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PART ONE CHAPTER 1
Rarely are the movies discussed at any length but someone asks: "What's wrong with the movies ?" Or answers : "Nothing that good pictures won't cure !"
You may have your own opinion of the answer. The question is obsolete. There's nothing wrong with the movies as entertainment. And few movies pretend or attempt to be anything more than just that; and they do entertain as most of our veteran exhibitors and theatre managers will readily attest.
Even the aging projectionists, who have probably seen more of the movies than anybody connected with the theatre, still find them diverting.
Tuning in on any audience for five minutes would convince even the most obtuse critic that audiences are getting their money's worth.
In fact a considerable number of reviews by trade paper critics reveal few if any ever holding their noses. At least that is true of Variety's, and few critics see more movies or are better equipped to judge.
Truth is, each year fewer people than ever leave the theatre before the picture ends, movies that fail to hold the audience through to the final clinch rarely getting as far as the screen. And there are enough different kinds of movies to satisfy most anybody's reason for going to the movies. But there are degrees of entertainment as well as kinds; the same kinds often varying considerably in the degree they entertain.
In short, writers and directors have learned well the art of blending the many ingredients of surefire entertainment and at a pace that will at least hold any audience in its seat. But there has been little advance in the art of intensifying interest. If there are any complaints they lie in that direction; hundreds of movies containing practically the same ingredients and only one or two compelling a maximum interest. But before we inquire into that strange phenomenon let us consider the principal ingredients.