Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1946)

auuwiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiii^ Make Them Real, PREVIEWS OF TRADE SHOWS DeToth Recipe 1 BARBARA STANWYCK and the old, reliable U. S. Cavalry, in Paramount's Technicolor spectacle, "California". The picture was to be seen by exhibitors Friday, December 13. A SCENE from Warner Brothers' "The Man I Love". The principals above are Alan Hale, Craig Stevens and Ida Lupino. The picture will be tradeshown December 23. by WILLIAM R. WEAVER 1 Hollywood Editor j There's no longer a practical possibility of designing a picture to "give the public what it wants," if there ever was, in the opinion of Andre De Toth, whose films include such I diversified attractions as "None Shall Escape," "Dark Waters," the unreleased "Ramrod" and, now in work, Enterprise's "The Other Love." He cites a number of reasons, and prescribes what he holds to be a production policy likelier to achieve the result sought by those who try to make each time something similar to whatever it was the customers liked last time. The prime fallacy in the theory that anybody can design a picture successfully on a basis of strict conformance to a liking preI viously demonstrated by the public, says Mr. I DeToth, resides in the fact that the public i likes one thing today, another thing tomorI row, and will like something else the day ! after. Nobody can know, he says, and least | of all the public itself, what is going to be the favored thing a month, six months or a year from the time when a producer must decide on a property to be filmed. Additionally, the public is no longer to be considered properly as a body of persons restricted by continental or even hemispheric boundaries to a certain set of circumstances and conditions conducing to uniformity of interest or taste, but must be conceived of as comprising all the people there are, anywhere. Present People as They Are In simple, Mr. DeToth believes the picture most likely to succeed today, in all the markets there are, is the one which presents people as people are. "Once upon a time the plot was the thing," he remarks, "and we set up certain hurdles for the hero and showed how be got over them. That is no longer enough. Now we must make the hero first of all a person, recognizable by every individual. "Characterization is the thing that counts more than anything else in the making of a successful picture, and it must be completely honest characteriation by all the principals and all the supporting players." Director DeToth's recipe for making sure that his characterizations are genuine derives from principles long basic in art, industry and individual endeavor. "If we satisfy our own conscience," he says, "we cannot go far wrong. If we compromise, for any reason, we may be sure our compromising will be spotted and our picture will fail. We cannot make everybody like our story, or our characters, but if we make them honest we can be sure that everybody will respect them." COMPLETED COLUMBIA King of the Wild Horses MGM Cynthia's Secret MONOGRAM Fall Guy Drifting Through The Guilty (Wrather) PRC Red Stallion RKO RADIO Tarzan and the Huntress (Lesser) SCREEN GUILD Bells of San Fernando STARTED COLUMBIA Assigned to Treasury (Kennedy-Buchman) For the Love of Rusty MONOGRAM High Conquest Black Gold RKO RADIO Flight REPUBLIC Bells of San Angelo 20TH CENTURY. FOX Ghost and Mrs. Muir UNITED ARTISTS Heaven Only Knows Copacabana SHOOTING COLUMBIA Three Were Thoroughbreds The Swordsman Lady from Shanghai ENTERPRISE Other Love MGM Rich, Full Life Love Story Birds and the Bees Undercover Maisie Green Dolphin Street To Kiss and to Keep Romance of Rosy Ridge PARAMOUNT Saigon Blaze of Noon Variety Girl RKO RADIO Seven Keys to Baldpate Out of the Past Magic Town (Riskin) Long Night (Hakim-Litvak) REPUBLIC Wyoming Gallant Man Nelson Eddy Production 20TH CENTURYFOX Moss Rose Captain from Castile Big Heart Forever Amber Mother Wore Tights UNITED ARTISTS1 Christmas Eve (Bogeaus) Vendetta (California) Personal Column (Stromberg) UNIVERSALINTERNATIONAL Time Out of Mind Buck Private Come Home Egg and I WARNERS The Unfaithful Dark Passage My Wild Irish Rose Woman in White Deep Valley Night unto Night Siiiilliiiiiilliii^ MOTION PICTURE HERALD, DECEMBER 14, 1946 41