The Motion Picture and the Family (Oct 1934 - May 1937)

2 THE MOTION PICTURE AND THE FAMILY March 15, 1936 Stage Meeting; Show Character Building Films Anecdotes of Animal Actors And Other Hollywood Tales By THE OBSERVER Films in the character building series, "Secrets of Success", developed by the Committee on Social Values in Motion Pictures, bid fair to find an important place on many programs in Greater Cleveland during the next few months. A special evening meeting was held recently under the auspices of the Motion Picture Department of the Federation of Women's Clubs of Greater Cleveland to introduce these films to educators and to representatives of the characterbuilding agencies. Three of the pictures were shown and discussed to demonstrate how the series should be used. The group in attendance included junior and senior high school principals, teachers, the director of education of the Cleveland Museum of Art and motion picture chairmen of many organizations. "Secrets of Success", it will be recalled, are a series of one and two-reel films each of which emphasizes some essential trait or traits of character. Another highly practical program recently sponsored by the Cleveland Federation was a talk on motion picture magazines designed to acquaint the public with the type of screen comment that is available and the reliability of this comment. Four radio broadcasts under Federation auspices have also interested a wide audience. These were titled: "To Know the Possibilities of the Movies and the Work of Our Department"; "Women in the Movies"; "Motion Picture Magazines"; "Parents' Responsibility in Movie Appreciation." Promotes Picture By Voting Contest (Continued from Page 1) A special preview was held before the picture was publicly shown, with people from Toledo University, the Parent-Teacher Association, the Art Museum, libraries, bookshops, schools, clubs and mothers' study groups in attendance. Here cards were distributed permitting each individual to vote as to which club in Toledo in his or her opinion deserved the award. Similar cards were distributed to clubs throughout the city. The only stipulation was that the person using the card to vote must actually see the picture and deposit the card in a box in the lobby. A representative of the Council was stationed near the ballot box to see that each individual voted only once. The contest ran a week and ballots were deposited not only by residents of Toledo but by people from Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Miami and Pittsburgh. Seventy clubs were balloted upon and the Toledo Woman's Club won. The studios are quite overrun with animal actors these days, animals so skilfully trained that they give no appearance of acting but simply of being themselves in their native habitat. To that clever young animal trainer, George Emerson, goes much of the credit of pioneering in this arduous, painstaking work. It was he who trained the baby puma and the little fawn to work together as friends in that remarkable picture, Sequoia. It was he, too, who trained the tiger and the elephant (also ancient enemies) for their work in O'Shaughnessy's Boy and, more recently, the wily little fox and the pack of baying hounds in The Voice of Bugle Ann. "It's really not difficult," he says, "when you work out the idea. First I take each animal in turn and get it used to me, until I can lead it around. Then I begin leading both around together, getting them used to each other. As mutual fear is overcome, they become friendly — then I teach them the trick desired. The basic principle is simply the removal of fear. Natural enemies among animals have instinctive fear that must first be overcome, but once the animal discovers there is nothing to be afraid of, the battle is won." All quite simple, isn't it? Just now he is engaged in training a herd of Chinese water buffalo for The Good Earth. At Paramount for a carnival set in Poppy, W. C. Fields' next picture, elephants, Bengal tigers, camels, zebras, baskets of cobras and rattlesnakes and all manner of other beasts are going through their paces before the cameras. For The Princess Comes Across, the next Carole Lombard-Fred MacMurray picture, they have a more specialized assortment — a dozen carrier pigeons, some waltzing RHODES, THE DIAMOND MASTER ( Gaumont-British) A fascinating biographical picture tells the story of the life of Cecil Rhodes. He is called today an "Empire Builder", for his vision and determination opened up the vast and rich resources of South Africa. Rhodes was a man of great purpose. When told early in his career that he could not live more than six years, his only remark was, "So much to do; so little time in which to do it." He