Business screen magazine (1938)

"REAL LIFE" PEOPLE can brin^ to the screen inspiring realism but this type of casting is the most difficult to direct. CASTING the CHARACTERS HISTORICAL TVPES flemand capable, professional actors who ran hold the illusion. Here: Ben Franklin in Selling Aitterica. ■STAB" NAMES may he an asset for certain films but in most cases are uimecessary for business audiences. ACTOR TALEHT Irom tlie ranks of t.vpe and bit players is the backbone of the "story" type film. "EXPERT" PARTS are often drawn from employees in the laboratory and shop. They must l>c coached and most ably directed for results. • No article on the subject of selecting .screen players should open with a mention of that former great American pastime — picking a heroine for Gone With the Wind. However, since all of us were wrong, this dire example may be a useful introduction. Unless, of course, you're still convinced that the boys were nuts and that Glenda Farrell was a cinch for the part. The business of casting the sales training or advertising film offers several tough problems. Disaster has frequently overtaken executives who nipped otherwise promising film careers for their companies by approjjriating this apparently alluring task as they began making that notable (and too often, painful) first film. Doakes, even as you and I, is a Lubitsch at heart and pretty soon he has forgotten dealers, jobbers, salesmen, home office and all. That is until they see the picture and someone asks what the hell was all that al)Out especially the dizzy blond. Honors go to a smart director when a truly believable, and inspiring business film unfolds a story that sends the sales curve zooming. If that story depends on a carefully constructed narrative, talented actors, wise in screen technique, will probably have a great deal to do with the punch and power of its message. Picking talent for the company's radio program is a cinch beside visualizing a typical organization character, understanding his technique and employing that ability to bring out a direct selling idea. It's a fairly easy job to buy the names you need for radio. A little luck and a lot of cash have worked miracles for many a sponsor. As one commercial film producer puts it: "But, in motion pictures, unlike radio, you don't need names to attract your audience. In most instances, your audience is already established. Indeed, even it you can get first rank names (which you can't ordinarily becau.se of contract restrictions) you wouldn't want them. Not only would they be prohibitive in cost but actually they would be quite likely to detract from the attention value of the picture. If that sounds paradoxical just set it down as one of the anomalies of the industry — or better yet just try to imagine focusing your attention on the operation of the Little Giant can opener with Dorothy Lamour lurking in the background in a leopard skin. "There are literally hundreds of actors in Hollywood who actually have greater ability (as actors) than the top-flight stars, yet who can be bought for a price well within a reasonable picture budget." There is another side to the casting problem which is worthy of consideration. We sometimes disparage the simple form of industrial film as a "factory run-around" and are inclined to forget the audiences who will appreciate the honest and straightforward messages such films may bring them. This, again, gives rise to a consideration of the "documentary" treatment. The word is a misnomer applied more recently to government propaganda films both here and abroad. But the manner of its telling is important for it has the majesty of sincerity and the magic of high realism. Witness the commendable success of The River in America. A point of view expressed by one of the ablest documentarians from Great Britain will be of value in understanding this "natural" technique: "If we have individuals", says Paul Rotha* "let them be typical and let them be real. The documentary can have no use for the synthetic and fabulous caricatures that populate the ordinary storyfilm There are hundreds of people in our everyday life that have never appeared on the .screen. But before we can bring them into cinema, we must be prepared to go out and understand them. Our need is for characters who will be simply understood. They must be of the audience. We must go into the streets and homes and factories to meet them. "The whole evil of the American star-system, which in its way is a kind of typage, is that it treats with types of a false economic and solical superiority. The star, for political and social reasons already explained, is nearly always an inaccessible creature living on a scale unobtainable by members of the audience." * "Documentary Film" by Paul Rotha, 1937 18 M^-M