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15
TURNS PROPHET
By Ralph Bellamy
Illustrated by H. Giesen
so much to do with the evolution of our present telepicture.
First, I exhibited bits of a few silent pictures, produced even before my time, 1910 to 1925, featuring such favorites of the day as Charlie Chaplin, Bill Hart, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. With proper respect for the traditional reverence with which these four patriarchs of pictures have long been held, my guests admired and applauded the skill of their pantomime.
When we came to the sound pictures, many of which I appeared in, I put my modern friends at ease.
"Don't mind me." I reassured them. "Go right ahead. Laugh all you like. I'll be chuckling with you."
After a few brief flashes of the sound pictures of my day, featuring the now forgotten Garbo, Chatterton, Barrymore, West, Crawford, Dietrich, Hepburn, Gable, Lloyd, Tracy, Shearer, and Stanwyck, I revealed the surprise of the evening by exhibiting an ancient classic of a little boy, "Skippy," portrayed by my venerable colleague, the Honorable John Cooper.
To my great relief, "Skippy" proved a sensation to my young friends. Crudities of production were for
Bellamy amuses his twenty-first-century audience by exhibiting early Hollywood films exploiting the long obsolete thing called sex appeal.
gotten in the enjoyment of this heart-compelling story of a little boy. They cried — and laughed — even as we did some seventy years ago.
It was Professor Weinbrenner's turn to take a bow next when I projected "A Bedtime Story," showing our celebrated scholar in 1933, a cute, appealing baby appearing with the popular French comedian of the day, Maurice Chevalier.x
A brief exhibition of early television completed the entertainment. Although our pupils had roared with laughter at the picture crudities of our day, they agreed that acting hadn't changed much. More naturalness and repression, perhaps. As individuals, some of the stars of yesterday appealed ; some did not. Quaint story situations revolving around sex particularly amused them.
When we explained to this modern generation the vast difficulties under which we labored in those fargone days, such as production competition and working strikes, they were amazed that such a model of
simplicity and perfection as our telepicture of to-day could have been evolved in less than a century.
I can't say that I blame
them. To-day one may sit
in one's drawing-room, press
a button, and at any hour of
Continued on page 52
In this advanced age, when even radio is looked back upon as a childish experiment, scientists expect to conquer Father Time in another thousand years.