Photoplay (Apr - Sep 1918)

y>2. Photoplay Magazine to have the necessary care; sometimes he is being pursued by his wife and in his eagerness to get away makes a misstep that ends calamitously. The pretenses and improvisations for the contretemps are legion, but the scene never fails to get a response. Sometimes a reverse twist is given by having the waiter stumble and the diners scurry to escape the threatening crockery, but with the dishes never quite falling. The reverse of the situation is just as humormis as the scene's accepted version. In experimenting with the sense of humor it was discovered that there was something irresistibly amusing in seeing some one fall into water. Particularly amusing it was found by comedy directors to see a dignified, silk-hatted individual going along and then to have him meet with an unfortuitous catastrophe such as stopping on a bridge to lean against the banister to admire the graceful swans and then to have the banister give quickly and unexpectedly The funniest thing in the world is for one person to hit another with a pie. Crude as it may seem, it has made more people laugh than any other situation in pictures. away. Knowing well that a fall of six or eight feet into water would not hurt him, audiences gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of the situation. Every day of the year this scene in different guises is given to theatre audiences and it never fails to arouse a pleasant sense of anticipation. Sometimes it may be that a bathroom is so flooded that the comedy occupant finds it necessary to make of the tub a temporary rowboat with a long handled bath brush pressed into service as an oar. Sometimes Mary Pickford uses it in comedy more refined when she gathers up mud and hurls it at some person who has aroused her disapproval. Whether played as burlesque or as high comedy, a water scene rarely ever fails to arouse appreciation. Audiences are always amused by two things: by something unexpected and by something anticipated. A waiter takes a piece of pie and, standing behind a swinging door, waits to reek revenge on a fellow waiter when the door opens and instead of the other waiter in comes the manager of the restaurant. The manager gets the pie. The scene never fails to arouse the desired laughter; it succeeds by reason of its element of surprise. On the other hand the element of anticipation is just as strong and is made use of almost wholly in situations employing explosives. A set is erected with a number of bottles labeled "nitro-glycerine" or "dynamite" and an actor comes in in comedy make-up and begins to smoke. Throwing his match aside it sets fire to a fuse. The fuse begins to splutter while he smokes on unmindful. On such an occasion an audience never fails to give vent to its sense of the incongruous. If it should stop to reason that real explosives were not being used and that in reality the labeled bottles were empty, it would see the evident pretenses of the scene; but it never does. It always feels sure that in another moment the powder will blow the innocent person four ways from the post office and as a result pounds its palms in approval. The fifth scene that can always be counted on to make an audience laugh is for a man to assume a woman's clothes. If the man happens to be stout all the better and if he should happen to so manipulate his skirts as to show a flash of underwear still better. But strange as it may seem the placing of a woman in man's apparel is not funny. Many directors staked their pictures and their reputations on this reverse to find that an audience will not laugh at a woman in overalls. If she is the possessor of a pretty face they will think her cute, but never funny. Nor must she stay too long in overalls. If she does her appeal is gone and the scene is lost. Just a flash and then back to more conventional attire. On these five, fortunes have been made and lost. Directors who are hired to produce laughs have tried to put out films in which none of the scenes appeared — and when their efforts were shown in the picture company's private projection room the directors have been handed their contracts and their hats with a prayer on part of the managers that the men would be employed by their competitors. The scenes have been blacklisted and yet when the directors have tried every other situation wherein a laugh might be aroused they have come thankfully back to the funny five. Oh, Learned Judge ! SPEAKING of beauty and brains combined, have you heard of this beauteous young person. Frances Marion, who rattles the typewriter to the tune of $ 10,000 a year while still finding time to doll herself up in Paris plumage that stirs most of the femininity of picturedom to frenzies of envy? Earning $10,000 a year would make a frump of almost any woman. But not Frances Marion! Her clothes, as Mary Pickford. for whom Miss Marion writes scenarios, expressed it. "are simply, gorgeously — speed!" Just the other day Miss Marion was summoned to appear before a stern court to explain the whys and wherefores incident to her bowling her big roadster along at a mere forty-seven miles an hour. When she stepped up and faced him, the judge tried valiantly to mix sternness and reproof with a gaze that was inclined to be admiring. "Young lady," he asked, "why was it necessary for you to go ripping through traffic on Hollywood Boulevard at this unholy rate?" "Judge." answered Miss Marion with deep seriousness, "I was late for an appointment to try on a perfectly exquisite new evening gown, and — there were four flivvers and a truck and a Chinese peddler's wagon ahead of me. I just simply had to get around them. Your Honor." The judge tried to hem and haw away a smile that began to flicker around his lips. The smile grew into a grin. "You may go this time," he said. "Er — h'm — err — I drive a car mvself. and I am afraid I understand.'' mm