Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

30 CELLULOID writers to-day who devote their whole time to writing in terms of the film medium, with the exception of various hack-scenarists who wearily turn out the same story times without number. Although Mr. Goldwyn dispatched Messrs. Michael Arlen and Walter Hackett to Hollywood in furtherance of his policy of engaging eminent authors to write original screen stories on a royalty basis, on the same terms as are customary with stage plays, the fact remains that it has been proved repeatedly that celebrated authors do not possess the rudimentary knowledge of the cinema necessary to the creation of good film stories. The visit of the late William J. Locke to Hollywood and the dialogue recently written for a film by Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, are two cases in point. Mr. Lonsdale's special story for Ronald Colman, The Devil to Pay, was good entertainment but it might well have been a play. And after all, how can these writers, who are admirable at their own tasks, be intimately acquainted with the conditions that govern cinema as a means of expression? I would suggest that producers are not so much interested in the plots that their eminent authors write as they are in the weight of their illustrious names. There are two possible solutions to this problem of story-shortage, both of which have been obvious for some years but neither of which has been adopted. Firstly, while this panic for discovering new angles on the old literary complex occupies the film industry, the camera and the microphone have still to explore the world outside the studios. Producers have only just begun to realize the enormous wealth of natural