Hollywood Spectator (February 29, 1936)

Hollywood Spectator Page Three From the awla Now Let There Be Peace HE making permanent of William Le Baron’s appointment as production head at Paramount was a wise move on the part of President John E. Otterson. During the past year the quality of Paramount’s product has been lower than that of any other period in its existence. The recent shake-up in the organization threw the lot into confusion, and no one on the payroll felt secure. Bill Le Baron has the respect of everyone on the lot. He is popular. He has loyalty for those who are loyal to the company for which they work. He has no axe to grind. He did not seek the job. It sought him. But he has the ability to serve it well. A good administrator, a keen judge of entertainment values, an experienced producer with a long line of successes to his credit, Bill Le Baron is an admirable choice for this job of vast importance. Now let the lot settle down to business and give us some good pictures. Unrest is over. Jobs are safe. Hugh and Cry Y Goop friend F. Hugh Herbert, writes me again. Two Spectators ago I confessed my inability to debate with him on a premise advanced by him and which I consider too untenable to form even a basis for argument. The inspiration for his onslaught was my own postulate that all arts are governed by inflexible laws, and he challenged me to name even one art that was governed by even one law. Now Hugh writes me again: You are a great disappointment to me. I looked forward with masochistic eagerness to a fine flagellation in your collumns, and all I can find is the mendicant whine of a feeble debater who begs the question interminably and rather stupidly. I don’t quite know why I should waste any more of my time—or rather, to be honest, Warner Bros.’ time—in attempting to teach you the fundamentals of common sense, but it is a rainy afternoon, and I’m not going to give you more than a couple of minutes anyhow. The trouble with you, my dear Welford, is that you have evidently not bothered to refer to your dictionary for the definition of the word ‘‘law.’’ You state again inanely and also redundantly that traffic laws are flexible. I submit that they are nothing of the sort. They state, for instance, that the speed limit along a certain highway is forty-five miles per hour. That is a specific, inflexible, rigid figure. That is the law. Now Traffic Officer Doakes, charged with the en F ditor’s Easy Chair Uy PRS forcement of that law, venality. I challenged you to can interpret it according to his quote me one equally specific law applied to any one art. You answer this challenge by the feeble-minded comment that: ‘‘We cannot argue a round window into being oblong.’ I am no architect, but if you can show me any recognized law of that art which specifically designates the shape of windows, I will cheerfully buy ten subscriptions to the SPECTATOR. “The laws of art are inflexible and rigid and from them there is no appeal.’’ Bosh, my dear Welford—and you know it! “‘The preservation of harmony, rhythm and composition is the inviolable law of all arts.’’ Of course it is—but you could go a long way before finding a generalization more vague or less axiomatic. Briefly, you haven’t successfully refuted a single one of my arguments, and if you are honest, you'll admit it. As far as I can make Hugh out, it is our different interpretations of the word “law” that splits our opinions. Apparently he regards a law as “an obligatory rule of action prescribed by supreme power in a state,” as my dictionary puts it. But my dictionary has more than two whole pages devoted to the word. I find these definitions: “A known or recognized rule of action; a specified method of procedure; a rule of order or progress; a rule established by custom or precedent.” Among the many synonyms given is “principle.’’ I accept Hugh’s challenge to consult my dictionary, which I submit as a witness on my behalf. If all objects of art are produced without a rule of order or progress, without a rule established by custom or precedent, then my witness is untrue and the verdict is in favor of Hugh. But my witness itself is a law, the law which governs the spelling of words. We can repeal or amend a traffic law; the dictionary’s law is inflexible. Hugh says the legal speed limit is forty-five miles an hour, ‘‘a specific, inflexible, rigid figure.” The courts of California have ruled that the traffic law is not inflexible, rigid, that safe driving is its only command. and that forty-five miles is suggested as a safe driving speed, but it is not made mandatory. Such was the ruling in the case of Francis Lederer when he was charged with driving in excess of forty-five miles an hour. I still maintain Hugh is a tough customer to argue with, as tough as the one who looks into a clear sky at noon and starts an argument with “The sun is not shining today.” A reader who caught one of the previews of Colleen takes me to task for what she calls my unfair criticism of the performances of Louise Fazenda and Hugh Herbert. HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR, published every second Saturday in Hollywood, California, by Hollywood Spectator, Inc., Welford Beaton, president; Howard Hill, secretary-treasurer. Office, 6513 Hollywood Boulevard; telephone Gladstone 5213. Advertising rates on application. year; foreign, six dollars. Single copies 20 cents. Subscription price, five dollars the