Hollywood Spectator (Apr-May 1939)

jue Cam Se tjta<fe am rfjJet HAI too much dialogue in pictures is poison for film box-offices, is one of the Spectator’s firm convictions. But, like any other element in a screen production, if presented intelligently, dialogue can add greatly to its entertainment quality. Rarely does the screen today attempt to please us with the high art possible for spoken literature to attain. We are surfeited with the censored imprecations of gangsters, the standardized utterances of screen shadows in love, the “dese,” and ”dems” and "doses” of people who talk that way, and in almost every instance you will find the story overloaded with such talk is one which would have made more impressive entertainment if it had been written for the camera instead of for the microphone. The trouble with the screen today is that it is thinking in terms of talk, but not in terms of what it says. The talk which is included as an integral element of a screen creation does not have to be standardized. Let us consider some pictures. One easy to recall is My Man Godfrey. What speech in it can you remember? I can remember none, and I saw it three times. It was so delightfully nonsensical, so downright crazy, its mood so admirably sustained by the brilliant direction of Gregory La Cava and the clever performances of Carole Lombard, William Powell and other members of the cast, what the characters said was merely an articulated part of an amusing scene. We remember the whole scene but cannot recall the lines which were a part of it. That is one legitimate use of audible dialogue in a screen production — its use more as sound effect than as something entertaining by virtue of the manner in which it is worded. Beauty of the Language •J Rembrandt , an English picture produced and directed by Alexander Korda, talented European whose ability was not recognized when he was trying to gain a foothold in Hollywood production circles, provides an illuminating illustration of the legitimate use of dialogue for the sake of its literary beauty and as an element in characterizing a player. Charles Laughton, playing Rembrandt van Rijn, delivers a speech of two hundred and nine words, containing story value which he could have expressed in three: "I love Saskia.” But such a brief statement would not have matched the mood of the scene or given full expression to the feelings stirring him. In a low tone, speaking more to himself than to the gay throng surrounding him, Rembrandt pays a beau tiful tribute to Saskia, his wife, crediting her with the combined virtues of all women: “A creature, half-child, half woman, half-angel, half-lover, brushed against him, and of sudden he knew that when one woman gives herself to you, you possess all women — women of every age and race and kind — and, more than that, the moon, the stars, all miracles and legends are yours: the brownskinned girls who inflame your senses with their play; the cool, yellow-haired women who entice and escape you; the gentle ones who serve you: the slender ones who torment you; the mothers who bore and suckled you — all women whom God created out of the teeming fullness of the earth are yours in the love of one woman. Throw a purple mantle lightly over her shoulders, and she becomes a Queen of Sheba, lay your tousled head blindly upon her breast, and she is a Delilah waiting to enthrall you. Take her garments from her, strip the last veil from her body, and she is a chaste Susanne covering her nakedness with fluttering hands. Gaze upon her as you would gaze upon a thousand strange women, but never call her yours — for her secrets are inexhaustible; you will never know them all. Call her by one name only; I call her Saskia.” (The Rembrandt dialogue was written by Lojos Biro and Arthur Winteris.) Why He Played the Tuba A sustained speech by Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to I own has definite story value, and its length is justified by the homespun philosophy written into it by Robert Riskin and the intelligent reading given it by Cooper. Defending himself in court when his sanity is questioned, one of the counts against him being his playing of the tuba under circumstances which his accusers claim point to his lack of mental balance, Mr. Deeds speaks: "About my playing the tuba — seems like a lot of fuss has been made about that. If a man's crazy just ’cause he plays the tuba, somebody better look into it, ’cause there are a lot of tuba players running around loose. Of course, I don't see any harm in it. I play mine whenever I want to concentrate. "That may sound funny to some people, but most everybody does something silly when they’re thing. For instance, the Judge here is an O-filler. . . . You fill in all the spaces in the O’s with your pencil. I was watching you. That may make you look a little crazy, Your Honor, just sitting around filling in O’s, but I don’t see anything wrong. ’Cause that helps you think. Other people are doodlers. . . . That’s a name we made up back home for people who make foolish designs on paper while they’re thinking. It’s called doodling. Most everybody is a doodler. Did you ever see a scratch pad in a telephone booth? People draw the most idiotic pictures when they’re thinking. Dr. Fraser here would probably think up a long name for it, ’cause he doodles all the time. If Dr. Fraser has to doodle to help him think, that's his business — everybody does something different. Some people are . . . ear-pullers, some are nail-biters. That man there — Mr. Semple — is a nose-twitcher. The lady with him is a knuckle-cracker. So you see, Your Honor, everybody does funny things to help them think. Well, I play the tuba.” Won the Academy Award <1 Not often even in a stage play composed entirely of speeches, and still more rarely in a talking picture, is one unbroken speech of such length written for a player. Subjecting audiences to the necessity of sustained listening for such a long period is not good craftsmanship. Both on the stage and in pictures the device usually resorted to to elicit essential facts of a witness’s testimony in the trial of a case, is a question and answer exchange between counsel and witness. Such device could have been employed in Mr. Deeds. It was available to both Riskin, writer of the screen play, and Frank Capra, director of the picture. For his masterly cinematic interpretation of the story of Deeds, its director, Frank Capra, received from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the award for the best direction of 1936. A big factor in his selection no doubt was the manner in which he handed the scene in which Cooper makes his long speech. Capra presents the speech with a relieving accompaniment of pertinent action. When Cooper charges the judge with being a doodler, there is a burst of laughter by the audience, stimulated into increased volume an instant later by the reaction of the surprised judge. And so it goes throughout the entire speech. Even though it is not interrupted by another voice, it is not a speech which demands sustained listening by the audience. Laughter bubbles up along its entire course. In essence a man defending himself against an accusation of mental incompetency, presents a spectacle lacking in all suggestion of mirth-provoking elements. But here the audience is not laughing at Mr. Deeds; it is laughing with him as he neatly turns the tables on his accusers, who, as the audience is aware, are endeavoring to get control of his fortune. Why the Devil Is a Sissy •J Another legitimate use of audible dia JANUARY 6, 1940 PAGE ELEVEN