Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

It will be difficult to make any thoughtful voter believe there is no remedy for existing conditions. The most earnest opponents of the pension plan will be those responsible for the conditions which made some plan necessary. The same sun, rain and earth responsible for previous periods of prosperity are still standing by, still functioning. Man is the weak spot in the scheme of things. Some believe that in the pension plan they have a way out. If those who think differently have hopes of converting the public to their belief, they should make their arguments convincing by presenting an alternate plan which will achieve the results aimed at by the Ham-and-Eggers. * * * CRITICS AND THEIR CRAFT IGHT years ago there appeared a 400-page book still read by those who take an intelligent interest in the reviews of literary works and the manner in which critics approach their discussions of music, stage, screen and the allied arts — "The Craft of the Critic," written by S. Stephenson Smith. Last evening, in reading again his estimate of screen criticism, I noted again how accurately Smith had sized up the situation as it existed a decade ago. I quote him, and leave it to you to decide for yourself if there has been any change since the book was written: "The cinema originated as a study of the motions of a racehorse in action. Only a half-dozen of the directors have remembered this. The essential thing in the motion picture is movement. And the newspaper and magazine critics rarely recall this elementary fact. Look at those curious and venal advertising media, the movie magazines. Is there any study of the pictures as artistic sequences of motion? Anecdotal tidbits about the stars, details of directors' lives and manners, Hollywood scandals, the pirating of plots, craft details on the making of scenarios, camera technique, exclamations over the wonders of archaeology in some new historical romance, personal interviews with the stars, and endless stills well up to the level of billboard art and boulevard postcards: in short, a farrago of rubbish, so far as any intelligible criticism is concerned. The Hollywood Spectator is the one exception." * * * TO STIMULATE FILM BOX-OFFICES HEN stories are being prepared in studios, too much thought is given the stars and supporting players who are to appear in them, a practice responsible for the complaint of the public that there is too much sameness in the pictures offered it. When a star makes a hit in a certain characterization, his or her studio promptly looks for a follow-up story with a similar character in it. When an artist sets about the creation of what he hopes will be his masterpiece, he does not think solely in terms of his colors. His thoughts are on the creation as a whole, and it is the creation which dictates the colors to be used. If screen writers were permitted to think only in terms of their stories, and if producers fitted their players into the stories instead of having the stories fashioned for their players, film theatre box-offices would be given at least a measure of the stimulation they so badly need. * * * MENTAL MEANDERINGS f)\JR d irt road passes a corner marked by a high v cypress hedge in which there are two gates providing passers-by with views of a comfortable home in a setting of well trimmed trees, attractive shrubbery and a gorgeous display of flowers. Across spacious lawns a couple of dogs chase one another, and along well kept paths one sees at times a colored maid pushing a perambulator in which sits a baby whose eyes gravely or gaily, according to her changing moods, surveys the world around her. Never farther than a dozen feet from the baby is a handsome German shepherd dog. And in such a setting and under such conditions there dwells a man who not so long ago had a number near the top of the Public Enemy list. A policeman friend of mine told me he had paid his debt to society and is now going straight. That made him interesting: the crimes he had committed took nerve and daring, marked him as a man worth studying, a human museum piece against a rural background. I took dvantage of an opportunity to make his acquaintance. That was about a year ago. He is out in my garden now, planting a few dozen zinnia plants, rare varieties he grew from seed. His greatest pride — excepting the baby, of course — is his rose garden. . . . What I thought was a flock of gophers played havoc with a bed of asters. I got a trap, set it, then hoped it would catch nothing, as I hate touching dead things. Aramantha, an old cat which ambles across our yard and spends hours with me, studied me and the trap, but for a week nothing happened. Then one morning I came upon Aramantha feasting on a gopher. The trap was still set. No sign of a gopher since. If I knew who owns Aramantha, I would trade the trap for her. . . . And now, without waiting to ask her permission, I will let a Seattle reader do the rest of today's Meandering. The opening paragraph of a letter from Maurine Coman, a Spectator subscriber who lives in the Puget Sound city, is too good to keep to myself: "The significance of your Mental Meanderings in the Spectator of June tenth is like a delicate perfume borne on a gentle breeze. Now if only the world might grasp the beautiful similitude of your neighborhood exchange and your flower children in the neighbors' gardens, and would love the neighbors' gardens for the sake of their own fair children blooming there, what a world this would be! What a neighborhood of nations, and what possible use could one find for war in universal gardens redolent with the perfume of love and righteousness? Ah, Mr. Spectator, it is a Utopian dream you have, and I, too, am only a dreamer. Of what use are dreams?" PAGE FOUR HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR