Motion Picture News (Oct-Dec 1930)

October 4 , 19 3 0 .1/ o / t o » P i c i u r e N e w s 47 /Jfted'll *PS frfted THE axe is falling ! After persistent defiance of repeated warnings about using Castillian dialects, and other angles of foreign version to which Mexican and South American countries have objected strenuously, public reaction is beginning against American-Spanish versions with a vengeance in Mexico City and other Spanish speaking centers. Film-goers in the southern capital aren't going for the Spanish versions with Castilian dialects despite heavy propaganda and press-agenting. — Inside Facts, Los Anodes. * * * According to newspaper publicity, and Lord knows there has been enough, there is a fellow named Will Hays who is supposed to look over films and smooth over the rough spots for the moral benefit of nice people and impressionable children. Of all the stupid, asinine farces, this censorship is the worst. — Life. * * * Stop Obscene Films ! Revelations have been made of a new sort of racket, that which panders to a taste for filth in the making and projecting of obscene motion pictures. From time to time references to this practice have been made. For a long time it has been generally known that such films existed and were shown. Parties of certain types often succeeded in getting them. The so-called "sophisticates" of Xew York took them to their penthouses and apartments and invited guests to witness the degrading photography. But not until recently was it suspected that the making of these films had been organized to the p-.int where it might be called a "racket." Now police . . . find stores of the objectionable celluloid. Arrests are made and the indications are that a comprehensive organization controls the making and distribution of this obscenity. No argument is needed to prove the harmfulness of these films. The police are to be complimented upon their work in finding and seizing some of them. It remains now for the prosecuting forces to make certain that justice is meted out and that further adventures into this damaging field of enterprise are heartily discouraged. — N. Y. Graphic. * * * Although I strive for perfection, there is no one in the world who realizes better than I that I still have much to attain. I do want to warn the young singer to beware of the charlatans who, perhaps in a degree sincere, yet none the less dangerous, ruin many promising voices with their theories. If the dire effects of these theories were not . so seriously disastrous to the voice, they would really be most decidedly humorous. I have heard of a singing teacher who makes a pupil balance a glass of water on the top of her head, telling the pupil the tore is not perfect until not a drop of water spills and the tumbler remains motionless ! Another teacher is said to make his oupils bend the body forward in order to take a high tone. Tf your teacher's ideas about singing do not appeal to vour lo?ic. I advise you to drop that instructor immediately. — Jeanette MacDonald in Screenland. Discuss Fire Problems Ottawa — Nitro-cellulose film can be kept for 25 years when properly stored in unheated and ventilated vaults, Col. John A. Cooper, president of the M. P. Distributors of Canada, told the annual convention of the Dominion Fire Prevention Association. He urged standardization of rules covering film hazards and the application of exchange and theatre regulations to all places where pictures are shown. A. S. Dickinson, fire prevention officer of the Hays organization; Eugene Crystal of Eastman Kodak; E. H. Woodsworth, Canadian Kodak Co., and Dr. A. E. Mclntyre, chief chemist of the explosives branch of the department of mines, Ottawa, also took d leading part in the discussion of films. GREAT questions confront us. They scream at us from headlines. They intrude on our lighter moments. They are always with us. Great burning questions. Disarmament. Prohibition. Foreign Relations Unemployment. The Stock Market. Television. Garbo. But especially it's the real estate problem in Hollywood. The vacancy problem. The thrones for rent, titles for sale, crowns thrown in. Great, glittering thrones pushed into corners, covered with cobwebs. Scepters getting tarnished, gilt peeling off. It's all the fault of the talkies. Old favorites are gone, new favorites unlabeled. In the old days of silence the fans knew where they were. They had a row of gilded thrones and occupants for each with nice clean faces and neatly brushed hair. And there it was and there we were and every one could sit back with a sigh and enjoy it all. But now where are we ? Ninety in the shade and getting hotter, if you must know. The talkies came along like any other great revolution and upset the old order and now we need a whole new set of candidates for the thrones. Pitched battles are still being fought and previewed over who shall be the "Great Lover" with the balance of power being threatened toward the diamonds in the rough. Our Orchid Lady has left and we need a new one of those. So it goes. But the thing that is really agitating, making us hard to live with, is the Queen of Comedy question. Who shall be Queen Merry? No. Not who shall be Queen of the May — but 1 tweri of the laughs, the chortles, the guffaws. — Screenland. Hollywood wages war! Goaded on by the stinging sour of rigid contracts, even the slimmest of movieland's celebrated stars are constantly trying to overcome the dreaded adversary of added pounds and comfortable, though nnromantic, figures. — Talking Screen. *T HE whole of the trouble which has brought A a rather unfortunate spirit into trade discussion during the past i^w months can be traced to one source — an appreciation on the part of the exhibitors that their revenue is not increasing in anything like a fair ratio to their expenditure. Great jumps in both directions were registered when we first started wiring our houses ; then, when more and more installations were completed, and the scarcity value and the novelty value faded together, it began to be obvious that things were not quite so well balanced as in the old days. To a considerable extent, of course, the exhibitor who knew how to book kept his box-office receipts and his cheque to the renters in something like harmonious proportion, but there were a good many who were not too businesslike in the way they let themselves in for big prices, and these were the first to feel the pressure. Others waited and waited before they had sound equipment brought in, and refused to read the writing on the wall. When they did move, they found they were merely followers in a procession, the leaders of which had certainly secured the reward of their enterprise, exhausting the attractions of novelty as they advanced. It is not unnatural, therefore, that there is a certain rather sharp flavor in the remarks of those exhibitors who are begmning to feel that their function is to collect the public's money and pass on all too big a proportion of it. And it would be stranger still if they did not begin to question the wisdom which had led them to the hiring of expensive equipment and the acceptance of the present system of maintenance charges. Their voices are beginning to be heard from different quarters, and the subject of their plaint has now crystallized into a definite feeling of dissatisfaction with the terms of their installation agreement. It is obvious that, with more and more houses equipped, and more and more experience on the part of the operators who are responsible for running them, the original rate of payment for maintenance begins to show itself as no light burden. Every week one hears of bad times, of inequitable terms, of hard deals. And, except for the natural vagaries of the entertainment profession, the subject-matter of every complaint seems to be the working out of agreements into which both sides presumably entered with open eyes. We cannot believe peoble sign contracts without first trying to weigh up their commitments. — Kinematograph Weekly, London. The humble opinion of a high school girl revealed in her sincere fan letter is more valuable than the criticisms of all the experts put together. — Carl Laemmle, Jr., in Life. * * * / really haven't got it in for Paramount at Long Island, but I never scent able to praise their stuff. "Desperate Sam" is one of their short comedies, enacted by Bert Green (Sol Greenbaum?). Mr. Green is one of those little flat-chested smart crackers, wearing a self-conscious sneer of utter sophistication — the kind that killed vaudeville. He is a type of comic peculiarly offensive to me. — Wagner in Script, Beverly Hills, Cal. * * * The most temperamental player in Hollywood is not Jetta Goudal. According to his producers. Jimmy Hall has a couple of idiosyncrasies that have been too long overlooked. Jimmy has a gift for breaking appointments — showing up on the set late — not showing up on the set at all — and running up the heaviest charge accounts in Hollywood. In spite of it all, Jimmy is a good guy. He always ends by promising the offense will never happen again — and it doesn't — until the next time. — Motion Picture Classic.