Exhibitors Herald (1927)

44 EXHIBITORS HERALD August 13, 1927 rHIS department contains news, information and gossip on current productions. It aims to supply service which will assist the exhibitor in keeping in touch with developments in connection with pictures and picture personalities — and what these are doing at the box o&ce. No prophecies on the entertainment value of pictures are made. Opinions expressed are simply those of the author or of his contributors and the reader is requested to consider them only as such. — EDITOR’S NOTE. A SANE COMEDY T I HE tendency toward exaggeration in comedy, more often a handicap than otherwise, is happily indiscernible in “The Poor Nut.” The picture is a wholly sane comedy and an extremely funny one. It contains an idea and the idea is plausibly worked out in terms of action. That is and always has been the way to make a good comedy. Jack Mulhall is the actor who impersonates the character named by the title and this is a straight acting assignment for him, not one of those things in which he has merely to look good and wear a straw hat becomingly. I am glad to see him in a role of this kind and to learn that he can act as well as he can look, which several friends of the opposite sex declare is pretty good. “The Poor Nut” is another of those college pictures, track being the field of honor in this instance. I am strong for these college things, as I believe almost everyone else is also, and I am pleased to note that Hollywood is becoming very adept in pictorial reproduction of college atmosphere. I dare say — if I may step away from the trade side of the matter for a moment — that enrollments at our institutions of higher learning are not a little stimulated by these pictures and that the ultimate effect of this will be one satisfactory to those of us who believe in education. Which, of course, is neither here nor there. If Hollywood cares at all for the interest of persons like me, people who hold high hopes for pictures on all points, production of comedies in the same manner of this one will go forward apace and indefinitely. LISTEN, LON I ADDRESS the following to Mr. Lon Chaney and I do not mean his publicity man, his employer, nor even his most highly regarded advisor. I mean Lon Chaney, actor and individual, star of “Tell It to the Marines” and “The Unknown.” DEAR MR. CHANEY; I have been watching your pictures for more years than either of us are happy to count. I have had a warm admiration for your devotion to your calling and for your box office results, the which I feel sure not even the trade justly estimates at even this By T. O. SERVICE late date. I can think, offhand, of no picture of yours which I have disliked. I wish to urge you, however, to put away the trick makeup, the consummately colorful and convincing deformities and come out now as your own eminently vigorous and competent self. I ask you to make no more “Phantoms,” no more “Unknowns” and no more “Hunchbacks,” good as is each of these, and to insist upon things like “Tell It to the Marines.” I realize that you enjoy a happy isolation in the field of your apparent choice, that you are so far ahead of the next worker in that field (if there is another) as to be wholly independent of such insistences as the present appeal. I know that the step into straight characterizations is a step into direct and formidable competition. Yet I urge you to take that step. I cannot conceive of your doubting your ability to compete with those who do this sort of work, but in the event that you do feel such doubt I assure you in shrill and perduring tones that it is groundless. I saw your “Unknown” last week at the Chicago theatre and it is, of course, a very substantial production. It compares readily with nothing save your own previous compositions, and of course that is another sound enough reason for you to continue in the ghastly field you have chosen. It is colorful, convincing to a degree, only a little illogical and not at all unsuccessful as concerns its hold upon the attention of those present. But it is — and I hope you’ll interpret this properly — a very terrible thing to look at. I use “terrible” in its book significance. Should you die one of these days, as I hope you will not for a good many of them, I should remember you as the hardboiled top kicker in “Tell It to the Marines.” I know that the newspapers would be less kind; they would run layouts of the hunchback, the phantom, perhaps even that “Mandalay” thing which (I confess) I dreaded enough to avoid despite your presence in it and my avowed intention of viewing and commenting upon all the important pictures. Newspapers are that way— and I doubt that you care to he remembered in that fashion. But why — no doubt you are asking — should I devote all this space (in a trade journal that favors production of box office successes) to a plea of this kind, heeding of which would take from the marker one of its already too few distinctive products. I do so for the plain reason that I believe you will be more successful in the straight stuff than in even the deformities. The other dozen reasons — including my personal preference for whole actors — are less important. PARAMOUNT NEW'S J DO not know how much of the initial Paramount News was cut by the Oriental theatre staff but I know that the parts projected were first rate stuff and went over like a hand grenade. Mighty glad to note this, for I am strongly in favor of more and more newsreels. They are the best pictures being shown and have been for a long time. The plane stuff in the initial Paramount News is something to drop a postcard home about. The captions detailing the incident may or may not exaggerate, it doesn’t matter, but the scenes are extremely interesting and the wallop is a gem for its particularly timely purpose. I am, as I say, in favor of more newsreels. Which means, incidentally, that I am strongly against the present policy of shortening them for the big houses. There is nothing on the program of the biggest and best theatre in the country worthy of more running minutes than the newsreels available. TO MR. E. W. HAMMONS; V X OU will confer a great personal favor upon this mere picturegoer by hastening the day when short features may be seen exclusively in a Chicago theatre. Such is the current vogue of jazz bands, Vitaphone and community singing that I have seen none save the so-called cartoon type of comedies in such a stretch of sittings that I barely remember the names of the comedians. If there was ever a propitious moment for the opening of such a theatre, I should say it is now.