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Cforifyi
ing
A Murder a Minute
is the Goal of
the GhouHsh
Shriekies
M
LRDER! Beautiful Blonde Found Strangled! Haunted House Scene of Mysterious Deaths! Millionaire Shot During Dinner Party!
Bootlegger Slain in Barber Shop! Murder! Extra! Extra!! Extra
III
HoUpvood is in the midst of an epidemic of sudden and violent death. Almost every day a new murder occurs under mysterious circumstances in one of the movie studios. Handsome and well-tailored killers stroll along the Boulevard and lunch at the Montmartre without fear of the law, represented by detectives in square-toed shoes and checked suits. At any hour of the day passers-by may hear the screams of the victims and the sound of pistol shots; and at night, when the studio stages are deserted, charwomen methodically mop up the bloodstains from the floors and gather the scattered daggers, pistols and poisons tidily up in their aprons.
"People," says "S. S. Van Dine," the mysterious author of "The Canary Murder Case" which Famous Players is filming, "get bloodier-minded all the time. They used to be content with one really satisfying murder, but now they want two or three to the book. Even the nicest old ladies seem to enjoy wallowing in gore."
The first result of the talkie panic has been a flood of mystery thrillers on the screen. Most of these pictures are built about a murder. In "The Greene Murder Case" by the same anonymous Mr. Van Dine, there are four separate and distinct killings. In "The Last Warning," which Universal has just completed, two men die under startling circumstances. And the victims are not always — as they used to be — snufFy old gentlemen who are found murdered just as they were about to sign a will, or butlers or eccentric old ladies. They are beautiful blonde movie ingenues and seductive film vamps.
Louder and Bloodier
PLOTS of murder, mystery and terror offer many chances for the use of sound as a part of the story. If sound is what they want, the producers seem to argue, we'll give them plenty of it. As, in the beginning of the movies, the players felt duty-bound to keep moving every moment they were before the camera, so at the outset of sound pictures they are making a conscientious effort to provide as many different noises as possible. This coming year will undoubtedly find the fans paying their money to enjoy a restful evening of blood-curdling screams, hair-raising moans, maniacal laughter, shots and the dull thump of falling bodies.
The obvious objections that must be overcome at this early stage of the talking motion pictures are solved by murder mysteries. Not every player has the right speakmg voice for the microphone. But anyone can shriek. The English language cannot be understood abroad. But Russians, Swedes and Hottentots all understand a scream. Foreign stars with guttural accents which ban them from a straight talking picture can laugh and groan and shoot revolvers in perfect English.
At the top: The climax of an exciting scene in "The Terror" with Louise Fazcnda, May McAvoy and Alec B. Francis. Center, Chester Conklin gives Flora Finch a scare in "The Ha«inted House." Below, Montagu Love plays "The Mad Doctor" in the same picture
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