Film Spectator (1927-1928)

Page Sixteen THE FILM SPECTATOR November 26, 1927 test throughout the lengpth and breadth of the land. Likewise no legitimate reason should ever exist for another director, equally capable, to take one of the best drawing cards in pictures, place him in a house of doubtful reputation and build a doubtful sequence around the incident.” One thing that the screen has suffered from has been an overdose of such criticism as this. A paper that lacks the nerve to give the name of anyone it criticizes should keep out of the criticizing business. If the Film Daily will slip me the names of the two directors it is afraid of, I will bawl them out. V V * At a Beverly Hills dinner party last week the conversation turned to foreign films. A supervisor connected with one of the big studios contributed largely to the discussion. He never has been abroad, and all the rest of us have, but he expressed his views on European subjects with a finality that left little else to be said. The conversation finally reached J’Accuse, that extraordinary French film which Abel Gance made in Paris in 1920, and which was shown in this country the following year, when it made a great impression on those who took an intelligent interest in the screen. Those who saw it will recall that it dealt with those who died in the war rising from their graves to enquire into the reason for it. As the discussion continued the supervisor remained silent. Finally he leaned over to me and enquired in a whisper, “Say, who the hell is Jack Hughes?” * * * Dick Arlen, Paramount’s most recent young man to be exploited as a great Western star, labors under the slight handicap of not bein^i^j^ to ride a horse. I have been laboring under the impressf^l^hat that was all a Western star needed to know. Warner ^Efejpter was getting along all right as Jack Holt’s successor un^lpne bright morning when they were shooting a scene showing Warner, as a peerless rider, sitting on a horse. The horse moved. Right then and there Warner decided that Westerns were much too rough for him, and he quit. And now Dick is having the same tough time. His double can not be used in the close-ups of him riding, and the camera man must be on the alert to get his riding shots in the short interval that elapses after the horse begins to move and before Arlen falls off. ♦ ♦ * One of the queer things about the screen industry is the manner in which it ignores promising talent. The other day I saw a picture directed five years ago by Frederick Stowers, who also wrote the story. It was his first attempt and revealed him as an author and director of marked ability. In it were remarkable characterizations by Noah Beery, Johnny Harron, and Ethel Grey Terry. But the picture never got Stowers anything. It’s a great business for overlooking promising material. In any other line of work someone would have seen Stower’s possibilities and he would have advanced rapidly. * ♦ ♦ Listen to Will Hays: “To me there is but one interest and that is the interest of all of you and of the public you serve, to the end that every individual, every company and every branch of the business may be fixed in its position of certainty that the rights of all are equally sacred and sacredly equal.” I imagine that the right of Ray Griffith SECRETARY Wishes to work for film executive or writer. University training. Two years studio experience. Excellent local references. HE. 9991, or Box A-200, The Film Spectator. PAUL KOHNER Now Supervising “The Man Who Laughs” Starring Conrad Veidt “Freedom of the Press”, All-Star Special, George Melford directing, for Universal “PAINTING THE TOWN” (Universal Jewel) A Sensation from the “Roxy” to the Sticks Story and Continuity By HARRY O. HOYT LES BATES Welford Beaton in The Spectator: “This part (in Buck Privates) should provide Les Bates with more important roles than he has been playing. He is an excellent comedian.” 1150 N. Ogden Drive Phone GRanite 8246 ALFRED HUSTWICK FILM EDITOR and TITLE WRITER mniiiiiii WHitney 3239