Hollywood Spectator (1936)

Hollywood Spectator Page Five sence from them had given the screen its worldwide popularity. They destroyed the foreign market. The novelty of sound ran picture attendance up to 120,000,000 paid admissions weekly in this country alone. When the novelty wore off attendance dropped to 70,000,000 weekly. To stimulate it Hollywood went dirty, produced pictures which were a disgrace to it and an in¬ sult to the public. Then the League of Decency saved the film industry’s life by forcing it against its will to be decent. It still is chafing under the restraint of the en¬ forced respectability which checked the downward curve of its box-office receipts. Now with the magnitude of its productions, the millions of dollars it spreads upon the screen, the industry is en¬ deavoring to stun the public into patronizing film thea¬ tres in greater numbers. But the novelty of dollars is wearing off as steadily as the novelty of sound wore off. Hollywood thinks it is prosperous because it is making two pictures to earn the box-office returns one picture used to earn. Exhibitors, however, are not prospering. They are holding the thorny end of the stick. * # * I am not anticipating a calamity. The art of the screen has inherent strength to assert itself no matter what de¬ gree of punishment is accorded it. But I would like to see the picture industry come to its senses, return to its real business, cease thinking it can make screen entertainment out of dollars only, restore in the public the habit of go¬ ing to pictures and put an end to its shopping for them. It would be easy to do all this. It can be done by al¬ lowing the screen to talk its own language, by permitting the camera to resume its position as the story-telling medum and using the sound device as an incidental aid. Hol¬ lywood will have to come to it. Money cannot continue to entertain audiences. But motion pictures always will, dramas and comedies which give us more to look at and less to listen to. That is the kind of entertainment that built the industry and it is the only kind that will support it permanently. Wills-o-the-wisp are all right to chase when all we are looking for is exercise, but poor things in which to place hope of substantial reward. With its next issue the Spectator will celebrate its tenth birthday. The birthday itself falls on March 29 as it was on that day in 1926 the paper made its first appearance. The Spectator is taking advanage of its anniversary to prey on those who wish it well and feel it serves a useful purpose. To make the preying gentle it is asking no one to take a larger space than onequarter page of advertising space. It never has believed greatly in the value of the kind of advertising the screen personnel is asked to do in Hollywood film papers, and has made but few appeals for that sort of support, but advertising is a paper’s only source of substantial revenue, and the Spectator shares with all other businesses an in¬ ability to get along without revenue. But its wants are not great and it hopes its demands are modest. In my prowling around I have encountered quite a number of people who said we would hear from them. I wish they, and all others who intend to come in but who have put it off, would phone the office and give their names to the pleasant voiced girl who answers. The price for a quarter-page — no more to anyone — is thirty-five dollars, payable after publication. There is more to it than mere¬ ly the financial angle. Every order for space cheers us by letting us know there is another person who approves the Spectator’s course and wishes it well. For ten years it has been blundering along, striving to be of some use to motion pictures and is human enough to appreciate thoroughly a friendly pat on the back. * * * Having entrusted to John, the smilingly efficient head waiter at the Beverly Brown Derby, the selection of the dishes that were to constitute my dinner, I surveyed my surroundings and translated what I saw into terms of motion pictures. Nowhere in this country or abroad have I found better cooking, more appetizing food, than that which has made famous the three restaurants so ably con¬ ducted by Bob Cobb. While attractive enough, the Brown Derbies put on no airs in the way of furnishings. The booths are constructed of ordinary wood, the floors are of concrete and there are no architectural adornments, no drapes, and, except in the case of the Vine Street Der¬ by where cartoons are hung, the walls are bare. But I inquired and discovered that the seats in the booths are covered with the finest, most expensive upholstery. Thus what the customer sits on is the best procurable. The business of the Brown Derbies is to sell food and please its customers, consequently the quality of the food and the comfort of the customers receive first consideration. The business of the motion picture industry is to sell emotions, but emotions are not given the first consideration of pro¬ ducers. They go in for trimmings, which the Brown Derbies ignore. Big names, overwhelming productions, unlivable interiors are used to adorn the emotions and distract our attention from them. Bob Cobb can teach producers a valuable lesson in the commercial wisdom of giving first consideration to the reduction of their chief commodity to terms of greatest simplicity. * * * On some of the lots “Keep off” signs are displayed on sets dressed with expensive furniture. Players have noth¬ ing to sit on between scenes although there are plenty of upholstered chairs and divans scattered around1. On the Warner lot the other day I noted covers thrown over such furniture and players enjoying the comfort thus provided for them. Not a bad idea for all the lots to adopt. ^ British editors who read the Spectator might pass it on to their readers that whenever a newsreel presents a picture of Britain’s new king, American audiences ap¬ plaud him warmly. At least I have found it the case with every audience of which I have been a member. * * * I have seen enough pictures Bryan Foy has made for Warner Brothers to convince me that as a producer he has a great deal on the ball. He will go down in the screen’s hall of fame as the maker of the first all-talkie, and he is still going strong. * * * Again I plead with someone, anyone, to tell me what a shot of Lowell Thomas adds to a Movietone newsreel. He has a nice face but it is getting on my nerves. * * -#■ I am not sure who is going to play Mary Beaton in Mary of Scotland, but she better be good!