Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

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PROPAGANDA AND THE CINEMA 51 achievement. All along the line of attack, the general characteristics of their product are youth — enterprise — ambition — light-heartedness — love of work — summed up in one word, energy. As a rule, American heroes fall into one or other of two categories. Either they are of the tough, he-man variety like Jack Holt, Gary Cooper or Richard Dix; or they are clever, ambitious young men who " get there in the end," like Raymond Hackett, Robert Montgomery or Frederic March. They are a perpetual encouragement to the youth of America to progress and attain its ideals. Likewise the smart, sophisticated, beautifully-groomed young women of American films are for the most part a model to American womanhood. They teach courage, good appearance and smartness. Women like Joan Crawford, Natalie Moorhead and Carole Lombard are typical exponents of this incidental propaganda. The majority of the interior sets of American pictures are the essence of spaciousness and modernism. Their appearance is always polished and slick, appealing to the audience to achieve a similar standard of living. The sets in all Paramount's sophisticated comedies are noteworthy for their brilliance of design and surety of decoration. Excellent examples are seen in // Pays to Advertise, hove Among the Millionaires, Up Pops the Devil and films like Laughter and Honour Among Lovers. In the same way, their pictures of open-air stories are wonderful propaganda for the spaciousness and beauty of American landscape; either its great stretching horizons, its giant trees spreading upwards or the