Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

reel it certainly is. In one theater, at least, in London, arrangements have been made for television spot news to be received on the picture screen. I have not yet had a report on the reactions of the audience. I do know the effect of these spot events on the heads of British television, however, and on the people who receive the events at home, on regular size small screens. A year ago my correspondents in England were pretty enthusiastic about television and cited to me such ambitious projects as an act of "Tristan and Isolde," a performance of "Journey's End" or of the American comedy, "Once In A Lifetime," all of which seem to have given great pleasure. Today, these same correspondents are even more enthusiastic, but out of ten high lights they mention, seven or eight are sure to be spot events, not sketches or plays in the studios. And, to make it pretty official, take the case of Sir Stephen Tallents. (He is, I understand, responsible for publicity for the British Broadcasting Corporation which runs all the television experiments in England. As part of radio, television is an enterprise under the government; every owner of a radio instrument pays a tax, and part of this tax is devoted to television experiments. In other words, experiments in television are conducted in England by the government, in public, at the expense of the public. Here they are conducted by private individuals or corporations, at private expense.) Well, a few months ago a magazine announced in an ad that its people had observed television in England where it had "failed dismally." Sir Stephen wrote to complain, to object, and to give proof. The magazine apologized. Of supreme interest, however, was the proof which Sir Stephen gave. He said that the British were enthusiastic about — a boat race, a prize fight, a tennis match, and so on. Every single program he mentioned was an event, an outdoor broadcast. Perhaps some people liked the studio stuff; they were not sufficiently impressed on the mind of one of the chiefs of television in England even to be mentioned. IF THIS direction of television were to continue, you can see that no effect on the feature movie would ever occur. But television began with the effort to transmit a picture of someone in a room, and there are a dozen reasons why studio work will continue to be an important part of a television program. One reason — a mighty good one — is that parades and processions can become deadly dull. Some of the things you remember best of the newsreel are the accident:.! shots, the lucky breaks — and you can't count on them. Sporting events and beauty contests will always be good because you don't know what the outcome will be; but you do know what the beginning and middle and end of most parades will be. Moreover, a full program of news events would be hard to compose (until television becomes a network, which is still in the future) as there simply aren't enough in any one city to go round; and finally, the observer will probably grow weary after the first few hours. What is worse, the outdoor events, coming when a vast majority of the population is either at work or at play (outside the home), will be seen by only a tiny fraction of the television fans. So television will have to provide, as every good form of entertainment does, a certain variety. Variety it may be in the old sense of vaudeville — as many acts which are essentially vaudeville go well on the television screen: I can see acrobats and magicians and solo dancers having a wonderful time and — more important— giving the audience a wonderful time. I have a list of a dozen individuals who are "made for television." Solo performers on musical instruments need to be made interesting as things to see as well as to hear; but it can be done. And the whole field of demonstration is available, from how to cook to how to learn jiujitsu, not to mention a lot of highbrow subjects which will become vastly entertaining when you can show what you are talking about. Still, that leaves out the drama, and both on the air and the screen we are lovers of the dramatic moment. In England, a number of quick critics have reared up and said that the place to get drama is in the theater, so the mobile unit ought to be backed up to the stage door, the scanner inserted in the wings, and the play or musical show or circus taken right on the spot. The reason they say this is that the dramatic programs have not been tremendously satisfying. Both the limitations of the equipment and, I suspect, the limitations of the actors, have troubled the enthusiasts. So they say: abandon the studio and go where good drama can be found. I HIS is exactly what the movies tried to do at the beginning. Luckily for the movies, the attempt was abandoned. In the silent days, the effect was pretty awful: there is the story (told in the recent "History of Motion Pictures" by Bardeche and Brasillach) of the famous French actor who refused to cut a line of a classic speech, when he was doing it for the camera, and stood there spouting unheard words for minutes at a time; in America the movies tried to repeat stage effects and stage situations Mrs. Marino Bello, better known to you as Jean Harlow's mother, makes her first public appearance in Hollywood since the untimely death of her daughter. She attended the "Marie Antoinette" premiere with Kay Mulvey, M-G-M's ace publicity woman until they learned better. Nowadays, movies are primarily movies, which is why they are good. And, if television means to be good, it will have to use its material in the way best suited to the instruments of television. Merely to take a stage play or even a vaudeville bill or a circus will not make good television. It will appeal as novelty for a while; it may do as a stopgap; but in the end you have to roll your own — or create your own stuff — to succeed. Here we come to the second place at which television may have an effect on the movies — the effect which, I said, may be an improvement. I suspect that one weakness of television drama so far has been in the acting. Neither stage nor movie acting seems to be exactly what's needed. This is the hardest thing to explain about television — harder than all the technical details — because you have to feel it yourself. And you do feel it: you feel that the person on a television screen is more in the room with you than the same person on the stage or on the screen. One reason may be that you get this person while you are, yourself, in your own room; it may have something to do with the size and the sharpness of the picture — but, whatever the cause, it is an undoubted effect. You know that the actor is a mile or forty miles away — yet he seems to be there with you. And most television acting has neglected this effect, so that the actors still go on as if you were across footlights or sitting in a movie house. They haven't allowed for the chief virtue of television itself, that immediacy — or you might call it "presence" — which it invariably gives. When this is recognized, I believe that a new style of acting will develop. Don't ask me now for details — I hope to work them out in practice, by trial and error. I am convinced that the right kind of acting will be found and then — this is my hope — if people like it, when television grows common, that style of acting will have an influence on acting in the movies. I think it will be an easy, unforced, warm and simple style; and it ought to correct some of the stiffness and artificiality of movie-acting. TELEVISION, like the movies, is a great "putter-over" of personality, and my guess may turn out wrong. We may develop such tremendous television personalities that acting will be comparatively rare, as it is rare among the great personalities of the pictures. (In nine movies out of ten, you can be sure that the best acting is done by the men and women who are not the most highly publicized; these supporting people in the cast have to act to keep their jobs; the stars keep theirs by their dazzling build-ups.) Yet I am hopeful. When we have added a third popular form of entertainment, the movies and the radio will have another competitor; this competitor, in a reasonable way, will learn from both during its first ten or twenty years; after that, it ought to be able to pay back for its borrowings by doing a little teaching on the side. Certainly a good movie producer would look with eagerness to see what the new type of art will develop. There is no occasion for jealousy and none for alarm. And the public will be the gainer. Because television will come gradually into common acceptance — you can't rush a business, which is also an art, so full of complexities — and, as it comes in, the movies will also be making progress, and the radio, too. Maybe in a hundred years all these arts will merge into one. We shan't be there to see — and anyhow, if the best elements are, as the formula goes, combined, what do we care? "Gone like magic" is the son? of happy thousands for whom KliEMOLA. an M. D. doctor's prescription, has cleared away pimples, blackheads, and surface skin blemishes. A clear-upj — not a e Keep* dry skin moist! Tnur money refunded if pimples and adolescent purplish pits do not go. Try Kremola, $1 25 aJ. drug and department stores, or send direct. 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