Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

56 Tke Stroll er Our ironic observer of Hollywood happenings indulges in amusing confidences. By Neville Rea? Illustrations by Lui Trugo A COLUMNIST who's supposed to write about motion pictures in this day -of detonating celluloid— if he has any recollection of the past at all — realizes more and more that he has become merely a foreign correspondent for New York musical shows. If he is to write at all, he finds himself confronted by playwrights, librettists, dialogists, composers, singers, and hoofers — and occasionally an actor. Madge Bellamy recently said, "Talkies ! You stand around most of the time. The only actor I ever saw who could just stand and look imposing, was an old English Shakespearean Thespian. He could stand and look important better than he could act." The lingo of the Great White Way has descended upon us. Sputtering spotlights have been eliminated, so we can't suffer from tales of the tourists' horror at hearing "Kill that baby." Broads have become floods and we are freed from another Marx Brothers' pun. This is possibly the most salutary effect of trust-controlled garrulity. Music is considered important. It has a special feature in that it deadens the scraping noise which raw dialogue has as its natural affinity. Several pictures recently have had such lovely music that I couldn't hear the voices. So I didn't know what the stories were about. Now "The Idle Rich"— called "White Collars" in some spots — has an obbligato of voices, dish washing, auto motors, the crash of plates from Venice Pier, the traffic of Washington Boulevard, the grinding of cameras, and the wailing of infants. I am convinced that such sound could not have been produced entirely synthetically. However, the director doubtless was harassed by that scraping sound and set his crew to work making noises that would drown out the static. Like a recurrent theme song, I am back to Mack Sennett got stuck for a neat sum, because one of his players whistled a tune in a picture. The tune was fifteen years old, but the owner of the copyright heard it and demanded payment. He bought a new car with the money. Spies hover about sound stages listening for these taboo tunes, and control themselves only with difficulty when they catch a company flagrante delicto. In fact, it is no longer safe for a producer to use any music until he searches the archives for copyright. Strauss, the Viennese composer, recently heard "Ramona," and asserts it is exactly the tune of a waltz he wrote thirty years ago. I don't know what he's going to do about it. I'm willing to let a dead tune lie. The world only needs a courageous soul to apply for an injunction against "The Pagan Love Song" — nice tune and all that — but I know a man who died from eating too much candy. Parenthetical note for those interested — Ramon Novarro sang the song in the film, but the voice was put in after the scenes were filmed. That's why it seems to be the voice of a double. Novarro doubled for himself. All over the world people are rushing to recopyright old music, so they, too, can buy new cars. The International Society for the Protection of Foreign Tunes has been organized. One Hollywood ham has obtained a copyright on all Christmas carols. He's broke right now, but he won't be for long. He sits in his room like a miser and paws the music, making unintelligible sounds faintly reminiscent of a Mexican gourd in the harvest season. Lady Godiva, the famous portrait-egg layer of Hollywood, is dead, a victim to her art. Lady Godiva, a White Leghorn princess, broke into fame two years ago. After an attendant had tacked up a portrait of Clara Bow in her private coop, Lady Godiva astounded the world by laying an egg, the shell of which bore perfect features of Miss Bow. Subsequent displays of portraits of such stars as Laura La Plante, John Boles, Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, and others, brought forth eggs bearing their pictures. One night a misguided enthusiast hung up a picture of Archie Mayo. To-day Lady Godiva is dead — unable to produce an egg large enough to serve as a canvas for the celebrated director. Tom Reed, newly promoted story editor of Universal, music. has just returned from the high Sierras, where he Rabbits collided with him, thinking he patch of snow.