Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

whose names are connected with successful pictures he has shown, he will find himself in a position to buy his attractions with more assurance of box-office success fhan if he is governed in his selections only by the names of the stars who head the casts. When the exhibitor no longer is forced to buy his pictures blindly, the welfare of the entire film industry will be in his hands. He should start now to prepare himself to use his power intelligently. * * * CERTAINLY ACTIVE TREE BUILDER JCCORDING to Hedda Hopper, as recorded in ** her daily column, Nick Kaltenstadler, chief nurseryman for 20th Century-Fox studio, "in his twenty-four years career has built more than one million trees for use in the movies." That means that Nick, working Sunday, holidays, and all the rest of the days during the nearly guarter-century, has managed to turn out each day 133 trees and part of another one. If the Administration at Washington is sincere in its effort to cut down the expense of running the country, it would fire all the employees in the reforestration division and hire Nick to do the job alone. But I think he should be allowed to take time out on an occasional Sunday and certainly on the Fourth of July. DIRECTORS SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL MAJORITY of pictures make obvious the carelessness with which they are shot. To illustrate, take these scenes from "Day-Time Wife," a recent Century production directed by Gregory Ratoff: Eight or ten people are grouped on the floor of a room in a home which reflects wealth and culture. Conversation is general. Two of the people detach themselves from the group, move less than a dozen steps away, indulge in intimate conversation the others in the room should not hear, yet the two speak loudly enough to be heard all over the room, and not a sound of another voice is heard. It is as if the remainder of the group had been stricken dumb when the two stepped to one side. It is easy to see how the blunder was committed. Ratoff directed the long shot showing the group as a whole and let us hear the general chatter. Later, perhaps the next day or the next week, the director shot a close-up of the two, and overlooked entirely its relation to what had preceded it. If the close shot had been made intelligently and with regard for its place in the seguence as a whole, the two would have spoken in tones too low to be heard by those who should not hear what was being said, and as background for the scene there would have been the continued chatter of those still grouped so near the two in the intimate scene. The fault is a freguent one. It is a rare picture in which you do not see it. A sister-idiocy is that which shows only one couple talking on a crowded dance floor, the rest silent, stoney-faced, expressing animation only with their feet, while the two principals talk loudly, the lack of the mob's reaction to what it cannot help hearing proving that those who compose it are stoney faced because they are stone-deaf. Most directors seem to overlook the important fact that it is the picture as a whole the public sees, not a succession of unrelated scenes. When at a fashionable function two people are shot in a close-up, directors should not give us the impression all the rest of the guests were told to shut up. * * * F. HUGH HERBERT WRITES A BOOK 0 NE of my oldest Hollywood friendships has been '“'that with F. Hugh Herbert, writer of screen plays and books. We never agree on any topic we discuss, and our years of friendship have been seasoned with an unending series of most entertaining quarrels. I know he is nutty and he thinks I am. It is with extreme reluctance, therefore, and a degree of chagrin, that I am compelled to admit that his latest book, "The Revolt of Henry" (G. P. Putman's Sons, N. Y.) , is most entertaining reading. It is an intimate story of a mismated married couple, a wife with a nitwit personality, a husband with a murder complex he does not use. It is amusing, human, moves along briskly. It should be read by any producers in the market for a domestic comedy. * * * SORRY, BUT WE DIFFER WITH HEDDA DECENTLY in her syndicated column my good friend, **' Hedda Hopper, takes motion picture producers to task for their failure to develope talent to still the clamor of the public for new faces on the screen, and proceeds to tell the producers what she would do if it were up to her to set things right. She would have all the studios join in the establishment and maintenance of a little theatre in which aspirants for screen honors could "work steadily and develope craftsmanship." Hedda's idea would be an excellent one if Hollywood were going into the business of producing plays for Broadway theatres, but as Hollywood's business is one of making motion pictures, the cure she suggests would make the patient sicker than it is now. The illusion that the screen went stage when it went talkie is responsible, directly and indirectly, for every ill the film industry now is suffering. A course in stage acting will shorten the career of any newcomer to the screen. The leading film box-office players are now and always will be those who have had no stage experience and those who have forgotten what they learned on the stage. Get Back to First Principle CJ I agree, however, w ith Hedda that something radical should be done to buck up film box-offices. It can be done by a return to screen fundamentals — the recognition of the camera as the story-telling medium, which automatically would reduce the excessive talking now poisoning the box-office. Ifan institution is to be established for the teaching of screen technique, it should be done for prospective writers who never have seen a stage play and from the first should be DECEMBER 9, 1939 PAGE THREE