The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

given any background ; he is still handsome, virile, Alan Ladd, the same god concept in various adventures ; as unchangeable as Zeus. Like the modern movie audience, the ancients were convinced of the superhuman qualities of the gods by the stories they were told of great feats, but these tales were only the high points of the existence of the gods. The Olympus assembly was worshipped twenty-four hours a day. Just so, the actual movies are only the more important exciting adventures of the deities. Almost as important are the off screen evenings at Mocambo, Ciro's, the Trocadero, Lady Mendl's; an afternoon around the pool ; breakfast at the Hunt Club. Was Greer Garson seen at Slapsy Maxie's with Charles Boyer? The answer is of equal importance with whether she wins Clark Gable in her Saga called Adventure. Does Ginger Rogers wear a gingham apron in the kitchen and is she happy with her husband? That is just as vital to her worshippers as what she wears in It Had To Be You, and whether she loves Cornel Wilde. HP HE Screen Story and the Daily ■*• Routine and two parts of the same thing; the Life of a god or goddess on Mount Hollywood. So fan magazines sell by the millions telling how the gods live apart from their studios; movie columnists and commentators make their salaries by telling the worshippers of the day to day events in the Divine Lives; autograph hunters crave the signatures — not of the man seen in a movie, but of the god himself. But there is an important difference between Mount Olympus and Mount Hollywood. The ancient gods, being composite products of the story tellers' minds, had no human personification. They never appeared on earth to be examined and tested. But these modern gods are not really gods at all. They are actors and actresses, human and vulnerable, who through camera trickery, and words and deeds thought up by writers, are made to look like the god concepts. The characteristics of the role developed in screenplay after screenplay have become synonymous with the actor, and the worshippers regard these two separate concepts as one and the same. It was only natural that the Thomas Committee would ask the opinions of several actors about some complicated proposed legislation. These actors are Zeus or Apollo gods and the Committee was humbly addressing the divinities it had seen on the screen, for divine guidance. The words of Judge Hardy or C. Aubrey Smith would have been even more potent, for to the populace these actors are Zeus and Jupiter, all wise and all knowing. The movie industry accepts the god concept and uses all its wealth and energy to further it. The unwritten law is that the Public conception of a god must never be destroyed by a novel role, and the few exceptions like Deanna Durbin in Christmas Holiday have been disastrous. The gods could not change. Zeus was Zeus. Jupiter was Jupiter. Wodin was Wodin. And Garbo is always Garbo. Remember Camille? It was advertised on the screen as "GARBO TALKS! . . . GARBO LOVES TAYLOR" The consumptive Camille was only a very transparent mask for a goddess to wear in a Saga of her adventures. For the film Adventure, the important selling point was "GABLE'S BACK AND GARSON'S GOT HIM." The Hucksters was only incidentally an expose of radio malpractices. On the screen it emerged as a romantic adventure of the Apollo god Gable with the lesser goddess Deborah Kerr. When Cass Timberlane was screened, who cared about the problems of Sinclair Lewis' characters — a small town couple have marital troubles? What was important was how Spencer Tracy was going to win Lana Turner. Any picture featuring a god or goddess of the Cinema must become a mere Saga of the god's romances or struggles. The Play is no longer the Thing. The Thing is a proper backdrop for a god; a Saga that will further the Public's particular god concept. TQUT there are obligations to •'-'being a god. A deity must never be caught in anything out of character. Errol Flynn, an Eros god, may be involved in many romantic escapades without endangering his career. Such behavior is natural to his Olympian assignment. On the other hand, a Comic god like Roscoe Arbuckle was ruined by one fall from grace, because he had destroyed his own deity conception. Lana Turner can spread her private love life all over the front pages and her worshippers only lavish more sacrifices on her altar. For Aphrodite is expected to love love. But any Diana or June goddess would be driven from the Temple by the same publicity. Comic god Charles Chaplin talks serious politics and the populace clamors for his hide. But any number of Zeus gods could say the same things without attack. Lew Ayres, the esthetic god of All Quiet On The Western Front and the Doctor Kildare series could be a Conscientious Objector in the war and be admired for his stand. Thor or Mars gods would have been forever ruined by the same sincere convictions. W. C. Fields, a Bacchus god, could make a career of liquor and his worshippers loved it. Any other type of god publicly displaying his drinking would have been outlawed from the industry. In a Broadway Play, the audience cares little about the actor's daily life. They are watching an actor tell a story, and his off stage existence has nothing to do with his role in the play. But the movie audience is another thing. The story is only the setting for a god's current adventure, and woe to the god who lets his worshippers down either in his home or on the screen. You can't tell this audience that (Continued on Page 30) The Screen Writer, May, 194