Hollywood Spectator (1931)

6 he has left a name that always will be remembered because he combined extraordinary technic and artistic imagery in presenting such roads. ▼▼ The SCREEN will get nowhere by trying to sell stories to the public. For three years it has been trying to do it, with the result that within two years every producing organization in business to-day will be out of the hands that control it now. It departed from the art that always was the only thing it had to sell, and began to tell the public stories by word of mouth. The story is to the motion picture as the hay wain was to Constable — something that gains value only from the treatment accorded it. It would seem, therefore, that Hollywood should concern itself more with the treatment of a story than with its plot, for it is the treatment, not the plot, that becomes the motion picture. Apply the fundamental principles of screen art to almost any story and you will have a box-office picture. Ignore screen art, as the talkies are doing, and out of the best stories you can not get box-office pictures. As I have said, our stories are better now than they ever have been — -and the industry is going broke. Our incompetent executives, in seeking story material, think only in terms of what they find on paper, and are totally incapable of translating into screen language what they find there. When PRODUCERS first deserted screen art and began to make talkies, almost any story made into a picture attracted large audiences. When the fact that audible dialogue had no place in a motion picture was becoming apparent to the public, the producers were getting better stories and preparing them for the screen with more intelligence. This improvement in the talkies as talkies held attendance on a level for a time, but about a year ago the public began to tire of even perfection in something in itself fundamentally imperfect, and there was a sharp decline in box-office receipts. To offset it producers decided that they must get still better stories, and that is impossible, as the stories they are producing now are as good as they can find. In seeking a way out, producers sought stories that were strong enough dramatically to support the box-office. Thus gangster pictures came into being, and pictures that dealt strongly in sex. They presented to the public every dramatic climax that could be conceived — and still box-office receipts continue on the down grade. Instead of recognizing the fact that receipts were small because screen art was missing from their creations, they concluded that they did not have enough drama in their stories, and as they can not find stories with more drama in them, they yell their heads off about a story shortage. If they would realize that it is screen art that the public wants, and that it can be applied in salable quantity to almost any story, they would be making a big step towards the rehabilitation of the box-office. It was not Constable’s discovery of a farmyard with a pond in it that made Hay Wain a great painting. Nor is the discovery of a story with a punch in it all that is necessary to the making of a great motion picture. In each case success de Hollywood Spectator pends upon the degree of art that is applied when the creation is being fashioned. Kent and Schulberg J ARIOUS FILM papers have it that S. R. Kent, the head of the sales end of the Paramount organization, will have direct supervision over B. P. Schulberg, who produces the pictures that Mr. Kent is given to sell. I can’t believe this report. Adolf Zukor, president of Paramount, permits his company to do a lot of exceedingy ridiculous things, but I can not imagine his allowing it to do anything as ridiculous as permitting a sales department to dictate to a producing department. Of course I know that a lot of the old thread-worn arguments will be advanced to show why a salesman should dictate production — salesmen are in touch with the public and know what the public wants, — and a lot of other stuff like that, all of which is the veriest rot. Salesmen know nothing about the desires of the public. They know what a given picture did at the box-office, but they don’t know why. Sidney Kent has no more idea how a picture should be made than I have how an airplane engine should be constructed. Paramount’s product is bad enough now, but it would become fearful if New York salesmen were put in a position to dictate to Hollywood producers. Any interference with existing production methods must be the outgrowth of dissatisfaction with the product that is being turned out. Paramount pictures are not doing well at the boxoffice, but Ben Schulberg is not to blame for that. The blame attaches to the whole rotten system that the motion picture industry has built up. The box-office situation is deplorable because the whole industry went insane when the sound camera was handed to it. If Ben Schulberg had tried to turn out pictures that would have done well at the box-office, S. R. Kent would have put up a violent protest. For the last three years Hollywood has been turning out the kind of pictures that New York salesmen wanted, with the result that the industry is in a desperate financial condition. It will return to prosperity only if the salesmen keep their hands off. Picture Stocks A CORRESPONDENT who tells me that he is a broker through whom many people have invested in motion picture stocks, takes me to task for saying in a recent Spectator that there is not a film security on the market to-day that is worth what it is quoted at. “Don’t you think,” enquires the broker, “that you should stick to the artistic side of pictures, about which you seem to know something, and keep away from their financial side, about which you know nothing? I know your paper is read in Hollywood. Many of my clients read what you wrote and have grown nervous about their investments in picture shares. As the financial statements of all the companies are available to me, I am in a position to demonstrate to my clients how wrong you are, and I suggest that you go to the same source for information before you make any more wild statements.”