was an idealist. When he I outlived all the predictions of his mice, two very rare and beautiful rabbits and a Japanese walking fish. At RKO one of the important character actors, supporting the leading role as played by Fred Stone in The Farmer in the Dell, was "Buzzie," a diminutive fouryear-old canary, exceedingly camera wise and charming. The problem at Universal is of still another kind. From the far inland country of Alaska, where a company has been for six months filming an unusual scenic saga of the north to be called Alaska Bound, a shipment of five wolverines, six bears and a number of smaller animals, featured in the picture, has come to the studio to be used in final scenes. * * * A premier showing of A Message to Garcia was planned to honor Col. Andrew Sommers Rowan, the American officer who actually carried the famous message for President McKinley during the Spanish American war of '98. Col. Rowan, now 78 years of age, is now living in San Francisco. His true life role is played in the picture by John Boles. * * * Henry Armetta, the Italian dialect comedian who is to play the part of Tony, the organ grinder, in Shirley Temple's picture, The Poor Little Rich Girl, ranks fourth among Hollywood's thousands of actors in the number of days before the cameras and in the number of pictures in which he has appeared. * * * Behind the nominations of the 1935 awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences there is an interesting story. Fifteen years ago Henry Hathaway became property man under Director Frank Lloyd at the Goldwyn (Continued on Page 3) doctors, his chief physician diagnosed his case in these words, "You have an idea to live for; that is better than any medicine I can give you. The great tragedy of so many modern lives is the lack of any compelling social ambition. Rhodes wanted to make and control wealth, but never for its own sake. He saw money as means for the creation of a new and better world. Though accused of treachery and guilty of exploitation, in the end his work bespeaks sincerity and love for mankind. Frontiers for building new worlds did not end with Rhodes. Young men and women of his vision and (Continued on Page 6) Analyze Film Problems In A Club Panel (Continued from Page 1) cooperation. In closing, Mrs. Looram urged her hearers to discriminate in choosing their motion picture fare, saying, "when the individual patronizes the best type of show he gives the best and most effective type of censorship." Harold Hendee, chief of the Research Department of RKO Radio, gave the audience a fascinating glimpse of the problems which must be overcome in making a motion picture that is at once artistic and authentic. He described the industry's research to secure accuracy in costume and "props", but pointed out that intelligent people would always bear in mind that the producers "were selling entertainment first and foremost, and not authenticity." These were typical questions which Mr. Hendee said his department had been called upon to answer: "Do geraniums grow in the Andes?" "Do the soldiers of the French Foreign Legion chew gum?" Cablegrams and overseas telephone calls were frequently resorted to to secure an option on a prize story or idea for a motion picture film, Richard Halliday, fiction head of Paramount, told the group. Mrs. Willis P. Miner, motion picture chairman of the City Federation of Women's Clubs, told of a survey of audience reaction in which she had participated. Particularly did she emphasize that the responsibility for raising the standard .of community motion picture programs rested largely with the clubwomen and with civic-minded groups. Mrs. J. Allison Stevenson presided at the meeting and Mrs. E. Smalbach, chairman of Institutes for the East Coast Preview Committee, led the panel. Alabama Council Changes Its Name From Mrs. Howard D. Lacey of Birmingham, Alabama, comes an announcement of the change of the name of the film group of which Mrs. Lacey is president from Better Films Council to Motion Picture Council — presumably a tacit acknowledgment that films are of such high grade that Motion Picture Council better expresses the purpose of the organization than the previous terminology. Coincidentally with the change in name comes the addition of three new departments : Exceptional Photoplays, Music and Art (a department no doubt stimulated by the large number of worthwhile musical films), and a special committee to study pending legislation dealing with regulation of local theatres and with the problems of I the exhibitor. LESSONS from the MOVIES Presented for the Committee on Social Values in Motion Pictures by Howard M. Le Sourd, Ph.D., Dean of Boston University Graduate School, Chairman