The Film Daily (1935)

f-^^! DAILY Monday, Dec. 30, 1935 WAR.-F.N. COMPLETE EXPANSION AT STUDIOS (Continued from Page 1) with 10 features completed and awaiting release, eight shooting and 12 being prepared for early production. Features completed are: "The Petrified Forest," starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis; "Man Hunt," with Ricardo Cortez, Marguerite Churchill and William Gargan; "Backfire," with Ross Alexander, Patricia Ellis and Lyle Talbot; "Ceiling Zero," starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien with June Travis; "Prison Farm," with Donal 1 Woods, Kay Linaker; "Freshman Love," with Patricia Ellis, Frank McHugh and Warren Hull; "The Widow from Monte Carlo," with Warren William, Dolores del Rio and Louise Fazenda; "The Story of Louis Pasteur," starring Paul Muni with Josephine Hutchinson; "The Murder of Dr. Harrigan," with Kay Linaker, Ricardo Cortez and Mary Astor. Pictures shooting include: "Red Apples," with Ross Alexander and Anita Louise, William McGann director; "The Walking Dead," with Boris Karloff, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hull, Ricardo Cortez and Barton MacLane, Michael Curtiz director; "Men on Her Mind," with Bette Davis, Warren William, William Dieterle director; "Snowed Under," with George Brent, Genevieve Tobin, Glenda Farrell, Patricia Ellis, Frank McHugh, Raymond Enright director; "The Singing Kid," starring Al Jolson with Edward Everett i Horton, Allen Jenkins, Beverly Roberts, Lyle Talbot, Mitchell and Durant. Claire Dodd, Sybil Jason and the Four Yacht Club Boys, William Keighley director; "Colleen." starring Ruby Keeler, Dick PowpII, Joan Blondell, Jack Oakie, Hugh Herbert, Paul Draper, Louise Fazenda, Luis Alberni, Al Green director; "Anthony Adverse," starring Fredric March with Olivia de Havilland, Anita Louise, Claude Rains, George E. Stone, Edmund Gwenn, Donald Woods, Ralph Morgan, Fritz Leiber, and Henry O'Neill, Mervyn LeRoy director; "Treachery Rides the Trail," with Dick Foran, Paula Like a House Afire? A typical example of the increasing enthusiasm and interest in "Best" films created by !he annual polls conducted by The Film Daily among the nation's motion picture critics is illustrated in the following letter from W. E. J. Martin, critic of the Buffalo Courier-Express, regarding the poll he conducted among his readers: "Well, finally and at last, The Courier-Express readers have named their Ten Best Films of 1935. Here they are. in order of choice: " 'David Copperfield'. 'Lives of a Bengal Lancer', 'Les Miserables'. 'The Informer'. 'Imitation of Life'. 'Naughty Marietta'. 'Top Hat', 'Ruggles of Red Gap', 'Alice Adams' and 'Broadway Melody of 1935'. "My public — God bless them! — agreed with me 90 per cent They stuck 'Alice Adams' in where I chose 'Sequoia'. And look how they went for 'The Informer!' "That same public swamped us with mail. We had to organize a special staff of eight persons to handle the letters. The increase in mail — and was I a piker in my early estimate — was more than 150 per cent. Every section of Western New York was represented, and this year's job was done in 14 working days, as compared with the four weeks we worked last year. "Burrows Matthews, editor in chief, was gratified by the showing. He says it's a swell contest, and is set to carry on with Film Daily as long as there are newspapers. "Now — well, we are waiting for the Master List, the verdict of the rest of the muggs like myself, who sit, burn up, rejoice, reflect, write and then try to figure why such things are done in the name of entertainment or why more producers don't do like Joe Docks. 'Tis a grand life!" » » » TIMELY TOPICS « « « / / Best wishes from THE ' FILM DAILY to the following on their birthday: R. F. Woodhull Robert Mclntyre Wallace Smith Laurence Weingarten Why the Film Director Is the Industry's Dictator TpHE aesthetic achievements of the cinema confirm the general principle of art, namely, that art is the expression of a personal sentiment _born of the conception of a complete world, which comes to original and independent life in virtue of the creative power of a given personality. Sentiment, which is not sentimentalism but a human and absolute force, is the seed from which the work of art germinates. The fact of creating or understanding a work of art is the first and surest evidence of the mind's freedom. It is not possible to discuss art, therefore, except in an individual forma mentis. As to the cinematographic art, it is not the result of an aesthetic doctrine. The poet of