Hollywood Spectator (1931)

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July 18, 195 1 13 Hollywood s Lost Enthusiasm and Its Other Laments By R. E. Sherwood When I made my first pilgrimage to the movie Mecca, ’way back in the pioneer days of 1922, the cinema industry was admittedly in its infancy. It was wearing long curls and rompers and rolling its hoop across the face of civilization. It was a bright, precocious child, full of pranks and of hooey, and regarded as an unmitigated pest by its elders among the arts. During the intervening years, the cinema has emerged from its protracted infancy and rushed headlong through its adolescence into a semblance of maturity. One may reasonably argue that the change has been all for the better, that the screen has profited by the accession of age and experience. But the more I look about me, the mere I hear of Hollywood’s studied cynicisms, the more inclined I am to lament the loss of exuberant youth. For with that youth went something that constituted Hollywood’s greatest charm — namely, enthusiasm. The film folk may have thought and talked childish nonsense in the old days, but it was nonsense on a grand, magnificent, inspiring scale. It was Stupendous, Colossal, Lavish! ▼ ▼ The blight of Wall Street had not then descended upon the extravagant industry. Cecil B. deMille was staging orgies that were orgies, and there were no sour-visaged efficiency experts around to check up on the costs. “Shoot the works, boys and girls! Let the red ink flow freely! We may have to pay for this to-morrow, but to-morrow will never come!” Such were the popular cries in that happy era before Western Electric, the Chase National Bank, the R. C. A. and Dillon-Read had muscled in on the celluloid racket. Every director, every star, announced confidentially to anyone who happened to ask that his or her next picture was going to be the Supreme Triumph of History — and believed it, what’s more. Bunk? Of course it was bunk. But it was gorgeous, exciting, stimulating! And Now What? ▼ ▼ Whenever you ask one of Hollywood’s bored denizens how the new picture is shaping up, he replies, “Oh — it’s just another louse,” or “We’re hoping for an even bigger flop than we had last time.” Perhaps this is a lot more honest, and therefore more admirable, than the old way — but it certainly doesn’t give us press correspondents much cheerful material to ship home to the pleasure-loving fans. The main trouble is that Hollywood has been converted from a wild, hilarious, gold-drunk frontier town into a mere out-post of Broadway. It has sacrificed its innocence for a mess of pseudo-sophistication. It has learned to ask itself that deadliest of all questions, “What of it?” and it has discovered (as Broadway did) that there is absolutely no answer. This development should be intensely gratifying to a critic who has devoted the best years of his life to the task of deflating the cinema’s ego. But I find it otherwise. For Hollywood was much funnier, and much better copy, in the gaudy, deMillian days of its infancy. Rebound ▼ ▼ The wise-acres tell me that Rebound is doing what they elegantly term a “nose-dive” in theatres throughout the country, and that its star, Miss Ina Claire, will probably bounce right back to the New York stage whence she came. Probably they’re right. I saw the picture during its unimpressive run at the Carthay Circle, and although I enjoyed it immensely, I could imagine that it might prove to lack the necessary punch (whatever that may be.) It was too consistently intelligent in writing, direction and acting to be widely popular. But as for Miss Claire! If she isn’t the comedienne supreme, then I don’t know even that much French. Her performance is one of infinite, exquisite grace. She strikes at each point with unerring sureness, and never with an excess of vehemence. She is dexterous and restrained in her development of the emotional overtones. To sum up: Miss Claire is elegant, even though she does wear singularly unbecoming clothes. ▼ ▼ If Ina Claire should fade from the screen, there would be no excuse for her admirers to complain that she has been misused. She has, in fact, been given the best of the breaks. The Royal Family of Broadway and Rebound yielded her two glorious parts and plenty of expert co-operation, and only an appalling incapacity for appreciation in the public could account for failure in either case. With Tallulah Bankhead, however, it is different. This remarkably interesting actress has yet to be afforded the opportunity that she deserves. Her Tarnished Lady was a sad attempt to capture on the screen the heavy essence of Park Avenue. It was a story that, for some reason, was beaten before it started. What the heavy-lidded Miss Bankhead needs is something vibrantly alive, gay, sparkling — something with the quality of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels or Private Lives. (Do I hear Mr. Lasky asking, “What for instance?” If so, I choose to ignore the interruption.) Her new picture is called, I believe, My Sin, which sounds none too promising. Nausea Note ▼ ▼ California is a notoriously healthy state, and I know that I should be in the best of physical trim out here were it not for various things about the place which tend to make me sick. I am alluding particularly to the trade names on signboards all over the lot. Whenever I see an announcement of