Hollywood Spectator (1938)

Page Eight April 16, 1938 displaying the full credits of the picture being shown. This would make it unnecessary to show any credits on the screen, would save producers the cost of the film now devoted to them, and make audiences more contented. * * * WHAT WORLD NEEDS MOST . . . HE Will Hays pronunciamento against propaganda pictures is as absurd as Martin Quigley’s stand on the same subject. Either of them would find it diffi¬ cult to name a picture he has seen which was not propaganda for something or other — for law ob¬ servance, right living, square dealing, good sports¬ manship — the list could be a long one. The screen’s only mission is to be entertaining. If it can promote a commendable idea in an entertaining manner, there can be no possible objections to its doing so. Of course, Will and Martin would object, but I mean no possible intelligent objection. In a world gone mad there is need of a tongue to talk sense. The screen is the world’s most eloquent medium as it can talk to both the ear and the eye, yet because it is con¬ trolled in this country by people afraid of their own shadows, it refuses to lift its voice in behalf of what the world needs most — universal recognition of the Golden Rule. * * * SUGGESTION FOR FILM STORY . . . HILE listening to police broadcasts last evening I wondered why some producer does not make a picture in which the police radio figures from begin¬ ning to end, which brings out the relentless manner in which the man wanted is dogged at every step in his attempt to escape by the persistent voice of the air. Incidental announcements could provide the comedy element. The other evening, for instance, a call went out to a police car to go to a certain address and “investigate a peeping tom in a fig tree.” * * * IGNORANCE THAT IS EXPENSIVE . . . AJORITY of motion picture producers know so little about pictures that they assume there is nothing to know. That this is true is demonstrated afresh every time the author of a short story, novel or stage play is brought to Hollywood to write a screen version of it. The excessive amount of dia¬ logue, which so largely is responsible for present un¬ satisfactory box-office conditions, is due to the em¬ ployment of so many writers who are trained only to express themselves in dialogue and who lack even elementary knowledge of screen requirements. * * * AT HOME AND ABROAD . . . EVENTY-TWO per cent of the people of the United States view motion pictures with varying degrees of regularity. In no foreign country are film audiences drawn from more than twenty-five per cent of the population, yet one of the chief concerns of American producers is not to put in one of their pictures any scene the people of even a remote and unimportant foreign country might resent. If Hollywood would think only in terms of the do¬ mestic market for its pictures and tell the rest of the world to go hang, the American film industry would have no financial worries. * * * WRITERS AND THEIR BUSINESS . . . E NEVER are going to have a flow of evenly prosperous pictures until screen writers are relieved of the necessity of preparing scripts to conform to producers’ conceptions of the manner in which they should be prepared. The writer's business should be in the hands of the writer. * * * MENTAL MEANDERINGS . . . ILL Edward G. Robinson keep his tobacco secrets to himself? Ever since a paper announced a dash of vanilla in his smoking mixture improves its aroma, I have had to carry my humidor under my arm all day and take it to bed with me at night to keep it from being polluted with the smelly stuff. . . On Sunday I leaned over so much to plant flowers that on Monday I could not stand up straight until well along in the afternoon. . . I once was the guest of the caption of a freighter on a trip from Duluth to Buffalo, stopping at all the Great Lakes ports. . . I like the radio performances of Madge Evans; her voice suggests the charm of her personality. . . In the rush to put things in order after the flood, some city employee carelessly put up a North Hollywood street sign so close to a light it can be read at night. . . Never saw finer sweet peas than those blooming in our garden now. . . To my way of thinking, Herbert Hoover is the biggest man in the country today; the second time he spoke on the radio, I introduced him; he was nervous and asked that no one except the two of us be in the broadcasting room; his recent speech was one of the greatest I ever listened to. . . Con¬ gress should stop wasting time on unimportant things and do something about Benny Goodman. . . Hugh Herbert gave our dogs rubber rats which squeak. Will he please come and get them? I got up in the middle of the night to adjust a noisy window, and stepped on one of them. The horrible squeak chilled my leg right up to the hip. . . Never could understand why, “He has hair on his chest,” is sup¬ posed to be a compliment; I think it looks sloppy. . . Una Merkel is one of the nicest girls in pictures. . . Been carefully tending a little plant growing among the rose bushes; today discovered it is a weed, but I am letting it live because I had called it Throgmorton and can’t kill anything I have named. . . In my ex¬ perience I have found no place more pleasant for lunching than the Beverly Brown Derby. . . Do you think I enjoy sitting here on the lawn, writing this stuff when so many things in the garden need attend¬ ing to? You do? You’re balmy! See that box of car¬ nation plants on the edge of the petunia bed? Well, I’m going to celebrate the Spectator’s twelfth birthday by knocking off work and planting the carnations.