Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

thinking in terms of his star and not in terms of her stories. He was thinking that way when he presented her, three or four pictures ago as a blackface hoofer, a box-office blow from which he has not covered. The only consideration that should be given Shirley when a story is being prepared for her is that she is ten years old, consequently a girl of about that age must be the person around whom the story revolves. The writers then should forget Shirley and concentrate on the girl in the story. If the girl part is developed logically, Shirley may be relied upon to do brilliantly on the screen everything the girl does in the script. And no matter what it is, it will entertain children. Each little girl in an audience sees herself in Shirley, and that is quite enough in itself to keep her interested in what the little actress does in the picture; and, unless it be carried to an absurd extent the more grown-up Shirley appears on the screen, the more grown-up will the girl in the audience feel, therefore writing Shirley's stories for adults is the surest way to make them entertaining for children. * * * YOUTH TO THE RESCUE OLLYWOOD was host this week to a group of people who are espousing a doctrine all the world some day will embrace. Moral Re-armament, the apt name given it, has among its deciples millions of people who have never heard of it, and millions of others who merely have heard of it and know little about it as a concrete movement. I belong in this second class. All I know about it is that its aim is to make the world a more decent place in which to live, and I am wholeheartedly for that. My impression is that the sponsors of the movement have given up hope of us old fellows ever acquiring enough sense to run things properly, and are arousing the youth of the world to a consciousness of the responsibility that will be theirs. Certainly the elder statesmen are making a horrible mess of the world. Of that we are reminded every morning by the headlines in our newspapers. I am writing this on a Sunday morning, and a moment ago I paused to hail a neighbor and ask him if he could induce his dog to cease its practice of scraping holes under our back fence and not only coming in through them, but providing our dogs with a hitherto unsuspected method of escaping from their established boundaries and roaming the neighborhood. If I had taken a tip from fhe morning headlines, I would have known that my plan to abate the nuisance should have been for me to shoot my neighbor, and his would have been to fire the first shot if I were not too quick for him. Buf we laughed over the matter, and from where I sit now I can see him nailing some wire netting to the bottom of the fence, his dog on his side and my dogs on mine being interested onlookers. Movement a Civilizing Instrument q I can see no fundamental difference between this fence incident and the international incidents which now are prompting nations to snarl at one another. Each of the latter is susceptible to the same friendly settlement if it be approached with a laugh instead of with a gun. But guns will prevail until the nations become civilized. The Moral Re-armament movement can become the civilizing instrument. The sentiment of the world is on its side. Its aim is to crystalize the sentiment into a potent and irresistible force — a world-wide movement to make the world a better place to live in. Surely there is inspiration there for a greaf motion picture — a theme the world would applaud — not a war theme or a plea for universal peace; just some homely, human story about ordinary people and their desire to live in a tranquil world, a picture which would condemn war by implication, expose strife as the senseless and unnessary thing it is, and demonstrate that as the world thinks, the world will be. * * * FAILS AS ESCAPIST MEDIUM HE front page of the morning paper, of course, was filled with war talk, which left room for only one column of political strife and the choicest murder of the day. Turning the page I caught some headings: "Children See Father Killed by Zoo Bear," and "Three Sisters, Arms Locked, Drown in Boat Mishap," "Murderer of Wife and Son in Wild Outburst." For relief I turned to the amusement page and my eyes met: "They took the bars off Alcatraz to film it! — 'They All Come Out' — See sensational actual scenes of what really goes on in the great federal prisons!" I put the paper down, went oustide, and while I worked among the flowers I wondered if, after all, the screen really is an escapist medium. * * * AND WHAT OF HAM-AN'-EGGS? HEN N ovember 7 comes along the eyes of the nation will turn in the direction of California. On that day the state will decide if it is to make a most revolutionary experiment, whether it can pay thirty dollars each week to each of its elderly citizens without making things worse than they are now. Two classes of voters will support the measure: those who believe sincerely the pension plan will work, and those who feel something should be done to improve present conditions and are willing to make the experiment provided for in the initiative measure. Opposed to it will be two classes: those who believe sincerely it will not work, and those who are afraid it will disturb conditions which they now find advantageous to their selfish interests. Neither the proponents of the plan nor its opponents know if it will work. Those opposed to it reflect the frame of mind of the citizens of the past century who were convinced trains running on rails would not be successful, who laughed at the idea of electricity, at Bell's dream of talking over a wire. And now we have radio and television, each more unbelievable than the thought that there must be some manner in which old people can be given financial contentment. JULY 22, 1939 PAGE THREE