The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

1S4 The Educational Screen The Theatrical Field Conducted by Marguerite Orndorff With this issue are combined, under the above title, the former departments called "From Hollywood" and "Theatrical Film Critique." This brings all matters theatrical Into one department and into the hands of a department editor who is particularly qualified to handle this important field. Correspondence with Miss Orndorff on any question pertaining to this subject is invited.— The Editor. Consider the Director I?T'S all very well for one to be a great .actor, and for another to be a wonderful r. designer, and another a clever title writer, and still another an electrical wizard. They are all most necessary and vital to the motion picture. But somebody has to fit all their varied contributions together like the parts of a puzzle; somebody who knows beforehand what the .puzzle is going to look like when it is finished; somebody who can keep his grasp on the essential needs of the picture as a whole through all the confusion of detail that presents itself during the process of shooting. And that little job belongs to the director. It is a job that calls first of all for a wealth of experience and a close and understanding observation of hfe. It demands a keen sense of drama, the ability to translate thought into action, an ever-present realization of the screen's limitations as a medium of expression. Last, but never least, it requires unlimited tact and a considerable quantity of grim determination. This might be said to constitute the irreducible minimum of requirement for the ideal director. Any added personal qualities that the individual director may possess are just so much "velvet." The damage that a poor director can do to a good story is too obvious for discussion; but what a good director may do with a poor story may offer a wider field for argument, as the consensus of opinion in certain critical circles seems to be that practically all the stories now produced on the screen are bad. Strange to say, this class even includes some of the directors themselves. No less a person than William DeMille is credited with the statement that ninety-five per cent of all the pictures are bad. Another well known director, in speaking of the use of films in schools, asked me whether or not educators could find anything worth using "in the mess." All of which merely suggests that perhaps after all the movies are not so complacent and self-satisfied as we have been used to thinking| them. The conclusion of the casual observer after] seeing a few pictures and thinking the movies over, is that there must be some good dire( tors. There are, and we ought to know thei a little better than we do. It is just as well anyhow, to take stock occasionally, and witj the movies in the most interesting stage their career, we may find some interest speculating on the future possibilities of som^ of our directors, speculation being of coui futile, but, like many of the useless things in this world, none the less fascinating. Well, then, to begin with, there is D. W. Griffith. Without question he heads the list. Actors say it; other directors say it and theirs is the last word. Consider the pictures that are linked with his name — "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," "Broken Blossoms," "Hearts of the World," "Way Down East," "Orphans of the Storm," and his latest, "One Exciting Night." Pictures that stand out, every one of them; and critics still insist that "Broken Blossoms" was the finest picture ever produced, though it was a dire financial failure. Among his other admirable qualities as a director, Griffith possesses an uncanny ability to put his finger on the exact needs of the movie public. Then, according to his findings, he produces. a costume play, or a war romance, or a melodrama, or a mystery story, and then it is not very long before the others swing into line and follow his lead. The DeMilles offer a study in contrast. C. B. DeMille — his associates say it frankly — plays to the grandstand. His offerings definitely bid for popularity, and in his par ticular kind of thing he is a master; nobody else can put on a "show" like his. Beginning 'Carmen," his picture, "Joan, the "Old with Woman," "We Can't Have Everything,