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55
FANS THINK?
As one of the zanies so accused, I have been somewhat interested 'in determining just how much truth there is behind all this pointed sarcasm. So I got out my old Picture Plays — my files date from 1920 — and started to work. It took me nearly two weeks to read them all, but by the time I finished I had what I imagine is a fairly comprehensive view of just what the fans do think.
The result? Well, I frequently found my task hilariously amusing. Occasionally it was boring. But for the most part it was interesting —oh, very interesting.
"What the Fans Think" is a complete guide to the movies. It is more significant than the most thorough compilation of statistics because it represents the vital reaction of living people to their favorite entertainment and the embodiment of their dreams. It is a panorama of the development of pictures from a nickel amusement to a national passion. It is alive.
Alive. Controversy is the life of criticism. And "What the Fans Think" is nothing if not controversial. The subject may be only Dietrich's traveling eyebrows, but the fans are interested enough to go on arguing until they get to the bottom of the matter.
Take that well-remembered discussion known to every orthodox reader as the battle of the accents. The enigmatic possessor of the initials "S. C." shook "What the Fans Think" to its adamantine foundations when she suggested that the Southern accent of some star
When Paul Boring described Shirley Temple as "an insignificant and fatuous mite" he laid himself open to puns on his last name.
Can you remember the time when admirers of Marlene Dietrich insisted that she would supplant Garbo's popularity? That was one of the arguments which enlivened "What the Fans Think," with both sides defending their favorite.
was caught and modified from the Negro. Apparently ; no greater insult could have been offered the former Confederacy, for the bottle of the accents assumed the pro' portions of a second Civil War, and ranged far from the field of the movies.
Dixie and Yankeedom were not the only combatants, for representatives of England, Canada, and Australia leaped into the fray, each claiming his own land as the native habitat of perfect speech. Extravagant statement and impersonal analysis alternately held the field, but, though "Daniel" Webster's dictionary was rejected as an authority, a decision was finally reached.
It was strongly pointed out that there is good and bad
speech everywhere — that while there is no ideal norm for the language, the intonation of each section of the country, though provincial, has its own peculiar charm.
The battle of the accents, though long-lived, ran its course and died. Other issues, however, seem to have a perennial appeal. I hey bob up, are discussed, settled and resettled, and then lie dormant for a while, only to recur when a new generation of fans rises to confront the problems of the movies.
From Picture Play's beginning, the fans have enjoyed trying to decide who is the supreme star of the screen. When Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson disputed supremacy at Paramount, their adherents enthusiastically took