this new art has his miraculous, spontaneous birth in the aesthetic sentiment innate in man. The ambiguity and uncertainty reigning between theatre and cinema, which latter claims to Stone, Monte Blue and Jim Thorpe, Frank McDonald director. Films in preparation are: "The Green Pastures," from play and screenplay by Marc Connelly; "Hearts Divided," starring Marion Davies with Dick Powell, Frank Borzage director; "Sons O'Guns," starring Joe E. Brown; "Invitation to a Murder," with Marguerite Churchill; "The Adventures of Robin Hood," starring James Cagney and Guy Kibbee; "Angel of Mercy," starring Josephine Hutchinson; "God's Country and the Woman," starring Bette Davis and George Brent; "Over the Wall," from story by Warden Lewis E. Lawes; "Green Light," starring Leslie Howard, from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas; "Legionnaire," screenplay by Julius Epstein and Jerry Wald; "Stage Struck," by Robert Lord, starring James Cagney and Ruby Keeler: "Lovely Lady," starring Kay Francis. take the place of the former, has given birth to a pure cinematographic art which has nothing to do with current aesthetic prejudices. It is obvious that the cinematographic adaptation of plays, novels or stories, breaks that unity of form in the original which should be indissoluble. Now, between the inspiration and the achievement of a work of art, its natural unity must be rigorously observed. Inspiration, in the poet's mind, gives birth to one single well-defined form. People took a long time to come to the conclusion that the film has its own recognizable nature from the moment of its inspiration. In fact, before they could be convinced, they had to have the practical example of the first films of a really cinematographic nature. When cinematograph technique was still rudimentary, several persons, author, actor, director, cameraman, laid claim to the paternity of the film. In the lack of the authority which the dramatist exercises over the performance, the cinema leaves uncontrolled liberty of initiative to the divers leading personages of the production. Now, the film enters the realm of art only when one of these personages succeeds in bending all the practical elements of execution to the requirements of his sentimental inspiration. In any case, it is an absurdity to suppose that the intrinsic and extrinsic unity of a film could really be obtained from a collaboration of its various executants. If that were the case it would mean either that each one's artistic vision is partial and complementary to that of the others, or that all have an identical artistic vision, which would be a negation of the essential principle of art and poetry. These different points of view could be reconciled only by discussion, but polemics do not give LITIGATION INCREASE MAY SPUR SELF-RULE (Continued from Page 1) simultaneous elimination of grievance and clearance and zoning boards in every territory, exhibitor suits have been on the increase, it is stated. Many of these actions are described by distributors as "shakedown'' litigations. According to one authoritative source, major companies expended approximately $20,000,000 in 1935 to maintain their legal departments. Myers to Aid Government On Behalf of Indep'ts (Continued from Page 1) partment is known to be enlisting every possible aid in its attempts to win a block booking case. While no word from the judicial legal staff was forthcoming, it also is understood that they are preparing evidence to spring suddenly in a score of cities at the same time. Electric and Neon Code Is Proving Satisfactory (Continued from Page 1) try is found to be working out in a highly satisfactory manner, according to Alfred Graze, president of the Electric Sign Ass'n of New York. The agreement between members and unions is oatterned along principles of the defunct NRA, and R. V. Somerville is the impartial chairman. birth to artistic syntheses. Even in politics, facts have shown that in the end it is the dictator who arises from the mass of opposition and not the liberal government. The same thing has happened with the cinema: out of "collaboration" a sort of dictator, the director, has arisen. Of all the collaborators in a film the director alone, being untrammeled by any special function, is able to take in the work as a whole at once ; and his function can result only from the essential qualities of the poet: taste and intuition. — A. Consiglio in "Intercine". "Bernard Schubert, who wrote the screen play of 'Kind Lady', gave a tea at his home for the company". — M-G-M.