Picture-Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1924)

14 Advertising Section Tlie finest, raoft thorough training in the art of stage dancing, is imparted under the personal supervision of NED WAYBURN sThe Man who Stages the Follies" creator of the magical Wayburn Method — selector and director of the dancers in the greatest productions on Broadway. Special Classes for Children NED WAYBURN STUDIOS OF STAGE DANCING, INC. iy| 1841 Broadway (Ent. on 60th St.) New York City Open daily 9 a. m. to lO p. m., except Saturday evenings and Sunday For full information write for Art Booklet "P," it's Free What the Fans Think Continued from page 12 Never Marry! THEN he met this girl. She had read the secrets of "Fascinating Womanhood," a daring new book which shows how any woman can attract men by using the simple laws of man's psychology and human nature. Any other man would have been equally helpless in her hands. 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Toronto, Canada In doing so he has fulfilled a long-felt desire, it seems. There is no commercialism about that. It is an artistic endeavor of the highest sort, especially as he has produced the film as the book was written. Also I have learned, from sources of authentic information — from a person in unusually close touch with what transpires in the motion-picture industry — that Von Stroheim has endeavored to make "Greed" such an artistic piece of work that he has utterly neglected commercialism. I was told "that when the actor director made a. contract with the Goldwyn Company it was stipulated he was to make three pictures in a year and receive thirty thousand dollars apiece for producing them. He was to receive a certain sum for writing the screen adaptations, and in addition was to get a salary for acting in two of them. Instead Von Stroheim has made but one production during the year, obviously receiving but thirty thousand dollars. I was told by my informant that he has not drawn a cent of salary since June i, 1923. If he was imbued with commercialism he could have made at least one hundred thousand dollars within the same time in completing the three pictures under the stipulation of his contract. And this Yon Stroheim, surely working at art for art's sake if anybody ever did, was the man I thought would never attempt to raise the standard of the motion picture or make anything but disgusting contributions to the screen. I would like to make him a public apology. He is doing and will do as much for the artistic standards of the screen as any one else with worth-while ideals, and much more than the others. Incidentally, that other great screen artisan, D. W. Griffith, once made a statement that in striving for artistic ideals his reward has been but one other pair of shoes and an extra hat. The person who gave me the information about Von Stroheim said that when the latter read Griffith's statement he lifted up his feet and displayed a worn pair of shoes, remarking it was his one and only, and said he had no hat — he wore a cap. Instead of living in a stucco palace on a Hollywood hillside, as some of his more commercial fellows, Von Stroheim' S home is in an inconspicuous frame bungalow on a busy Los Angeles street. (Miss) Frances Guest. 961 Fairfax Avenue, Hollywood, Calif. The Small Town Answers Back. After reading "What the Fans Think" column in the April PicturePlay I must confess I lest my temper somewhat over a certain fan's supposed-to-be-humorous account of his experience at a "hick" movie. Far be it from me to disnute the writer's word, but I do think that the letter could have been written with more regard of feeling toward said "hicks," who support the movies as we'll as their more critical and ultrasophisticated city cousins — the writer, for instance! Melodramatic sob stuff may get by in a small town better than cheap vulgarity in a million-dollar setting, but there isn't a hick among us wrho wouldn't drive forty miles through a blizzard in a flivver to see such pictures , as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame/' "The White Sister," "The Humming Bird," and others of recent success. _ Do not think that the small towns are alone in their appreciation of this sc-cnlled melodramatic sob stuff. Such drivel gets by in the large city theaters where there are soft, rose-shaded lights, solemn stillness, and music that stirs the senses. Allow me to inform you all who are weighed down by the false impression of the small towns that we who dwell apart are not exactly morons. We know that Paul Whiteman isn't a socialistic leader or that mah jong isn't a new sort of chop suey. I believe we are as capable of judging a good picture from a bad one as our more blase city friends. D. M. S. Groton, So. Dak. Some Small Towns Don't Get Good Pictures. Several months ago in j-our magazine I read a letter relating to the small-town picture public. It said in part that it was strange how little attention the smalltowners paid to the really good films that came their way. But the writer overlooked the fact that in most small towns the really fine pictures never come our way at all — not until they reach a ripe old age — if ever. We have one picture house, so called, but it is more like the country morgue, inside — dark, and dirty, usually cold all winter, and poorly ventilated at all times. Once a week they have "opportunity night." All the village comedians "do their stuff," followed by a Buck Jones or Jack Hoxie picture. In fact, all they have are .those Western epics — "great-open-space-red-blooded stuff." _ Yet just six miles away folks in the next village are seeing "Little Old New York," "Robin Hood," "Scaramouche," and films of like caliber ! Why is it ? Won't Our manager here pay the price, or can it really be that the natives like that stuff? I have attended twice in a year and can certainly testify that never again will that bird see the color of my forty cents. And the curious part of it is that all this doesn't take place somewhere way out West, a thousand miles from nowhere, but only about thirty-five miles ■ from Times Square ! Our only compensation is that some of us can go to New York City about once a month and feast our eyes and ears in a real place where you can see a new picture and hear real music. Next week I hope to make up for a long drearv month by coming down to see "Beau Brummel." j. W. R. R— , N. Y. If it Pleases — it's Art. I think that Miss Trix MacKenzie in her recent letter in this department was too hard on the inhabitants of Inverness, Florida. For here again arises our old question of art. What appeals to one person as the highest form of art may be the highest form of absolute boredom to another. This was brought to me quite forcibly one night, two years ago, in Nekoma, Kansas. There, too, pictures were shown in a public hall, once a week, with a projection machine of the vintage of 1912 or thereabouts, and I never appreciated the appropriateness of the term "moving pictures" before. Those pictures seemed to move in all directions at once. The particular play that was showing on the night I refer to featured Helen Gibson as a heroine much given to the weeps and a strained expression of countenance. Also, there was a hero with no money and a gun and a villain also with a srun. The plot you can imagine. Personally, I rather regretted. I had not stayed in the bunk car and read, but, as Continued on pags 114