.) Scenarioist. (looks at them sadly and shakes his head) Too bad! Too bad! But really they ought to have known better than to come here in the first place! (Without more ado he drags them off by the heels. Returning a little later he reverently raises the Box Office Idea to its accustomed niche. Speaks thoughtfully.) Well, I've written all my other pictures without them, so I guess I can do this one all right. (He begins to compose.) "Shedda Teare. a pure bad woman.'' No! No! That won't do! "Shedda Teare, a bad woman with pure thoughts and a good heart." Fine! That ought to drag 'em in! (He looks hopefully at Box Office Idea. It responds with a sweet tinkling as of gold struck by silver. Darkness fails.) The Morals of the Movies Mr. Karl Kitchen discusses, after investitration, the truth about the alleged "gay studio life." YOU have been hearing the "morals of the movies" discussed pro and con — mostly con — for a number of years. Last spring the New York World sent Mr. Karl Kitchen, one of its most able writers and investigators, to California to gather information on the motion picture game. In the following article, taken from Reedy's Mirror, Mr. Kitchen lays the gist of his discoveries of the motion picture's morals before the reading public: "IT is a common thing for 'gay dogs' to wink slyly when discussing conditions in the motion picture studios," says Mr. Kitchen. "And these sly winks are usually accompanied by knowing looks and equally comprehensive elbow nudges in the ribs. For there is widespread impression that artistic endeavor and immorality often go together and that motion picture studios, while not surfeited with art, are nevertheless 'hot beds of vice,' as well-paid reformers would put it. "The writer did not go to Los Angeles to investigate the morals of the movie folks, although a rumor to that effect did give some of them a pretty bad scare. If he had been asked about the morals of the film people some months ago, he would have replied that in his opinion they didn't have any. "It is always easier to give a flippant answer to evade the facts. "But a month spent in and about the studios of Southern California has caused h-m to revise his opinions about the morals of the movie makers. "Not that I would give the movie colony of Los Angeles a clean bill of health. But the stories about the gay life in the studios have been greatly exaggerated. "The most common charge of immorality in camera-land is that young women are not advanced in their chosen profession unless they submit to the advances of studio managers, directors or influential male stars. Stories are constantly be'ng circulated to that effect. I have heard them at first hand from young women in manicure pariors. singers in near cabarets anrl other unnecessary places. All the stories are the same. "While I hold no brief for the studio managers, directors and others in authority in California's film factories, I do not hesitate to say that nine-tenths of these stories are downricht lies. They are the pitiful cxcu.ses of the unsuccessful. Being unable to get employment in a studio, or being discharged for incompcntence, it is much easier for a young woman to make charges of this kind than to admit the truth. "In the days when the directors in the studios were all-powerful, when they had the power of 'hiring and firing' young women — there were many abuses of this nature. Young women, unless they were financially independent, were more or less at the mercy of the director under whom they were working. "But the motion picture industry' has undergone a great change in the past three years. "At the present time the big studios are conducted as efficiently and with as strict attention to business as any manufacturing plants. The directors have nothing to do with the engaging of actors or actresses. Nor have they the authority to discharge anyone. At each studio there is a casting director, so called, whose sole business it is to engage the playerj for each picture. Of course the stars, where they are not rnaking pictures of their own, are engaged by the big officials of the film companies, but the directors do not meet the minor players until an actual start is made on the picture. "As the studios are run today, there is not time to bother with amateurs or incompetents. Players have to he engaged strictly on their merits and a casting director who takes advantage of his position is very soon replaced. Only the high officials of a producing company have the power to engage or advance a personal favorite. From which it will be seen that favoritism of this kind is considerably restricted. "Naturally, there have been several glaring examples of favoritism of this nature. There are several stars who are before the public only because of the so-called film magnates. But as a rule their careers are very short. They are so conspicuous by their lack of talent that nobody in the profession takes them seriously. And all of the advertising space that is lavished on them does not sell their pictures more than once. "I know one important producer who gave a certain Broadway chorus girl a big contract to oblige a New York broker who held his I. O. U. for $15,000 as the result of a gambling debt. I know two or three producers who ha\'e advanced certain actresses because they happened to be fond of them. But where it is possible to point out three or four cases of this kind, one is able to point out sixty or seventy stars who are where they are today solely on their merits. "There is a popular catch line in Southern California, '.Are you married, or do you live in Los Angeles?' But this is current because of the frequency of divorce and its attendant evils among members of the movie colony. There are doubtless quite as many di\(irccs among cloak and suit manufacturers, if authentic statements were obtainable. Matrimonial infelicity is not peculiar to any class of people these days. And of most of the motion picture stars it may be said that if they h'^ve any faults they make virtues of them."