The Film Daily (1930)

THE Timely Topics A Digest of Current Opinion —€>— Film Audiences Accustomed To Naturalism in Scenery A/fOTION picture audiences have long been accustomed to the most meticulous naturalisni in scenery. Cities and oceans and landscapes are shown as purely photographic representations and the technique of motion picture acting is naturally keyed to the setting. When movie actors appear in street scenes they take on, to a certain degree, the color of the crowd, and movie cowboys in western pictures behave in the national manner of real cowboys. Something inevitably ludicrous results when the talking pictures confuse the methods of stage and screen; when an unseen orchestra suddenly drenches the realistic atmosphere of a seaport town with Broadway melodies, and, as in "Hit the Deck," transforms a streetful of sailors and their girl friends into polished tap dancers. "New York Evening Post" * * * Talkers Crowding Out Textbooks in Classroom W/'ITH the coming of the talkies, textbooks were destined to be radically modified, and the old-style, traditional classroom procedures will disappear. Textbooks will become thinner and some may disappear entirely. They will be replaced by study guides, outlines, and exercises, which, after all, constitute the best part of any textbook today. Boards of education will, in the future, spend less money on textbooks and more money on textfilms. With the addition of color and sound, the film will tell more about the world in ten minutes than any ordinary book could tell in a whole hour. Teachers will thus be enabled to spend more time on actual discussions and exercises, and pupils will be enabled to answer questions with greater ease and rapidity. "The Educational Screen" • THEIR FIRST JOBS HAL HODES motion picture operator for William Rock jg^ DAILV Along The Rialto with PhilM. Daly, Jr. ■WIENNA is contented to get Al Jolson via screen, so the story goes. A concert agent there was all set to give Al a go, but when he learned the fee would be $5,000, he tried to outsmart Al's manager about Chaliapin, Galli-Curci and Gigli being satisfied with between $2,000 and $3,000 for a performance. But it didn't work. Al should have sent Davy Lee out there and split the difference More golf and basking in the sunshine is the reason for S. L. "Roxy" Rothafel being in Florida now Lawrence Schwab, of Schwab and Mandel, producers of "Follow Thru," is en route to Hollywood aboard the Panama Pacific liner California, to prepare a talking picture version of the musical comedy Four hundred gobs, strong, weak or indifferent, are scheduled to "Hit the Deck" at the Earl Carroll, N. Y., on Monday through the courtesy of Radio Pictures. The bunch hails from the Cruiser Pensacolo and will have to forget Central Park Lake for this matinee treat * * * * Jack Eaton just sent into New York two of the latest Grantland Rice sound sportlights. In "The Feline Fighter" and "Splashing Through," Jack claims they have succeeded in getting some very interesting and entertaining sporting events that have ever been built into a short. Oh Yeah?. ... Here's one for the books, in a recent canvass of 11,912 members of the San Diego Community Better Film Conference, Columbia's "Flight" was highly recommended ^ « Ht ^ Walter Futter, the curiosity man, is in Hollywood on business Buck and Bubbles, featured in the merry stories of Negro life being produced by Pathe, are having their material authored by two big "Saturday Evening Post" writers. Hugh Wiley and Sidney Lazarus * * * « Anita Stewart and her husband, George Converse, will soon bag and baggage into this sector from the Coast. Anita, the story goes, is going to make a presentation tour Joe Weil, who directs exploitation for "U," is happy over the way the Gotham film-viewers treated "Night Ride^" current at the Colony, and is telling exhibs all about it * * * * Donald Henderson Clarke is about the most writingest guy in this business. He knocks out publicity all day and then works on novels all evening. ...... .The Globe is another Broadway house in which you can park until 2:30 a. m., if you have the price of admission * * * * Patsy Reis, Howard Dietz's secretary, is wearing her hair according to the Hollvwood stvle ' * * * >» Who's who in the studio personnels is one of the features* of the 1930 FILM DAILY YEAR BOOK which will soon be on your desk. JANUARY 25-26--MANY HAPPY RETURNS Best wishes and congratulations are extended by THE FILM DAILY to the foHowing members of the industry, who are celebrating their birthdays on these days: January 25th Edna Gregory Louis Rosenblum May Milloy V. Somma Anna Lewis A. N. Davis Victor Mansfield Shapiro January 26th Norman Bumstine P. E. McCoy Sylvia Nadina Abe Meyer -AND THAT'S THAT By PHIL U. DALY 'TH.Vr SPELLING Bee started something. Warren Stokes, editor of "Film Trade Topics," the San Francisco regional, says that our correct spelling course has created a yearning for scholarly ability throughout the industry in the sun-kissed state. He sez the morale of the ushers in the Frisco theaters has been all shot to pieces. They gather in a huddle in the foyer and hold spelling contests while the customers wander around the aisles swapping tough words with strangers. Nobody pays any attention to the picture on the screen any more. * * ♦ We have originated a talkie test for the Hollywood stars. If they can get by with the following without stuttering, any producer should be glad to sign 'em up: * * * "// a big Hollywood shot taught a cute hotsy tot to talk ere the tot could totter, ought the hotsy tot be taught to say aught or naught, or what ought not to be taught her? If to hoot and to toot a hotsy tot be taught by a Hollywood tutor, should the tutor get hot if the hotsy tot hoot a7id toot at the Hollywood tutor?" * * * Helen Twelvetrees, the charming young screen player, is all upset because some fan has criticized a little technical flaw in one of her pictures. She writes us, among other things: "Do you think it is fair, Phil, for a fan to criticize a butler's coat because it does not have the correct number of buttons? Why even Shakespeare made mistakes. He speaks of King John, and his barons fighting with cannon, which were not invented at that period." * * * So we have answered Helen thusly: "Dear Helen: Pay no attention to the butler critic. Why, they even have folks drinking cocktails in pictures, when everybody knows this is a prohibition country. Could anything be more silly? Phil." TEN YEARS AGO TO-DAY IN Messmore Kendall, of Capitol, N. Y., elected president of Associated Exhibitors. ♦ * ♦ Tamar Lane leaves Selznick to join Character Pictures as production manager.