Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

THE AMERICAN FILM 37 any sensible person reel in amazement, we cannot help but admit that the Americans do try to make good films. This last year has seen some particularly interesting if not brilliant productions emanating from Hollywood studios. Within his own limits of cinematic sense, the American producer does his best to employ good talent. One of the outstanding reasons for the difference between the technical quality of American pictures and that of the British product can be explained by one word — highbrowism. In Hollywood, they at least attempt to make films as well as their ability allows them. They are not afraid of experiment, so long as it will ultimately appeal to the general public. They have little patience with those distorted cognoscenti whose art consists of homosexuality and slaughterhouses, but they will try to lure Clair to America and put Sergei Eisenstein under contract. Having chosen a suitable story from the box-office point of view, they put their best talent into expressing it on the screen, even though that best often falls short of the standards we demand. The American director has one admirable merit — he never stops to think if he is being too clever. Milestone's cutting in The Front Page is as good as anything that has been done in the Russian cinema, yet it is not considered advanced. The word " highbrow " is unknown in Hollywood. Examine three recent pictures, Quic\ Millions, Cimarron and Dishonoured. Each of them is well photographed, well designed, and very capably directed. None of them is a brilliant film, but they are one-hundred-per-cent. efficient. A great