Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Where is the "dude" of yesterday? Dead as the word that described him, yet the dude spirit breaks out afresh, and in new form, in every generation. The occasional chromatic actor seems to be the current or series manifestation. Every studio has at least one, maybe more, of the perambulating petunias so fragrantly described below. Peacocks oft Startling, bizair little in commoi T'ictun T Willard Huntington Wright is an editor, novelist, critic, worldauthority on painting, and perhaps the first of living American satirists. He is a Californian. making his home in San Francisco. HE moving-picture industry's staggering and far-reaching effects on American life have not yet been given proper recognition by our historians and scientists. The late Professor Hugo Mijnsterberg, a pundit of rare learning and discernment, devoted an entire volume to the subject without once touching, for instance, upon the anthropological aspects of the situation. And yet the new quasi-human male species which has been developed by the movies strikes me as the most conspicuous result of cinematographic environment. Without any deliberate process of differentiation, the silent drama has evolved a startling, bizarre, rococo creature which has but little in common with any of the recognized and recorded Darwinian strains. This new and astonishing genus constitutes a race apart, possessing its own extraordinary instincts, its own curious manner of personal adornment, its own strange habits and customs, its own peculiarities of behavior, speech and mentation. It has a unique set of social prejudices, physical eccentricities and mental idiosyncrasies. It moves, dances, talks, eats and gesticulates in a manner radically distinct from that of the human norm. This new and unearthly specimen of the movies is sui generis, a Whatisit, a Nonesuch, a Neverbefore. In the "profession" there has always been a certain number of elegant and exquisite males of the "matinee idol" variety, whose occupation oozed from every pore; but the moving-picture industry has produced a pavo real which outstrips the Hal Reid hero of yesterday and the older stock-company leading man as the New Guinea bird of paradise outstrips the buff orpington bantam of Iowa. There is no mistaking these rare and radiant canaries, these choice and precious popinjays, these matchless and magnificent peacocks of the film. Every glance and gesture, every word, act and sartorial detail, unmistakably bespeaks their calling. No matter how large or mixed the gathering, they stand forth in vivid relief, penetrating the human darkness about them like sky-rockets on a starless night. They assault the eye and stagger the brain. The clothes with which this ineffable actorial brotherhood bedecks itself are unlike the integuments worn by the members of any other trade or vocation. They constitute a wholly original style, and bear only the vaguest and most distant relationship to any of the prescribed male fashions. These garments cannot even be called modifications or variations of the current modes: they are reconstructions, metamorphoses, creations, with their own individual curves, proportions, angles, lines, parabolas and hyperboles. The garment which with this new species takes the place of the average male's coat, is cut very narrow in the shouklers, the arm-hole seam being located at least one-third of the way from the deltoid to the neck. The garment is then drawn in snugly under the arms to give the effect of a waist-line across the shoulder-blades; and from here the coat descends in a wide, flowing, skirt-like manner, full of folds, to a length considerably longer than a regular coat. Moreover, the garment is slit up the back to within eight inches of the collar. 44