We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE AMERICAN FILM
the sex, at the same time allowing for spectacle and at least two high spots; and a cast of international players. Of such a type were Flesh and the Devil, The Last Command , The Patriot, Wild Orchids, and The Kiss. Hundreds of pictures based on this formula were being produced just prior to the general adoption of the dialogue film. The same idea was being carried out in England with Piccadilly and in Germany with Volga Volga.
American pictures are filled with people, for prominent among the movie beliefs of Hollywood is the misconception that the general public is more interested in people than in things. Seldom is a landscape or a piece of architecture used in an American film for its own beautiful sake. (The work of Henry King and Robert Flaherty may be taken as exceptional.) Only as a background to people does the American producer allow nature to interfere. Typical of this belief is the film White Shadows, in which even the hard hand of Hollywood, personified in the haggard Monte Blue and sex-charged Raquel Torres, could not subdue the waving palms and mountainous cumulus clouds of the south seas, which Van Dyck's cameramen succeeded in photographing so well. In all probability there are a few directors in Hollywood who would, if given the opportunity, make films of sincerity, but they are continually manacled by the one great obstacle, picture-sense or box-office. They cannot afford to break away and attempt to produce on their own. The combines are far too strong. Only the star-producers of the Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickf ord , and Swanson group work alone and pursue their own methods , but even they are afraid of the demands of the distributors. Perhaps Chaplin only is in the position to make films as he really wishes, but even he cannot afford to make another Woman of Paris. Fairbanks and Pickford are to be sincerely admired for their efforts to create better American films. They realise, at least, that they are lacking in some of the essentials of good cinema, and are not afraid to go to the source for the benefit of learning.
The mentality of the American film magnate is perplexing. His futile mistakes and brilliant successes are a continual source of wonderment. The Americanisation of Emil Jannings is typical of Hollywood methods. In reviewing the position, it may be recalled that Paramount-Famous-Lasky secured the 'world's greatest actor,' the man who shook the audiences of the entire cinema by his powerful performances in tragedy and comedy. In early days, he became known f 81