The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

Page Six coloring of a costume ball and argue that it would look more attractive if all of it were done in shades of grey; and Cecil would lead you to a corner in his garden where one red rose commanded attention, and tell you that color did not suit a single rose. Recently I saw a Technicolor two-reeler in which Napoleon appears and which was rich in the color of the period. The emperor's uniforms were shown in the exact shades of the originals. In short, I looked at the real thing. Charlie will give us a Napoleon wearing uniforms of various shades of grey. He will impose upon us the task of imagining what the colors are, because he fears that if he gave us the colors themselves, thus releasing our imaginations from the task of conjuring them, it would serve as a diversion that would take our minds off the story. The truth is that not until all pictures are shot in color will the full mind of the audience be on the story. The world is full of color, yet the only place we do not see it is on the motion picture screen, which boasts that it brings all the world to us. We are used to saying that our present pictures are in black and white, but they are not. Their shades are grey and greyer. Only in a Technicolor picture have I seen real black on the screen, a rich, beautiful black that I wanted to run my hand through. No one can deny the emotional appeal of color, yet screen art, which is successful only to the extent that it appeals to the emotions, frowns upon the instrument that will do half its work for it. Some of our feminine stars have reached the stage of having to be shot through several gauzes when close-ups are taken. If shot in Technicolor they can wear street make-up and go ahead for another ten years before a gauze would be necessary for the biggest close-up. Anything that would add ten years to the life of a feminine star is worth looking into. But apart from all material considerations, we must come to color because it is logical. We can not go on forever presenting a red rose as a dark grey spot on the screen. As in the case of sound, the grey was all right when we could not do any better, but now that the public knows that the red of a rose can be reproduced, it will be satisfied no longer with the dark grey spot. But in spite of its inevitability, I can not see any indication of studio appreciation of the fact. All thought is expended on an unnatural and expensive way of making pictures, and none on a natural, economical method that has been brought to near-perfection on the very door-step of the industry, but to which the industry seems strangely reluctant to open the door. But someone will give us a big feature in which color and sound will be combined, and then all the rest will have to follow suit. Studios would be wise to develop artists who understand the photographic value of colors. * * * Screen Actors Are An Exceedingly Dumb Bunch WITHOUT doubt screen actors, taken as a class, are the dumbest creatures that an indulgent God lets live. They are playthings in the hands of the producers, and probably will continue to be for all time, as they seem to lack the collective brains to help them to help themselves. When everyone was boosting the Academy I contended in The Spectator that Equity was the only organization that ever would serve screen actors. Many of my friends pointed out to me that I was wrong THE FILM SPECTATOR April 28, 1928 and that the formation of the Academy made Equity unnecessary. Recently the actors' branch of the Academy was called together for a meeting. One hundred and twenty-five letters of notification were sent out; the night before the meeting one hundred and twenty-five telegrams were despatched; the day of the meeting one hundred and twenty-five phone messages were sent. Nine actors attended the meeting. While a few leaders among them were trying to weld actors into an organization that could demand fair play from producers, the latter were pursuing merrily their policy of unfairness. They still pursue it. Individual actors can not object if they hope to continue at work, but Equity could help them if they had sense enough to make it strong by joining it. The greatest need of all the industry is an eight-hour day. It never will be wholly prosperous until it puts itself on such a basis. As the short-sighted producers can not be made to see this, the reform must be forced on it. Equity is the only organization that could be placed in a position to do the forcing. Producers would benefit by it. Equity has banished Jeanne Eagels from the stage for eighteen months because she did not live up to her contract with her producers, the organization thereby demonstrating that it considers the interests of the producers and its members to be identical. All that a strong motion picture Equity would do would be to force producers to conduct their business as it must be conducted if it is to reach its greatest economic efficiency. At present producers honestly think that the film industry is unlike all others and that an eight-hour day could not be applied to it without doing it harm. It is a ridiculous belief, but it prevails. At present the industry measures an artist's value to it by a standard that all other industries have discarded as an economic folly. An actor who can be persuaded to work sixteen hours a day is judged to be twice as valuable as one working eight hours. And actors, the poor fools, stand for it. Regular hours on the Tiffany-Stahl lot are from seven-forty-five in the morning until midnight. The new standard contract provides for extra pay when an artist who is engaged by the week works for seven days. TiffanyStahl gets around it by employing artists for fourteen days for two weeks pay, a cheap and mean subterfuge. And again artists stand for it, for they have no organization to insist upon their rights. More foreign actors continue to pour in because there is no Equity to stop them. Equity has an organization here, but it is of little value because but a fraction of the thousands of screen artists belong to it. Every one of them should be a member. Producers who can see no virtue in fair play never will extend it to screen artists except under compulsion, I TAY GARNETT Writer DE MILLE STUDIO Demmy Lamson, Manager Ruth Collier and W. 0. Christensen, Associates