Screen Guilds Magazine (May 1936)

The Theatre Could Die Tomorrow - - - A LMOST everybody agrees that the film industry needs the theatre. It is so thoroughly concurred in that it is practically an axiom, both on Broadway and on Hollywood Boulevard. So completely is the industry sold on the idea that some of the studios back plays in New York so as to assure them¬ selves of a source of both acting talent and story material. There is a deep con¬ viction that if the theatre perished un¬ der the pressure of movie-house compe¬ tition, it would be little short of dis¬ aster in Hollywood. To me, it is a very mistaken idea. The theatre could die tomorrow and the pic¬ ture business would hardly know it. The theatre might be lamented—un¬ doubtedly it would be—but as for the effect its demise would produce, there would be none at all. It has nothing that the screen could not very well get along without. But before I go into such a thesis I want to emphasize that I don t mean that I don’t like the theatre. I spent some 14 years on the stage and I return to it now and again either to act or direct. So, as a matter of fact, the stage is very dear to me. But I do feel that it is no longer im¬ portant to pictures. L ET’S consider the reasons that have been advanced for the proposition that the picture industry, in its own in¬ terest, keep the theatre alive. One such reason is that the best story material comes from the theatre. But does it? A glance at the best pictures of the past year or so fails to show that the stage has made the greatest contri¬ bution. “Captain Blood”, “A Tale of Two Cities”, “The Great Ziegfeld”, “Mutiny on the Bounty”, “Lives of a Bengal Lancer”, “Rhodes”, “The Ghost Goes West”, and many others either you or I could name—all of them were fine pic¬ tures. And yet not one of them came from the theatre. The screen today is getting most of its story material from novels, short stories or original manuscripts. And the original stories, of course, are almost exclusively a Hollywood product written by local screen writers. Even when a story comes to the screen from the theatre it has to be so complete¬ ly differently handled that it is no longer the same as the play. Pictures, in their development of a story, are entirely dif¬ ferent from the theatre. In fact, they are more nearly related to the novel or the long short story than to the stage. Now let’s consider the question of acting talent. It is a certainty that one doesn’t have to be trained in the theatre to win top success in films. The fact that there are at least half a dozen big stars who have had nothing to do with the theatre is the best proof of this. Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Myrna Loy are among them. Katharine Hepburn also really belongs in the group, for she has done compara¬ tively little on the stage. These people might not prove as ef¬ fective on the stage, without further stage training, but they are effective on the screen. And that’s the point. They are very capable actors and actresses in the medium in which they express them¬ selves—motion pictures. After all, the film industry isn’t in¬ terested in whether or not they also are good stage performers. T HE industry hires performers from the theatre, not because it wants them to do the same kind of acting in ^The theatre could die tomorrow and the picture business would hardly know it. The theatre might be lamented—un¬ doubtedly it would be—but as for the defect its demise would produce, there would be none at all. ^ © 10 By Melvyn Bouylas . . . Who has been in the theatre for 17 years and in pictures for five, pre¬ sents some well-considered ideas. pictures, but because they have learned the broad principles of all acting, and thus, theoretically at least, are in a better position to adapt themselves to the screen than a person totally without experience. As a matter of fact most of the young talent coming to pictures from the theatre today is of little value except as promising undeveloped material. They don’t know how to act. They have been snatched up before they learn how. Acting like practically every other line of work, isn’t a thing that can be learned in a day. I have been acting for 17 years. Yet it’s only in the last three or four years that I have felt that I actually had my business at my finger tips. Hence, when a studio takes a young actor from the stage it hasn’t employed an actor. It merely has employed a man who, by virtue of having enough desire to act to get on the stage, shows signs of becoming one. It is an arrange¬ ment that has been convenient to the studios. It is better than picking a man at random, more or less off the street. But the industry certainly does not have to rely upon that method as a means of getting its talent. It could stop tomorrow without causing a ripple in the orderly workings of the picture business. The thing motion pictures must do—and it would be a much better system than the present one—is develop a very sound institution for the train¬ ing of its acting recruits. T HE theatre is not the only possible school. Nor are the schools the studios have conducted thus far. With perhaps one or two exceptions, they have, in fact, been practically useless. I don’t see any reason why actors can’t be trained to act before the cam¬ era, just as in the old days dramatic schools and stock companies trained them for the stage. But it’s ridiculous to think that they can be made screen actors by putting them in two or three p lays. They are not ready for pictures until they have a good knowledge of the things that go into acting before the (Continued on Page 27) The Screen Guilds’ Magazine