Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

Brickbats & Bouquets YOU FANS ARE THE REAL CRITICS Give Us Your Views $25, $10 and $5 Monthly for the Best Letters This is your department. Come right in, hang up your hat and pat or spat the players. Just plain spiteful letters won't be printed, and don't spank too hard, because we want to be helpful when we can. Limit your letters to 200 words, and if you are not willing to have your name and address attached, don't write. Address The Editor, 221 West 57th Street, New York City. We reserve the right to cut letters to suit our space limitations. Come in — you're always welcome! The Playback QUEEN GARBO almost lost her throne this month. Fans were so agitated over ,what seemed to them our persecution of Clara Bow that a storm of letters defending Clara's plumpness, her histrionic ability and everything else about her poured in. There was also a general rally to the aid of Alice White. Her supporters were indignant at the thought that Alice White is disliked in Hollywood, as told in Grace Thornley's story in the December issue. The line-up this month is Garbo, Bow, Boles, Gaynor, Daniels, Chatterton, Bancroft and Cooper. "Rio Rita" has boosted Boles and Daniels toward the top. "The Mighty" has brought George Bancroft back with a bang. Swanson's work in "The Trespasser" is still drawing hundreds of letters of approval. Mr. Quirk's editorial tribute to Jeanne Kagels drew many sympathetic letters. John Gilbert's fans are still alarmed about his fate in the talkies. Movie-goers are enthusiastic about "The Virginian" and are eagerly awaiting Joan Crawford's forthcoming W'estern, "Montana." There is a general cry for bigger and breezier Westerns. Voice of the Law The $25 Letter Colorado Springs, Colo. It has been my pleasure, as well as my duty, during the past four years, to see an average of two hundred and fifty moving pictures yearly. Therefore, I might be considered competent to judge their value. I am the policewoman of a city of about forty thousand population, having four theaters equipped with talkie apparatus and one theater for silent pictures. Yet there are many people here who are bitterly opposed to movies, and many more who do not approve of having the theaters open on Sunday. We had numerous fights at the polls before we gained the Sunday movies. But as far as I am concerned, I am entirely sold on moving pictures any time or any place. 8 I know there is less juvenile delinquency when there are Sunday moving pictures, for when they were closed the young people solved the situation by going to nearby towns where they could see pictures, often not returning until the next day. And such unchaperoned parties were not conducive to the best interests of the children. There is no doubt in my mind that pictures are getting better all the time in every way. Dorothy M. Springer. Fooling the Public The $10 Letter New York, N. Y. In their mad rush to get their productions in electric lights on Broadway, various him companies are creating a bad impression for talking pictures by making "Super Productions" out of talkies that turn out to be trivial. In the last month, three inferior phonoplays were installed in Broadway playhouses and shown at regular twice-a-day presentations. I recall them as being "Woman to Woman," "Broadway Scandals" and "Jazz Heaven." They lasted only about two weeks, which is probably more than they deserved. On the basis of merit alone, they were certainly no more than average program pictures. Just because their producers were looking for the added publicity that attends Broadway openings, they were advertised in big style and the public was made to think they were really exceptional features. Naturally every producer is seeking to make his pictures and his organization well known, but he should not do it at the expense of public confidence in the motion picture industry as a whole. Lester Dresner. Ain't It the Truth? The $5 Letter Menlo Tark, Calif. I am no purist or prude! But I would appreciate established pronunciation and better taste in the talkies. Many directors — and many writers — confuse profanity and unrestrained realism with strength. No hero becomes admirable merely through being presented as uncouth and slovenly of speech. An example is "The Dance of Life." The constant strain of painstaking incorrectness must have worn on the actors' nerves. It certainly did on mine. I felt that if a thoughtless player should say "are you?" for "aintcha?" the very microphone would burst of chagrin! Directors and dialogue men should move about and learn. Most Americans, even "vaudevillians," know the parts of speech and actually (only occasionally, of course!) know how to use them. Pure Yoiers. Prison Riots Explained Big Creek, Calif. It seems to me that talking pictures in the present stage are a throw-back to the "mystery plays" of the Elizabethan period. In this way: in some pictures the lack of plot is made up for by songs, sometimes appropriate, but oftentimes not. One that amused me was "Say It with Songs." Wading through deep sobs and sniffles, we see a husky and handsome prisoner break into a song more suited to a little girl in blue hair-ribbons: "Violets from tiny seeds, fight their way up through the weeds" .... while surly fellow-prisoners listen. They must have been hypnotized, because riots have started from less than that. Myrtle Vander Horst. Weep No More, Alice! Philadelphia, Penna. In the Photoplay Magazine, I read this: "Give the little girl a hand" (meaning Alice White). Well if I had twelve hands, I'd give her the whole twelve. Alice, if nobody loves you, we do; and if nobody will be your friend, we will. Fan friends, I mean. If people don't like you, I guess it's because of jealousy. Jealousy because you got ahead, by your own hard work. Just keep going forward as you did in "Broadway Babies." Myrtle Koehler. We're Old Meanies Seattle, Wash. The December Photoplay was the first one, and I hope the only one, that I didn't like. Why? Not a kind word said about Clara Bow. It seems to me that Photoplay has always put up a howl about dieting and its results. Yet, in quite a few instances some writer or other has brought to light the fact that Clara is putting on weight. But this is the worst I ever heard. "The Terror of the Microphone" cites the case of Clara Bow having trouble with Mike, but lays all the blame to Clara, — then tells us of Dolores Costello also having trouble with Mike. But in her case it is all Mike's fault. Why just Clara alone — when you find excuses for others? Bud Wolf, [please turn to page 117 ]