The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

I April 28, 1928 I read The Film Spectator. It invariably spoils my afternoon and yet I always look forward anxiously to the next issue. Subconsciously, I daresay, I am nursing the faint hope that one of the moron producers you despise so heartily, will offer you a vast stipend to supervise his pictures, and that you will announce the disintegration of The Spectator. F. HUGH HERBERT. NOTES ON PICTURES By WALTER KRON IT IS with immense interest that I note how readily the great American public lets go of its hardearned dollars to view the current bilge on our screens. True, they witness merchandised drama and cheap emotions frozen in celluloid with a gullible face — that is, the majority of them do. There must be a certain percentage of the vast audiences that realize the movies are now in the hands of Vandals. The censors have not dominated the producers to such an extent that they would not be able to sell anything but burlesques. Every person who sits through the average picture without a murmur subjects his self-esteem to rigid tests. The pinnacle of the present so-called screen art is base. It is a real brain strain on most directors to manufacture opuses for "Cro Magnon" audiences. If my enlightened reader thinks this a bald statement, behold this list below on current display: 1. The Final Extra; 2. Sting of Stings; 3. Born to Battle; 4. The Bashful Buccaneer; 5. Husband Hunters; 6. Hard-boiled Haggerty; 7. Hell's Four Hundred; 8. Breed of Courage; 9. Devil's Dice; 10. The Drop Kick; and 11. Prince of the Plains. This is a selection running in surrounding shooting galleries. I know nothing of these masterpieces; I merely quote the titles. For students of the psychology of the neolithic movie Americanus, I can furnish a portfolio filled with evidence docketed in alphabetical order. It would also be valuable to the future historians. This "cinemania" review complete will soon be open for general inspection. Some irate reader or director, seeing a mental kick at his bread basket, may exclaim, "Well, if you don't like it, why the hell worry about it?" Such a reaction is expected. It is the utter bovine attempt at drama that provokes a sneer — this pandering to the most primitive of man's instincts, not the moral but the lowest in mentality. The picture factories have not the best brains because the best brains cannot be bought. And if the best could be enlisted, the possessor of such would be appalled by the motive that prompted it. But the first rate heads are not always in the literary field, although a great THE FILM SPECTATOR amount of them are there. But in motion pictures they would be unsuited. This element must be fostered from its own soil. It should grow out of its own bed of manure. These flowers are growing in the earth of America. They view the pure wonder and expression of their art through the eye of a camera. Every panorama, mountain, shaded arbor, and slum and city street is a background — every human, an actor. All is eloquent to them. They await the torch-bearer. * * * The motion picture as an industry is built on sand. An enlightened future wiU testify to this. Being a material of self-expression and tied to the frail whim of a public makes the business precarious. In five years its value as a mint will be past history. The makers of unearned salaries will be reduced to the level of vaudeville actors. As a place of refuge for afternoon shoppers, tired bond-salesmen, and bored husbands and wives, the movies are a hypnotic pastime. But for a place to attract a man with mind alive, they are little removed from a chutethe-chutes, a merry-go-round, or a room of distorted mirrors. * * * The colossal movie mind to-day seems to be of a light, trivial, transient material. The vented zig-zag convolutions in their brains are shallow. To ask the regime now directing the dizzy emotions on celluloid to give us something better is a hopeless request. We must await the time when their nakedness is apparent to their dull following. Drama that provokes tear-gushing is measured as powerful. Such a contention is false, and sentiment is the refuge of a director devoid of intellect. The tear-jerker reaches back into the musty era of East Lynn and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Stella Dallas is a good example — a picture begging for sympathy. At bottom the structure is weak. It is Page Nineteen that very conscious striving for sympathy that deadens it. The evoking of the tear-duct can never enter into the confines of a work of esthetic ambitions. Excessive heroics appeal to the primitive and child audiences mainly. A successful director needs little of discernment as a rule. He has but to feel his way as he directs a picture. The lower down in the scale of mankind are his feelings and imaginations, the larger the audience. At present, in all honesty, he needs absolutely no more head than a gas station attendant. It's all chartered for him. * * * The picture of the future will flaunt boldly a challenge with a foreword reading something like this: "This picture is a new venture for a discriminating adult audience. We have attempted in our best way to deviate from the groove of the present picture productions. Perhaps we have failed to express our thought successfully. We can only say we have tried. We warn that those of the audience who expect to see a sure-fire standard picture will be mistaken, and we warn also that some may not be greatly entertained. If after the first reel is shown, there are any who do not care to remain, they may report to the boxofSce, and their money will be refunded." "But," you say, "our blood-brother and feeder, the exhibitor, might complain!" .... Such nonsense! We have to-day a queer species known as the motion picture critic. This man cries from the house tops the rare quality of a picture that is different. The picture might have no more artistic merit than a Maxfield Parish department store eye soother. But the simple fact that it is different will bring these fellows into the cheer lines. Their conceptions as decent critics might be dubious, but they do love a unique consumption. A professional reviewer of current pictures is generally a sorry jackass. VALUES AND VARIETY WATCH OUR WINDOWS S^ ^Aousand <aifh of Dhtinction ' ©326 H^LLyW9W'BLV7' HVUyW777-WUF« SHOP AT BALZER'S— "TWO SHOPS"— JUST WEST OF VINE FORMAL DRESS & UNIFORM SHOP Carrying a Complete line of Full Dress, Tuxedoes. Cutaways, with their necessary ac' cossories. For Sale, or Rent. A first class Barber Shop in conjunction with Our Establishment. Phone GLadstone 9908 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard