Hollywood Spectator (1931)

u Hollywood Spectator so far it is the only one we’ve had that was successful. You can’t get children interested in childish pictures. I hope I’m wrong, but my fear is that we are going to have a batch of flops when the children’s pictures begin to appear. I don’t know any studio with a record to indicate that it knows how to make screen entertainment that youngsters will enjoy and that at the same time won’t bore their elders. ▼ ▼ One OF the many things I like about the screen version of An American Tragedy is Von Sternberg’s disregard of the sociological premise laid down by Dreiser — that any son of a pair of street preachers would grow up to be a murderer. Dreiser is a man of fixed and violent sociological convictions and advances them energetically in his books. Von Sternberg in his picture reports the incidents which Dreiser describes in his novel and does not concern himself with the espousal of any theories. That is why it is good screen entertainment. ▼ ▼ In THE Spectator of March 19, 1927, I wrote: "An American Tragedy could be made into a wonderful picture.” It has been. v ▼ In AN INTERVIEW in Variety C. B. deMille says: “First of all pictures must be commercial, but I fully believe that the more artistic they are, the more commercial they will be.” That’s what the Spectator has been saying for years. ▼ ▼ We WERE on our way for a week-end at Catalina. My host, who owned the yacht, was proud of his skill as a navigator. I challenged him to determine by dead-reckoning exactly where we were. He set about it and did a lot of figuring. Finally he announced our location. We looked it up and found that we were in the center of the state of Oklahoma. I was glad we could see land. ^ ▼ When THE studios get back to turning out box-office pictures as part of their routine they are going to turn out pictures that have synchronized scores. Part of the present boxoffice depression is due to the fact that picture audiences are deprived of the music that always played such a prominent place in screen entertainment. Sometimes in Warner pictures there are musical accompaniments to some of the sequences. I am confident that they have audience appeal that would warrant their being made continuous throughout the production. It is one of the things that are bound to come. v ▼ PICTORIAL one and two-reel subjects with off-stage voices supplying a verbal accompaniment to what we are looking at always will be popular with the public. The rodeo picture made by M-G-M and in which the voice of Pete Smith is heard is one of the choicest little bits of entertainment I have seen in a long time. Pete’s lines are not only witty in themselves, but he speaks them in a manner that enhances the effect of the wit. I don’t know if Pete can continue to be funny, but if he can, Metro should keep him in its short subject department. He could become a gold mine for his bosses. ^ ^ When I reviewed Strangers May Kiss I made the high-and-mighties at Metro furious by saying that they should be ashamed of themselves for making such a dirty picture. As usual, they produced box-office figures to prove that I was wrong. I advised them that two more pictures like it would destroy Norma Shearer’s box-office value. From all over the country are coming protests against such a nice girl being presented in a series of such dirty parts. When I made Metro mad I merely was anticipating these protests. ^ ^ 7 HE Motion Picture Relief Fund did itself a good turn when it elected Conrad Nagel as its president. Conrad is one of those people who are born to help their neighbors. He gives a great deal of intelligent and unselfish labor to any cause that has as its objective the betterment of conditions in the film industry. As president of the Relief Fund he has a big job which he will attend to in his usual big way. v v I THINK I’ll organize the Picture Patrons of America, Inc. The first thing we’ll do will be to apply to the courts for an order restraining Fox from putting Janet Gaynor in a singing part. Then, just to please Bob Sherwood, we’ll abolish platinum blondes. ^ ^ A SCIENTIST claims that mosquitoes can fly for fourteen hours without landing. Apparently it always was my luck, when I lived in places where mosquitoes lived also, to encounter them just as they concluded their fourteen-hour flights. ▼ T T An “Exquisite” Critic (George Jean Nathan in Judge) Oh, to be out of the theatre, now that Spring is here — that’s the nathanal anthem. What Welford Beaton says: "BUT to me the choicest spot IN the valley is the SANTA Maria Inn WHERE Frank McCoy is at home AND runs an Inn for his friends. AND has a perpetual flower show IN his dining room." Frank J. McCoy, Manager Santa Maria Inn, Santa Maria, California