Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1922)

Society 'T'HIS is the third of a series of satirical articles on the different phases of life as depicted in the motion pictures By WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT Decorations by RALPH BARTON 1 hey gaze contemptuously at all strangers, with elevated brows and sneering nostrils SAY what you will against those motion picture gentlemen whose occupational livery consists of puttees, ridingbreeches and a sport skirt, and whose official totem is the megaphone — call them marplots and ganujs and varlets; accuse them of mayhem and massacre and piracy; denounce them as the sworn enemies of the good, the true and the beautiful. But, in all justice, you must give them credit for a colorful and fantastic imagination — for a rare and rococo originality — when it comes to the depiction of screen environment. Already we have inspected the aesthetic life and the island life as conceived and projected by these Generalissimos of the Lot. Let us now turn our attention to the "society life" as it is revealed on the silver sheet. Here we have a chimerical world of incredible and fascinating aspect — a world unlike anything which heretofore has been witnessed on land or sea — a world whose every inhabitant is possessed of wholly unique and original manners and modes of life. Not even in their palmiest and most passionate literary days did Charlotte Bronte or Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth — or even the feverish "Duchess" — produce a blue-blooded fiction wherein was portrayed so amazing and singular type of "high life" as that which is encountered in the average society film. •"TO begin with, in the exclusive social life of the screen *■ there are no simple or monosyllabic names. The entire Four Hundred are equipped with compounded monikers, reinforced with umlauts, accents and diereses. And not to possess a composite patronym sutured with hyphens and prefixed by a Van or two, is to belong to the incult rabble. The moment you are introduced to a film character whose (A name sprawls out over the screen like that of an old English syndicate of marmalade makers, you know at once that you are basking in the dazzling presence of the hant monde and are about to hobnob with the elite. Just how the social aristocrats of the silent drama support themselves in their apparent luxury is one of the most cryptic of directorial mysteries; for no member of the cinema's exclusive set ever stoops to the vulgar practice of toil. True, some of the gentlemen have elaborate offices with Louis Quinz furnishings and Royal Bakhara rugs; but the only activity one ever surprises in these expensive commercial bureaus consists of the ingenue perching herself on the arm of the swivel chair and chucking the author of her being under the chin for the purpose of wheedling some favor from him. SOMETIMES a bold vampire undulates brazenly and unannounced into these sanctums, and indulges in a bit of blackmail; and now and then the juvenile heavy uses the inlaid desk to forge his father's name to a $1,000,000 check with which to meet his gambling I. 0. U.'s. But no labor is ever done or business transacted in these offices. Indeed, their owners have little time for so inelegant an occupation. The nabobs of film society are too busy diverting themselves and changing their clothes. Which brings us to what is perhaps the most conspicuous idiosyncrasy of the screen's social life. It appears that the members of the fashionable set have created a new and original mode of attire — to say nothing of their multifarious changes of costume. Each film aristocrat is, of necessity, a rapid change artist; and it is apparently an unpardonable breach of etiquette to be seen twice in the same habiliments.