The art of sound pictures (1930)

36 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES picture might play into their fanatical hands. So the industry, merely as a matter of self-protection, properly keeps a story like this off the screen. TVe now come to a story which has been rejected by several companies which produce only high-grade features. It will almost certainly be accepted by another company which goes in for a light type of two-reel comedy. Here we see a popular college student who has entered his play in a college contest against a hated rival. The president of the college faces a student strike because of the fight he is putting up against gambling among the students. The president’s own son owes the villain a large gambling debt and is frightened lest his father discover it. Our hero comes to the rescue of the president’s son by giving him a check to cover the gambling debt, whereupon the villain, who has seen this transaction, demands that our hero be barred from the play contest because he has been bribing the president’s son, who is a member of the prize committee. Our hero dares not tell why he paid the check. His silence justifies the committee in expelling him. The president hears of this and is about to expel the youth from college when, lo and behold, the president’s niece comes along in the role of agent for a large theatrical producer. She establishes the hero’s innocence and — could you guess it? — marries him. Obviously, there is not enough to this, either in the form of character or complication, to make a big story. But, if supported by light, snappy music, it might work out moderately well in the simpler, frothier, and shorter type of picture. Next, we encounter a story about a group of actors who are playing Othello. The actor who takes the part of