Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1926)

ff It Isn't Sex — It's Good Pictures" Says Elinor Glyn Ivan Johns "First of all, to succeed, a picture must be a good picture, sex or no sex," is her judgment. "It all depends on the treatment" and Lubitsch artists in por and woman screen," she I'VE been hearing on every side that the flappers were going to the dogs and the whole country was sex crazy, and what was going to be done about jazz and the Charleston, and look at the things people talk about that were never mentioned in public before, and now look what's happened. In the first twenty pictures that the most folks paid real money to see last year, there isn't one of the species that we usually term a sex picture. Said I to myself, "How come?" When I couldn't answer it. I naturally sought out Elinor Glyn. Wouldn't you? Besides, being a great writer and one of the most interesting women in Hollywood, she is the final authority on celluloid sex — the inflammable kind. The way I Felt about it was this. Critics may come, critics may go, and the circle around t he famous table at the Algonquin may shift its weight and change its complexion, but the box office goes on forever. That's the real answer to what kind of pictures people want — the verdict of the box office, telling us what pictures the most people have paid to look at, is the one real, impersonal, unbiased, cross-section judgment we have. "What's the matter with sex in the box office?" said I to Madame Glyn. "Sex," said Madame Glyn, in that exquisite, well bred voice, "has nothing to do with it." "I thought sex had something to do with everything — the one thing thai is universal, and all that." ventured 1. Madame Glyn looked at me with a wise and humorous smile. I do not know whether you have ever been spoken to by an oracle. Personally, I must admit that 1 never have. But if I 58 ever am, I know it will be exactly the way Elinor Glyn does it. I don't know how she convinces you that every word that falls from her lips is the truth, but she does. Some people call it showmanship. But I think it is more than that. I think it is conviction. "Pictures," said Elinor Glyn, "are either good or bad. If they are good sex pictures, they will succeed. If they are bad sex pictures, they will fail. What could be more simple? Because a play has sex in it, is perhaps crammed with vulgar and stupidly done love scenes, can it succeed? Xo. Always you must look to the merit of the picture itself. Just as there are good comedies and bad comedies and good Westerns, as you say. and bad Westerns, so it is with sex plays. If a picture which is called a comedy is not amusing, it will fail; if a picture about sex is not real and romantic and does not stir the pulses, it will fail, on exactly the same basis. "Charlie Chaplin's 'A Woman of Paris.' and the Lubitsch school of pictures have brought about a great transformation. I'p to the time of "A Woman of Paris' sex pictures were in the same stage that the stage drama was when they used asides. Do you remember? The characters stopped the action of the play in the most crude and unrealistic fashion to explain to the poor, dear audience what their thoughts were. During a conversation, the leading man would suddenly turn to the audience and say, 'How I loathe this man. He is a villain of the deepest sort.' Doesn't it seem odd to think of. now? But then the Barrymores and artists of that kind came along who wanted to show life on the stage, to play real people as they are. and they inspired and led the way to make plays as nearly slices of life as they could. [ coxtimtd on page 145 ]