The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1934)

Twenty-eight The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER February, J934 ^^ "Cheerio Hollywood it* n By Alfred C. MOORE, Journalist I AM not in the movie game, but I have been on the outside looking in hard for twenty years now, so I can tell you boys sincerely and without inside knowledge to distort my view, just how I and hundreds of thousands of other Englishmen feel about paying good hard cash for motion picture entertainment. Despite all that English self-styled him critics say to the contrary, American-made pictures rate first with the majority of British audiences and are likely to go on doing so. This is due to a complexity of reasons which may not be immediately evident to a person not born and reared in England. The chief reason that enables the American product to get over where the home-made cannot is, of course, difference in tempo. Maybe they do not realize it with fully-awakened consciousness, but John Bull and his wife want fastmoving entertainment just as much as folks want it in New York and Tuscaloosa. British him producers do not know how to make entertainment move fast enough, so, despite a wave of perhaps unprecedented economic nationalism, Mr. and Mrs. Bull and the boys and girls are glad to pay their shillings and half-crowns for a laugh, a thrill, or a heartache made in U. S. A. Although we in this country are repeatedly told that Elstree or Welwyn or Twickenham is about to inherit the earth, we just hide a laugh (if we were not a "naice, refained" race of people we would say "Nerts!"). Apart from the fact the British film companies apparently believe that a talking picture is merely an embellished duplicate of a stage play, and that scissors were made only to cut cloth, speaking generally they strive to mirror the dully conventional aspects and to reproduce the dully conventional dialogue of Mayfair, or Whitechapel, or Suburbia or of Lancashire. The pro jected result is sleep-inducing. A little while ago Clara Bow visited this country, and, unlike many foreigners, took a good look at it. Back home Clara is reported to have declared "England's nice but it's a slow-motion film." Thereby Miss Bow said a . . . (excuse me) . . .indicated where English producers fall down. They make films of what Miss Bow saw and recognized and of what nearly everybody here sees but does not recognize. That is the explanation of British slow-motion films. Yet a good story can be superimposed on a British background. Fox did it with "Cavalcade." There is lots of material here and not only of the epic kind. The British mercantile marine, for example, is just crying out to be picturized with sound. Personally I can't see any British studio doing it as a box office proposition — they would surely ruin it with a mixture of Mayfair "refainement" and Cockney "jokes." Another reason why American films find appreciative audiences here is the "wisecrack." The word "wisecrack" defies adequate translation into "King's" English, for it is neither a "joke" nor an epigrammatic witticism but a combination of both. It is something of essentially American origin and with a well-stocked bag of smart wisecracks, the American director can make even a thin story look good. If an Englishman tries to wisecrack the result is usually pretty punk because he hasn't got that kind of a mind. So the English director is handicapped in his dialogue from the word "go." Another handicap is that English slang is merely puerile. For instance, "posh" or "pukka" means "smart" or "swell." "I'll give you a tinkle" is the English way of saying "I'll call you," and "Cheerio!" (some even say "Cheeri-Ao !"), "Bung-ho!" and similar infantile phrases is the English equivalent of "Here's how!" or "Here's mud in your eye!" Imagine! Nevertheless, people who talk like this will fall out of their seats laughing at a smart American crack, yet will come out of a theatre and forget it completely, lapsing into their "awfully jolly" or "blimey, not 'arf" manner of speech, k k Ik k k k k 4 ROY DAVIDGE J± FILM LABORATORIES A A A Please mention The International Photographer when corresponding with advertisers. An Exclusive "Daily" Laboratory Quality and Service 6701-6715 SANTA MONICA BOULEVARD GRanite 3108