Inside facts of stage and screen (April 26, 1930)

PAGE FOUR INSIDE FACTS OF STAGE AND SCREEN SATURDAY. APRIL 26, 1930 Picture "Reviews Previews Shorts By A. H. FREDERICK Despite the almost unanimous predictions that talking- pictures would suddenly swing screen stor- ies from their Horatio Alger-Elinor Glyn-Ugly Duckling unanimity to such deeper themes as are theatrical and novelistic fare, no such development has come to pass. Scanning the plots of the out- standing pictures of the current year, we find them unchanged in the main from the general run of silent day offerings. Of course there is the tightening up in sequential development necessi- tated by the footage consumed by dialogue, by themies and by interpolated song-and-dance num- bers, but apart from this the differences are neg- ligible. Theoretically it would seem that the talk- ies could plunge into the vastly larger fields which vocalization made possible; but practically it seems that the indissoluble bar to this is the sim- plicity of the bulk of movie fans. They want 'em obvious; they want 'em orthodox; they want 'em cut and basted according to pattern. Once before, this inconsistency of the public— for inconsistency it turns out to be in the long run—brought the movies to a financial precipice. That was just before the sound revolution, when boxoffice returns had sunk to far below normal, and were still sinking. The public was tired of the endless repetition of two or three story themes, and yet it would not accept anything else. Only the most valiant and Herculean efforts of publicity departments and the exploitation experts kept this crucial situation from becoming a dis- aster, and their fight was a losing one when talk suddenly respirated the entire industry. Now the question arises, what shall be done to prevent recurrence of the once-threatening calam- ity? For recur it will unless intelligent prevent- ives are effected gradually but surely long in ad- vance,—and this despite such temporary respites as are brought, or may be brought, by sound, color, third dimension and television. The only answer seems to be that the movie-going public must be educated up to that wider field of appre- ciation to which the other arts have attained. Books have been written for thousands of years and yet there is no diminution in the demand for them, in fact, there is a constantly increasing ab- sorption of them; the theatre is as old as ancient Greece, and yet good plays were well attended up to the time the talkies offered their synthetic stage entertainment at a slashed tariff; boxing bouts, football games, pageantry and any other form of spectacle which has diversity for its key- note, can always draw. And yet the movies re- main obdurate to the very obvious lesson herein contained. The most original and brilliant writers are hired by them, because, of course, of this originality and brilliance, and then straightway are whipped into "the Hollywood pattern," be- coming, ipso facto, of no greater value than any submerged scenario tyro who is handed the same old facts with the implied instruction: Here, re- arrange these. It is almost impossible to believe that the scintillating creator of "Erik Dom" and "Gargoyle" could create anything so banal as "Roadhouse Nights," and yet Ben Hecht did it. Or that the brilliance of Lawrence Stallings all went off in "What Price Glory?" But why multi- ply the examples? They will be multifarious until such time as an end is p.ut to the practice of bring- ing the world's writing geniuses to Hollywood, exhibiting to them such ink-tricksters as Vina Del- mar and Elinor Glyn, and saying to them, "Ah, there's a couple of great screen writers." The obstacle in the road of educating the puljlic to like good pictures is, of course, a financial one. Higher education is always an expensive matter, and in an industry where each offering is charted off in its own column of profit or loss, with no mitigating entry of "good will," "future benefit," or "sales prestige," it is also a painful procedure. An entirely impractical suggestion from the stand- point of possibility, and yet one which would probably solve the problem of story exhaustion in the future, would be for the producers to form a central committee to select for screen presenta- tion a certain number of good stories a year, to be quoted among the producers for filming despite any lack of immediate boxoffice returns resulting therefrom. As it is not chalked up in the profit column, it is impossible to estimate the general good done to the picture industry by such films as "The Patriot," "A Woman of Paris," "The Crowd," "The Way of All Flesh," "The Letter," "The Enemy," and others which had thought in them. Had they been launched with the same sincere vehemence of publicity as that used to inform the world that Richard Arlen loves to sit on his front porch, or William Haines is an eligible bachelor, or Leila Hyams is a beautiful blonde, they in- dubiably would have done an incalculably greater amount of good. When a publicity department has such a picture to exploit, we recommend that they study the prefaces to the modern Library books. They will learn something. With the Hollywood system what it is, it is not surprising that a survey of the writing talent since the first of the year—a convenient date for setting as the time when talkies settled down to normalcy — fails to disclose any one outstanding name, no one, that is to say, who has come into a position in talking pictures equivalent to that of the writer of a best seller or of a book of out- standing artistic merit. Of course there were borrowed works which, had they been originals, would have been sensa- tional. As, for instance, Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie," or, perhaps, Fannie Hurst's "Lummox," or "The Strange Case of Sergeant Grischa." But the fact stands out that these were borrowed works: had they not had the stamp of former ap- proval given them in their play or novel form, it can be well believed that they would never have got on film. When some other medium takes a flight and soars to great heights, the screen will sometimes attempt to capitalize on the daring, but it will never test its own wings. When it comes to its own writers, it demands the last ounce of orthodoxy. All in all, considering how much or how little could be borrowed, and the nature of the struc- tural material, whether delivered