Hollywood Spectator (February 29, 1936)

Hollywood Spectator The essential quality of all art creations is harmony. Because an artist likes blue, he must not distract the harmony of his painting by using it too profusely. Because color can be made beautiful on the screen it must not be exploited at the expense of the other elements constituting a screen creation. Harmony is distorted when one element of an art creation isolates itself and attracts attention as an individual contribution to the whole. Hollywood has at its command the greatest of all the arts, one recognized as such by leading thinkers all over the world, yet those who work in this outstanding medium, constantly, persistently seek means of distorting it, of outraging it by the introduction of elements foreign to it. Color is screen art’s greatest insult, one which only a third dimension could match. It took one hundred thousand extra dollars to provide Lonesome Pine with color, to add to it an element which violates the law of all arts that there should be no one ele ment that attracts attention to itself. Se ee The film industry would better serve the interests of its stockholders if it engaged its attention more with the spirit of its story material and less with a search for fanciful trimmings which have no story value. The Lonesome Pine story possesses elements to hold the attention of an audience and a background which would lend itself to beautiful treatment in black and white photography. I could find no fault with the direction of Henry Hathaway nor with the joint literary effort of Grover Jones, Harvey Thew and Horace McCoy, yet I found the picture rather dull, which I attribute chiefly to the distraction of color. I am sure it was color photography which spoiled for me the performance of Sylvia Sidney. Never has she looked less attractive on the screen. She plays an uncouth, uneducated female hillbilly, yet her rather unprepossessing mouth is rimmed with a profusion of lipstick which Technicolor reproduces with unkind fidelity. In an emotional scene, the peak of which reaches into screams, Sylvia is so unconvincing that even only a few of the studio contingent applauded. But it was not her fault. Her emotion was based on a premise which an audience will not accept under the circumstances of its presentation—a cry for more feud murders uttered by a girl after she had received some measure of education. So eae A sequence which makes the story drag is a long one showing a funeral of a boy victim of the feud. When we have a death we presume a funeral, consequently this sequence has no story significance. Its elimination would improve the picture. If you are one of those who take an intelligent interest in the progress of the screen, you must see this picture. In it color was put on trial. The industry is waiting to see what the public will do with it. The public will flock to it. Exploitation of the color will attract audiences. If the industry can restrain its imitative impulse and allow Walter Wanger to give color one or two more trials, it will find that it would be wise for it to stick to black and white photography. Even Walter will return to it. Nothing fundamentally unsound can persist in something fundamentally sound. Fundamentals have a way of taking care of themselves. Page Seven Praising with Faint Damns THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, Twentieth Century-Fox. Directed by John Ford; Associate producer and screen play, Nunnally Johngon; photography, Bert Glennon, ASC; art direction, William Darling; settings by Thomas Little; assistant director, Ed O’Fearna; film editor, Jack Murray; costumes, Gwen Wakeling; sound, W. D Flick, Roger Heman; musical direction, Louis Silvers. Cast: Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron, O. P. Heggie, Harry Carey, Francis Ford, John McGuire, Francis McDonald, Douglas Wood, John Carradine, Joyce Kay, Fred Kohler, Jr., Ernest Whitman, Paul Fix, Frank Shannon, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Leila McIntyre, J. M. Kerrigan, Arthur Loft, Paul McVey, Maurice Murphy, Etta McDaniel. HEN Nunnally Johnson, Twentieth Century writer, began his task of writing a Doctor Mudd screen play for Nunnally Johnson, Twentieth Century associate producer, to make into a picture, he had only a few outstanding facts to go on: Dr. Mudd attended a stranger who turned out to be John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Lincoln; Mudd was convicted as an accomplice, sentenced to life imprisonment; he rendered. heroic service during a yellow fever epidemic on the prison island, was pardoned. That is the complete story. Writer Johnson could put all that in a two-reeler, but Producer Johnson wanted seven reels of story material, and padding is the only known process by which a lot of nothing can be made out of a little something. So we have in The Prisoner of Shark Island the two reels of story material plus five reels of padding, splendidly directed by John Ford, splendidly mounted by Twentieth Century and splendidly photographed by Bert Glennon. But all the splendor and the really excellent performances of Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart and all the others of the carefully selected cast, do not conceal the fact of a lack of story content to support the production. x * *® Johnson went grewsome in his effort to extend the screen play to feature length. He gives a long execution sequence which serves to inform us that Mudd was not hung, a negative bit of information which in no way affects the fate of the unfortunate doctor. A long escape sequence serves only to inform us that Mudd was unsuccessful in gaining his freedom, another negative contribution to the story. Considerable footage is devoted to the harsh treatment accorded the prisoner to gain for him the sympathy already gained in full measure by the fact of his unjust incarceration. More footage is devoted to the abortive efforts of Mudd’s family and friends to gain his freedom, all negative incidents which have no bearing on the story and serve only to keep the family and friends in the picture. Mudd is pardoned finally solely because of his skill in stamping out the fever epidemic among the soldiers and prisoners on the island. Nothing shown in the preceding reels has any bearing on the application of his medical knowledge to the fever crisis. And nothing is shown to indicate the pardon cleared his name as one of the Lincoln conspirators. Apparently he left prison still condemned in the minds of the public as one of the murderers of the President. The weakness of the Mudd story lies in the fact that it had no significance except to him and the members of his family. He cured some victims of the yellow fever, but he did not advance the world’s knowledge of the disease. Nothing he did lived after him, as was the case with