Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1937)

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SKOL SUN LOTION (DEPTAH),!, ROCHESTER ROW.S.W.1 If you haven't bought Skol Sun Lotion yet and are painfully burnt, get SKOL ANTISEPTIC from your chemist. It will soothe and heal your skin. 1/6 and 2/6. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Letters from our Readers GIGGLERS and GOGGLERS Are Picturegoers Intelligent? A PAIR of giggling girls sat by us at the showing of Romeo and Juliet. For sheer beauty and flawless acting nothing less than a masterpiece will ever beat this film. Yet, during the whole of the talkie, our giggling companions guffawed and laughed hysterically, until my companion abruptly told them to "shut up," which they did, with bad grace. Show the average filmgoer a third-rate talkie and he'll sit through it twice Paul Muni and Luise Rainer in "The Good Earth" with eyes a-goggle and vacant face, but put on such films as Romeo and Juliet, The Great Ziegfeld, and The Good Earth and the patrons will say the talkies were either too long, empty, or highbrow. — Molly Cillson, 45 Priory Road, Cambridge. (Still, I maintain that our taste is steadily improving. — " Thinker.") Reel Love • I wonder how often screen love-making gets near to the real thing ? Less often than is popularly imagined. The screen-hero bursts into a love-song, whilst his lady-love looks enraptured. Does this ever happen in real life ? The "tough" screen-hero snaps, "Come on, girlie. You're gonna marry me I" Does the real life lover ever do this ? The screen heroine croons her love song in a moonlit garden, but I can imagine no real life love-stricken girl doing this. Watch those film love-scenes. They are the highlight of most films — yet few of them show just how you or I would make love. Interesting, exotic, enthralling — they are all these things. But they don't portray real life love-making. — E. A. Humphreys, 2/18 Brougham Street, Lozells, Birmingham, 19, who is awarded the first prize of £1 Is. (Nevertheless, we may pick up a few tips from them.—" Thinker.") A Difficult Task # I derived great pleasure (though found it more difficult than I had expected) in describing a modern cinema to a person who has never seen a moving picture in his life ! He is a negro correspondent friend of seventeen years who lives on the West Coast of Africa. Being interested in films, I wrote asking him if there were any cinema shows near his village, and the reply was as follows: "There are no cinema shows here and I have not the least idea of cinema. I have not seen it." Then came my task of describing the hall, screen, projector, film, and talking apparatus, which I illustrated with numerous diagrams. After about eight weeks, his reply was rather gratifying, and read : " I could understand well. though faintly, about cinema after I had read your lines explaining it. After your explanation, I mistook it for a Magic Lantern. Have you ever seen this?" Now who says the cinema is world-wide? — Wm. Woods, 199 Roker Avenue, Sunderland, who is awarded the second prize of 10s. 6d. (Well, nearly world-wide ! — " Thinker.") Cinemanners • Your correspondent, V. Roy, Woking, in a recent issue, complains of cinema neighbours, and you say "exceptional." : I don't think it is exceptional, for the complaints referred to are common in most picture houses. I wonder if "Thinker" would call it exceptional if a picturegoer sat beside him and commenced to take the cloth off a bowl of "lobby" and do justice to it. I have experienced it, and it is no exception, for it is very usual at one picture house in the Potteries during afternoon entertainment. There is also one cinema neighbour whom I will not sit against, and if he comes beside me, I move. He brings with him a hot-water bottle. Perhaps there's no harm in that, but who could not help feeling embarrassed while beside the man when he commences to empty the bottle on the floor just before he departs? — E. Wallbank, 45 Br adder Lane, Porthill, North Staffordshire. (Picture-going in Staffordshire seems to be an exciting occupation ! Now read what it's like in Scotland. — " Thinker.") Peanuts Barred • I have time and again noticed letters from English readers complaining about the behaviour of certain cinema patrons. They seem to annoy their neighbours by cracking peanuts, making love, and so on — in fact, devouring peanuts seems to be a very common form of annoyance. Well, I feel I must put in a good word for the Scots picturegoers. If anyone here saw an adult eating peanuts, he (or she) would think that person crazy. I am a regular cinema attender, and have never been unduly annoyed by my neighbours. They have never consumed refreshments audibly (certainly not peanuts) ; courting couples never make themselves too obtrusive ; and everyone is too engrossed in the film to carry on conversation. A friend, who had holidayed in London, stated herself to be amazed by the behaviour of couples in the cinemas there. Perhaps this sounds too good to be true. I certainly sympathise with your harassed English readers. — (Miss) M. Duncan, 73 High Street, Carnaustie, Angus, Scotland. (But I've sat among some pretty tough audiences in Glasgow. — "Thinker.") Casting Care 0 I think British producers might take a little more care in the casting of their pictures — particularly where characters supposedly of the "lower classes" are concerned. Films dealing with working-class people very seldom convey a true picture of that vast section of the public — both in speech and mannerism they are grossly misrepresented. The over-emphasised, pseudo-Cockney speech, reminiscent of old-time music-hall comedians, put into the mouths of all British characters of the "lower orders," and spoken in mincing Mayfair accents by players quite unsuited to such parts, is both irritating and annoying — especially to the working classes themselves, who, quite naturally, find it difficult to feel amused at such libellous caricatures of themselves. The casting of a film can make or mar its ultimate success, and our casting directors 30