Film Spectator (1927-1928)

July 23, 1927 THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Fifteen dred per cent, movie stuff. I imagine that the wooden quality was planted in the adaptation by Max Marcin, a stage playwright who not yet has displayed any aptitude for the screen, although I understand he holds a position in the Paramount studio which permits him to dictate to those who have. The film moves along from one unconvincing sequence to another, without revealing that it had enjoyed contact with any real picture intelligence, without planting one definite thought, and without creating sympathy for any character in it. In her spoken titles Clara Bow is shown to be illiterate, and in her action she is planted as a roughneck. She spends a night in jail, being suspected of stealing a diamond bar pin from a “society” bachelor, but why the devil a bachelor should have such a pin Marcin doesn’t make clear. She goes from the jail, where she made an instant hit with the bachelor, and we next see her making a fool of herself at a fashionable swimming party. Only in a movie could such a girl be admitted to such company. Later it is necessary to the story that she should be made to see how the society of prize fighters is much more desirable than that of fashionable people. She is shown at a party staged by an unexplained princess, and to have any story value the party must be one which truly represents life in the kind of society a princess would affect. It is more typical of life in the led light district, being composed principally of views of girls’ legs and wives kissing other wives’ husbands. It more nearly represeifts degeneracy than it does life in any stratum of society. There is a prize-fight which has no drama in it, for nothing hinges on the outcome, and after it is over Clara and the winner go into a clinch in full view of the thousands of people in the audience, a romantically secluded spot for a love scene. There are many other ridiculous things in the picture, but I have enumerated erou^ to illustrate my discourse. Not even a girl who rejoices in the dainty sobriquet of “Rough House Rosie” will embrace her sweetheart and kiss him passionately in full view of thousands of people. But even if there should be such a one, no love scene in a motion picture should be staged in such surroundings. A dozen years ago it might have been all right, but we long since have outgr-iwn that sort of thing. Pictures by now should give the urpression that some imagination had a part in their making. No story has any screen value unless it can cot»ince us of its reality. Rough House Rosie does not contain a single convincing sequence. It is a perfect example if the kind of picture that should not be made. The adequde production and the fair direction of FVank Strayer ari totally wasted on such a brainless piece of screen liteature. * • * One afternoon 1 saw When a Man Loves, which took months to make ant cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That evening 1 saw The Other Side, which took six days to make and tost seven thousand dollars. In the afternoon I was bond; in the evening I was interested. For straight entertar.ment the big picture could not compare with the little fre-reel one. The Other Side was produced by Fred C. Epterson, who calls himself the Epperson P*roductions. I:i a measure it is a product of the much-abused supervEor system, but as Bart A. Carre, who supervised it, aLo was production manager, assistant director, technical drector and casting director, as well as the chief comed'.Ji on the screen, its merits can not A FOOL AND HIS MONEY IT HAS always appeared to ns a strange and interesting fact, and one worthy of deep consideration, why a supposedly intelligent public, as we Americans claim to be, will with reckless stupidity advocate and indulge in the expenditure of millions of dollars per annum, under conditions which could only evoke a smile of ridicule or contempt from any thinking human whose ego will permit of the admission of just two facts: First: That life is uncertain; and Second: That two and two make four. With no little justice we resent lectures and lecturers from abroad as the intrusion of a stinger; but no such claim can be laid to the crikj^sm of a member of one’s own household, meaSfeg those w’ho claim kinship under the same flag; aijd as such I write, and writing hope, that the fra^ness of my statements if unpalatable, may be \<^ghed with the truth contained therein, and if s8^ enlightenment results, who wull object 7 ^ Of late soA thought, much time, and more talk has been given to the question of economic cinema production, resulting only, as was shown in The Spectator issue of July the 9th, in an attempt to conserve the cost at the expense of the employees. A very similar move was made some years ago, when the wild extravagances practiced by Life Insurance companies were exhibited to the world, and they retrenched by reducing the commissions payable to the agent, and “Pilate like,” having ostentatiously washed their hands they continued and still continue, the crucifixion of the public. Not the least of the oddities w’hich confronts us, is that the very subject which forms the reason or excuse for this unnecessary and unintelligent expenditure, is one which few care to discuss, and none to learn, outside those who profit by this human weakness. In advance, be assured that the economy of which we speak, refers not to the petty economics in your every-day life, nor any reduction of expenditure on those things which go to make life v/orth while, but on the contrary it refers exclusively to the paying of two or three times more than is necessary for investments made in the belief and under the assumption that these investments themselves are a saving and an economy. The particular investment of w'hich I speak is, “Life Insurance,” and startling as it may appear, I can safely say without fear of contradiction, that there is scarcely one connected with the moving picture industry to-day who is not paying approximately twice as much as it is necessary to pay for the same insurance as he has, in the same companies as he is insured in. Moreover, it is doubtful if there is one who could not get back anywhere from twenty-five per cent to fifty per cent of what he has been overcharged by the companies. A.VD THAT IS NOT ALL. RUNYADHA LTD.