Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

Ct, "Never again — the industry can struggle along without me, Ik says Harriette Underhill, as she tells HY I'll Never TITLE Another Film e have titled our last picture, so in the future the industry will have to struggle along without us as best it can. This decision did not come to us overnight. We had been considering such a move for some time and then we wrote a sub-title which said, "Helen has her revenge. She refuses to be forgotten," and it came out on the screen, "Even a cad may know remorse when he finds that his victim is a thoroughbred." That settled it ! Then and there we decided never to title another picture unless the producer gave us carte blanche — and this will never occur until the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. But out of evil cometh good, for we have gained tolerance. Now, when we encounter titles which read, "Embrace me, mother, I am bethrothed" or "No one can manage him but I," we censure the title and exonerate the title writer. dozen pictures you'll know that the office boy has more to say about it than you have. They engage you to title a picture and then everybody, from the telephone operators to the president's relatives — especially the president's relaives — contribute something. If there is any room left they use your titles — that is if they haven't time to collect any others ? T, The President Helps 'A Fate Worse Than Death' picture which young woman successful at She is well e once saw a had been titled by a who has been very that sort of thing, equipped for her work and she receives $1000 for titling a five-reel picture. We had heard that she was one of the best in the business and then we saw that picture. A young girl from the country, who had come to wicked New York to go on the stage, decides that, rather than meet "A fate worse than death," she will take poison. A kindly policeman in the park seizes the bottle as she is about to drink the carbolic and she looks up at him and — take it from the title — wails, "In every enterprise in life I am thwarted." Now we ask you, wasn't she elegant ! And later on, when she gets rich and has a maid she says, may extinguish the lights, Marie, I will await the unattended." Well, when we came face to face with this title writer one day she grasped our hand and exclaimed, "I owe you a debt of gratitude for planning the titles the way you did. I intended to write and thank you." Feeling that we had right on our side we prepared to defend our stand and then we saw that she was serious. "Yes," she said, "weren't they terrible!" "But didn't you write them ?" we asked. "Your name was on the screen." Of course, but by the time you have titled half a Says Harriette Underhill d^"By the time you have titled half a dozen pictures you'll know that the office boy has more to say about it than you have. They engage you to title a picture and then everybody, from the telephone operators to the President's relatives, especially the President's relatives, contribute something. If there is room left they use your titles." hen our case is not unique?" we asked. "Not at all. When you are engaged to write titles for a picture the producer expects you to write to suit him. If you don't he will write them himself and generously allow you the credit." "The 'age-old cry' as the title writers love to say. Then you admit that you are a prostitute — a literary prostitute ?" we asked. "I suppose so — yes ; but aren't we all ?" it So We're Going Straight C^OUNT "You dawn us out," we replied. "We've titled our last picture. From now on we're going straight ! We're 'coming clean'." So far, however, we seem to be about the only one who has signed the Declaration of Independence. And, in thus announcing it, of course we have irrevocably burned our bridges behind us. Most of the people who are engaged in furnishing the industry with its motif power are forever kicking but they kick with one hand and write with the other. They never let their right hand know what their left hand doeth. Probably, if the stories which playwrights and authors sell to motion picture producers to be made into "bigger and better pictures," could speak they would cry, pitifully, "Please, dear, kind master, don't sell me down the river. I've worked for you with all there is in me. My body belongs to you but my soul belongs to God." And the Slaughter Goes On 'ut, being inarticulate, the books and plays are sold and the slaughter goes on. A few of their authors have made speeches denouncing the people who have put their stories in gelatine [Continued on page 103] 21