to, or created by the writer, the best screen writing so far this year has been done by four writers. They are Marion Orth, who did "Romance of the Rio Grande"; John Farrow and Dan Totheroh, who adapted Bar- rie's "Old Lady Shows Her Medals" into the pic- ture "Seven Days' Leave"; Oliver H. P. Garrett and Howard Estabrook, who wrote the story and screen play of "Street of Chance," and John Ford, James K. McGuiness and Dudley Nichols, who did, the first two the story and the latter the screen play and dialogue, for "Men Without Women." Frances Marion did as neat a job as one would wish for with "Anna Qhristie," but she had a rich- ness of dialogue and incident to choose from far greater than did the other four above named. But even having a full stage play does not always mean best results, as witness the adaptation of Alfred Sutro's "The Laughing Lady," done by Bartlett Cormack and Arthur Richman in a man- ner which left much room for improvement. Adap- tation of "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals" stands out as the best screen version of a stage play so far this year because of the good movie angles put into it by its two adaptors — angles fully as good as anything the play itself had to offer. Two screen plays of the year have stood out as the most deliberately done from a strict show- manship angle: to wit, attempting no sincerity, done with tongue in cheek with the thought, "Well, that's what they want; let's give it to them." Smutty or suggestive dialogue was the reason-for-being of these two pictures, and it was ladled out. One of them was "Hot for Paris," a ballyhooed follow-up to the salaciousness of "The Cockeyed World"; and the other was "Montana Moon," a Joan Crawford vehicle. Both were big boxoffice, so credit to the writers who did them, but one cannot but wonder how far this competi- tion in "spiciness" will go. Taking the writing bows for "Hot for Paris" are Raoul Walsh, who did the story, and Charles J. McQuirk, who did the adaptation and dialogue. Those for "Montana Moon" belong to Sylvia Thalberg and Frank But- ler, who did the screen play, and to Joe Farnham, who did the dialogue. In both pictures it was the dialogue that was outstanding. A delightful writing contribution was the adap- tation and dialogue done by Clark Silvernail on Inspiration's "Hell Harbor." Completely ignoring the trick stuff which has become so popular, Sil- vernail worked both his humorous sequences and his more stirring moments out of the natural se- quence of events and out of the character reac- tions of the persons of the story, bringing about a most pleasing result. It seems that this manner of working would be a primary principle for every screen writer in Hollywood, but you'd be surprised. Half the time characters talk like vaudeville monologists, no matter what their type is sup- posed to be. Another writer who showed skill at talkie as- signments during 1930 was Ernst Vadja, who did "The Love Parade" and "Such Men Are Danger- ous." The highly-touted team of W^illiam Slavens Mc- Nutt and Grover Jones failed to startle. Their "Burning Up" for Paramount was not even up to the upper registers of mediocrity, and their "Young Eagles" adaptation was little better. Jack Jungmeyer and James Gleason had a very well done screen play in their "His First Com- mand," a Pathe William Boyd, and Zoe Atkins handled "Sarah and Son" neatly. Herman J. Mankiewicz was above average with his "Honey" from the stage play, "Come Out of the Kitchen," and had some good moments in "The Vagabond King." Elizabeth Meehan was in the artistic class, her contributions being the adaptations of "Lummox" and "Sergeant Grischa." Both were well enough done, though inclined to be too loosely-knit at intervals. HENIGSON IS BACK WITH U H enry Henigson has returned to the executive staff of Universal Pictures Corporation, it was an- nounced this week. Henigson, who is taking over the duties formerly handled by J. J. Gain, recently resigned, was business manager for Inspiration BEAUMONT STUDIOS SCENERY Drop*, Curtains, Drapes RENTALS Los Angeles, Calif. 400 W. f6th St. YO. 8346 Pictures. Three years ago he be- came general manager of Universal Studios after achieving consider- able success with the financial re- organization of Universal's foreign exchanges. TWO TIFFANY FILMS READY ADDED TO CAST James Bradbury, Sr., and Joan Blondell have been added to the cast of "Penny Arcade," the Vita- phone production which John Adolfi is to direct at Warner' Brothers. Bill Deal has succeeded to the post of head gateman at RKD stu- dios, a position held by the late Frank J. "Dad" Spare. Ekal has been gateman at a number of film studios. GEORGE and FLORENCE BALLET MASTER AND MISTRESS Formerly 68 Successful Weeks Producing Weekly Changes in Australia's Largest Theatre THE STATE, SYDNEY Producers Desiring Originality WRITE or WIRE Permanent Address: INSIDE FACTS, Los Angeles "Just Like Heaven," romance of a Parisian toe dancer and a street corner balloon peddler, has been announced by Phil Goldstone, chief studio executive, as one of Tif- fany's forthcoming musical fea- tures. The* production is from an original story by Adele BufTington. Will Stanton and Gladden James have been added to the cast of "Paradise Island," Tiflany South Sea film, which Bert Glennon will direct, with Kenneth Harland and Tom Santschi already cast. DARE WILL DIRECT GEORGE— HICKMAN BROS. —PAUL COMEDIANS and WRITERS Yes, We've Trouped With Medicine Shows, Burlesque, Minstrels, Circuses, Biggest and Best in Vaudeville. And not forgetting our own big Musical Comedy Success, "WHO STOPPED THE FERRY BOAT?" Our telephone number is GRanite 1555. Danny Dare has been chosen by Producer John Hill to direct the Western production of "Little Show" here, scheduled to open about June 1. Dare staged the dance numbers for the original New York show, and is under contract to Fox studios. RKO SIGN SHERMAN Lowell Sherman has been signed j to a long-term contract by Radio Pictures. EARLE WALLACE Always Busy Developing Dancing Stars but Naver Too Busy to Create and Produce Oriyinal DANCE ROUTINES and REVUES That Sail Belmont Theatre BIdg., First and Vermont Phone Exposition 1196 Los Angelas, Calif. SU5 MURRAY SCMOOL/° .STA&E (Associates) Gladys Murray Lafe Page S6S6 BEVEBLT BLVD. — Los Angeles — TeL DU. 6721 PRACTICAL STAGE TRAINING STAGE TAP DANCING (In All Its Branches) BJLLET-4^J^S^l B, SIGNOR G, V. ROSl