Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1937)

August 7. 1937 PICTUREGOER Weekly The LOST FILM HORIZON I CANNOT tell you the exact location — my geography has always been so bad. I can only tell you that it is approximately equidistant from Hollywood and Elstree. It is an uncharted island in mid-Atlantic with an equable climate and luxurious vegetation. "It?" Perhaps I should have explained first what it is. After seeing Lost Horizon I suffered so strongly from a nostalgia for some sort of a Utopia that I went to the length of chartering an aeroplane in order to try to find my Shangri-La. I did not succeed. Half-way across the Atlantic we ran out of petrol — that sort of thing always happens — and were forced to land. After bobbing about on the waves for two or three days we found this uncharted island — this Utopia for film people — this Sham-Ho, as I have called it, since these places must have names. Really, how I got there doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if I am making all this up as I go along. What does matter is that in the minds of most film people (and why not among film audiences, too?) this Utopia must exist in the mind, if it has a corporate shape or not. This, then, is my film Utopia. So that if you discover that it is above all the film stars who have the best time there, you may know why, now. As in Shangri-La, so in Sham-Ho there is no age. Some of those I met there must have been hundreds of years old. But tinlike Mr. Capra's aged Lama, their great age did not show at all. There was not so much as a wrinkle to be seen. That was the first thing that made me suspect at all the significance of the place. For there is nothing like film work, I can assure you, to put the years on one ! And wrinkles to a film star are as the cockcrow is to the ghost — a signal for a fade-out. Fascinated, I began my inspection of the studios. In this idealised film colony I must say there are some wonderful inventions. The first thing that impressed me was a device called the temperameter; all stars in Sham-Ho are made to wear this until the actual moment that the camera begins to turn. Any of them "throwing a temperament" are at once caught by the temperameter camera which wilfully exaggerates their bad-tempered expressions which are afterwards projected three hundred times life-size on the wail of the studio for a whole afternoon. You may be sure there are no temperamental stars in Sham-Ho — and a good thing too, as I am certain you will agree. Film stars there are furthermore made to sign an agreement whereby the tremendous salaries they get have to be regarded as capital — not salary. Every star is given a maximum ten years of screen fame (after which she must retire) and the money that they receive during these ten years must be divided evenly into the number of years they are expected to live. And as in Sham-Ho they live to a very ripe old age, the annual salary thus works out to a reasonable sum, which at once prevents them from being extravagant, and ensures for them a prosperous old age. In Sham-Ho you never have the stories, prevalent alas in the ugly world outside, of oncegreat film stars becoming extras or dying for by Dita PARLO ""phe glamorous Continental actress, now in England playing in " Mademoiselle Docteur," is an entertaining writer as well, as this article shows. gotten and in poverty, because of their foolishness while they were at the height of their careers. Producers in Sham-Ho are under strict supervision. They are taught many things which I have no doubt can only be beneficial to them. They are taught that while imitation may be a sincere form of flattery, it does not pay the studio rent. Thus if producer A makes a film about cowboys— films about cowboys are forbidden for the next eighteen months, unless producers B or C or D can guarantee a totally different type of cowboy film. They are taught to have more hope in humanity. Thus, if psychologists tell them that the mental age of film audiences fluctuates from seven years old to forty years old, they are asked to assume that it is nearer forty than seven. They are asked to believe that if producer A's film is longer than producer B's film, it does not necessarily mean that producer A's film is the better of the two. They are asked to treat authors' work with respect — and believe it or not, they do. It is a heinous crime, punished I believe by hanging (and deservedly, you may say) for a producer to distort any work of literature in transferring it to the screen. They are taught finally to spend money on their films with a proportionate care to that which they exercise in giving their wives a housekeeping allowance. This system works wonders ! I was both amused and uplifted by my brief inspection of the offices in which the scenario writers work. In each of these hangs an impressive list in huge letters of the phrases and cliches they are no longer allowed to employ because of respect to old age; similarly there is a list of situations which are equally taboo. I wish I could remember all these phrases and cliches, as it is only some of the best known jump to my mind; perhaps you can recognise them? "And that woman, my child, was — your mother." And: " So you won't talk ? " And : "Happy?" "So happy." And: " But ... I never knew you cared ! " Any scenario writer in Sham-Ho employing any of these cliches has to write out that particular one five thousand times. An elementary punishment you may say, reminiscent of your schooldays — nevertheless an effective one. I saw a haggard-eyed screen writer labouring on the third thousand of the Dita Parlo with Gyles Isham in "Mademoiselle Docteur," her first British picture. phrase : "Aw, Gee ! Ma, do I have to go to bed now?" One look at the man told me that he will never, never again use that phrase in one of his scripts. It is assumed in Sham-Ho that not ail women spies are glamorous and beautiful. That not all gangsters reform their ways because of the look in The Little Woman's Blue Eyes. That not all women lost in the desert for weeks can be found with their hair beautifully set, their nails polished and with French high-heeled shoes on their feet. That not all murders are committed by the innocent looking gentleman you thought to be a traveller in religious books. There are many more do's and don't's that I found in Sham-Ho which I have not space here to recount to you. But I am sure that you get the idea. Win we ever see a film Utopia in this ordinary world of ours ? Being an optimist and somewhat of an idealist I say that in time we may. Why, even now I am making the screen story of that famous spy Mademoiselle Docteur, in which I am allowed to portray a woman spy who actually dared to rely on intelligence and not her fatal beauty to do her work. And it seems to be working out quite satisfactorily. I wear no beautiful clothes — I vamp no susceptible generals. Perhaps, like myself, Mr. Max Schach, who is producing the film, visited the Film Utopia in his dreams. I like to think so. 15