Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1927 - Feb 1928)

20 Good Old Hokum! OH, it's good hokum," the critics may say about a picture, with a curl of the lip. But, despite their scornful tones, when a film is received in this airy fashion by the critics, its producers know at once that, though it may not be art, it's going to be a great financial success. Hokum is just another expression for box office. It's a hard word to define exactly, but film makers know very well what it means. There are certain definite situations which can be counted on as "sure fire." The rescue of the heroine by the hero, for example. Minnie is driving the onehorse shay, when her horse becomes frightened and gallops frantically down the road. There is always a cliff straight ahead. Nearer, nearer, and nearer to the precipice the horse leaps, while the people in the audience gasp, and hang breathlessly onto their seats — knowing perfectly well that of course the gal will be saved. Nearer and nearer to the cliff, and then — a flash of Joe, the hero, galloping furiously in pursuit. Just as the runaway reaches the edge, and not a moment sooner, Joe leaps from his own horse to the back of the frightened steed, or into the driver's seat of the gig, grips the reins firmly, says "Nice Dobbin !" — and Minnie falls gratefully into his arms. That is hokum. It is sure fire. Biit how many times in real life does a Joe or a John get a chance to rescue a Minnie from a runaway, or from drowning, or from the villain's pursuit, thereby, of course, winning her love as well as her gratitude ? The chances are, in real life, that if Minnie does get pulled out of the river just as she's going down for the third time, it won't be by the man she likes. Her rescuer will probably be that gangling Bill Jones, who stutters, and is no fun at all on a party. You can count the film rescues by the hundreds. Perhaps In real life, a girl never has the good luck to be rescued by the man she loves — it's sure to be some one she cannot stand — but not so in the movies! the most thrilling ever shown on the screen was the one in "Way Down East," that hokum masterpiece, in which Barthelmess saved Lillian Gish from the ice flood. The horse race is also good movie stuff. Sally's father has the best race horse in Cayuga County; if he wins the race, the mortgage payment on the ranch is provided for. The crowd arrives, the race is about to begin. But where is Pinto, the jockey who is to ride Sally's father's horse? Pinto has not appeared! (Of course, he is lying in an abandoned house, drugged by the villain.) "We are ruined!" cries Sally's father, wringing his hands. "Not yet," says Jim, the hero, dashing for the dressing rooms. He has never been on a horse in his life — is, in fact, frightened to death of horses. But it's all for Sally's sake ! You know the rest — how Jim, in the race, urges his horse on, and creeps up gradually from last place to second, nosing out the other horses, until, just as the finish line is reached, and never sooner, his horse leaps magically ahead and the day is saved. This is hokum. There is never a suggestion that Jim, our amateur rider, should fall off his horse after the first few feet, and get, at the very least, a bump on the head and a mouthful of dust. There are all sorts of variations of the horse-race theme, used in hundreds of films — "The Kentucky Derby," "Sporting Life," "The Shamrock Handicap," for example — but the hero's horse alwavs wins.