Hollywood Spectator (1931)

June 20, 1931 21 streamers of rain, but rather a merged background of gray. Only when I looked with a purpose could I distinguish raindrops. It is a psychological fact that intense absorption deadens external eifects. If directors would achieve their prime purpose of forcing us to imagine that we are the characters on the screen, they must recognize those psychological laws which govern our senses, and respect them. Otherwise they rob us of our box-office tribute, and will eventually deprive themselves of fairly fat salaries. If I am sitting in a room with my wife, the sound of a door opening is very subdued, and I may deem it so unimportant as to ignore it entirely. If I am indulging in an interesting conversation, I may be unaware that the door has opened. I am not alert for sounds, hence they are not obtrusive. If I am sitting in the same room talking with my mistress, the opening of the same door is like a revolver shot. I turn, jump, prepare for any action that may be necessary. I register perturbation and whatever else one registers when caught. ▼ ▼ In the reaem of physics the two sounds were of equal intensity, but in the realm of my mind there were oceans of difference between them. The presentation of such differences is beyond the scope of the legitimate stage. They are not, as a matter of fact, true and absolute realism. The sounds were the same, but it is the supreme privilege of the motion picture director to present both sound and sight, not as they are, but as they seem to be to the characters. Daybreak is no more vulnerable in this respect than hundreds of other pictures. It was merely the snapping point which jarred cruelly upon an already taut set of nerves. The trouble with so many otherwise excellent pictures is not sound per se, but the unintelligent use of sound. Parenthetically there is still another reason why sound effects in pictures should be used cautiously and sparingly. Regardless of what the laboratories may say, sound has not been perfected. In utter heresy to this mechanical age, I maintain that it never will be. I hope, but I disbelieve. This clanking of swords, dragging of chains, clicking of glasses, roaring of airplanes, talking in open spaces — it all has a tinny effect upon my ear. I know it is not authentic and its creators know it also. In the name of heaven, then, let us have as little of it as possible. The human voice is being recorded tolerably well — far from perfectly, but at least recognizably — but all other effects give that dank hollow ring I remember so well from having yelled into cisterns in more coltish days. ▼ ▼ v STAGE Fantasy ALLOON. I am indebted to J. Belmar Hall, who designed the interesting settings for this latest Potboiler offering, for the information that poet Padraic Colum wrote it originally for Dudley Digges. The part of Caspar, however, played in this production by Donald Murray, so far overshadows the part of Glock, the clown, which must have been the one designed by the playwright for Digges, that I can not conceive of even a Digges ousting him for honors. The only person in the cast who contended seriously for those honors was Catherine Locke, who as Paras Veka, gave one of those sweetly appealing portrayals that linger in the memory like some pleasant dream. I hope someone in Hollywood with power to do so takes the proper interest in her future, for she strikes me as a young actress of talent and promise. I can not answer for how this was taken by the few hundred people in Hollywood who were fortunate enough to see it. Hollywood has such a habit of preferring garbage to ice cream. Very Celtic, very poetic both in conception and execution, it was like some of those perfect things of Dunsany’s — more poem than play, yet vastly entertaining and thought-provoking, even as play. I left it with the thought that I should like very much to read the script. Lines from it kept recurring to me from time to time for the next few days after I saw it. Perhaps it is the sympathy of blood, nationality, or what you will, but Balloon was, for me, one of the pleasantest intermissions in a round of humdrum playgoing I have experienced since coming to Hollywood. It is the first of the Potboiler offerings I have seen. I shall certainly try to see that it is not the last. On the program handed me is the information that the Potboilers are badly in need of funds for further production purposes. If Hollywood only knows what is good for it it will get behind these stage experiments with all the support it has, whether it be the Potboilers, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Civic Repertory in whatever form, for these are the crucible from which it may mould its new trade — at least for the present. Of course, when it really begins making pictures again, there will be less need for this experimentation. But the talkies seem to be one of those diseases which the art of pictures must suffer until fate pronounces kill or cure. And until one or the other happens, plays like those presented by such groups as the Potboilers are invaluable as instruments of helf-help.— F. D. V V V Reviewed In Th is Number DADDY LONG LEGS— A Fox Movietone picture. Directed by Alfred Santell; from the play by Jean Webster; adapted by Sonya Levien; photographer, Lucien Andriot; recording engineers, Joseph Aiken and Donald Flick; settings by William Darling; assistant directors, Marty Santell and Ray Flynn; film editor, Ralph Dietrich. The cast: Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter, Una Merkel, John Arledge, Elizabeth Patterson, Kathlyn Williams, Sheila Mannors. DUDE RANCH— A Paramount picture. Directed by Frank Tuttle; from the story by Milton Krims; screen play by Percy Heath, Grover Jones and Lloyd Corrigan; photographer, Henry Gerrard. The cast: Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin, Eugene Pallette, Mitzi Green, June Collyer, Charles Sellon, Cecil Weston, George Webb, Guy Oliver, James Crane. FINGER POINTS— A First National picture. Directed by John Francis Dillon; adaptation by Robert Lord; dialogue by John Monk Saunders; photographer, Ernest Haller; art director, Jack Okey; wardrobe by Earl Luick; film editor, LeRoy Stone. The cast: Richard Barthelmess, Fay Wray, Regis Toomey, Robert Elliott, Clark Gable, Oscar Apfel, Robert Gleckler. KICK IN— A Paramount picture. Directed by Richard Wallace; from the play by Willard Mack; screen play by Bartlett Cormack; photographer, Victor Milner. The cast: Clara Bow, Regis Toomey, Wynne Gibson, Leslie Fenton, Donald Crisp, Paul Hurst, Juliette Compton, James Murray, Wade Boteler, Carrol Naish, Donald Mackenzie, Ben Taggart. LADIES’ MAN— A Paramount picture: Directed by Lothar Mendes; adaptation by Rupert Hughes; screen play by Herman J.