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STORY SHORTAGE CRISIS 29
the Victorian melodramas in the vain hope of discovering something original.
Within recent months America has come to rely to a great extent on everyday news items for its ideas, and attempts are made to keep in touch with the public's interest for topical events. Quite a large percentage of story-films produced in Hollywood this year has been based on actual happenings, or their love-plots have been set in environments that have been good newsvalue at the moment. Thus, there are The Front Page, Scandal Sheet and Dance, Fools, Dance in the newspaper world; Little Ccesar, The Public Enemy and The Silent Six in the gangster vein; Dirigible, Young Eagles and The Lost Zeppelin set in the air; all more or less inspired by real events.
The idea of thus utilizing contemporary incidents and vogues of interest is, I think, good and it certainly agrees with the obligation of the cinema to be a reflector of everyday life. The only trouble is that America cannot be trusted to let such material rely on its own merit, but must of necessity break it up with the same old formulated romance of thwarted passion. Film after film of excellent natural real-life material is debased by its boy-and-girl romantic interest. There is also an unfortunate tendency to repeat good ideas, and there are many recent instances of a successful picture being rapidly followed by a host of poor imitations.
When we come to examine the position closely it will be found that this bankruptcy of the story-market is caused by the fact that very few stories are written especially for the screen. There are practically no