The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

Arthur L. Mayer (Continued from Page 7) rather than in a panic, it can turn out more sincere and more sensitive pictures in the next few years than it has in the last few. The history of French and Italian pictures proves this. Shoestring production keeps a producer's ears close to the ground. NOT only will pictures have to be cheaper; but with the decline in long runs as business tapers off, there will have to be more of them. Mr. Samuel Goldwyn thinks that this will prove highly harmful, but I am not sure that he is correct. Producers, authors, directors and performers assigned to low budget pictures have customarily regarded such jobs as a hopeless attempt to imitate past major successes with a minimum of funds, interest or effort. But under the leadership of men like Dore Schary at R.K.O and Louis de Rochemont in his new affiliation with M.G.M. this need not be true of most of the B pictures of the future any more than it was true of a few B's of the past — B's like Leo McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow, Garson Kanin's A Man To Remember, Val Lewton's Curse of the Cat People, or only recently Elia Kazan's Boomerang. General Electric and Standard Oil know that the millions they spend in their research laboratories are not wasted. By the same token, the low budget picture of the future can serve as an inexpensive, occasionally possibly profitable, medium for picture experimentation with new subjects and new locales, with new talents and new faces, some of which will eventually become the best loved faces in the world. And such new faces and new talents are urgently needed. We are attending the swan-song of the great stars of yesterday. Hope, Crosby, Cooper, Gable, are all men in the forties, and I am too much of a gentleman to say how old most of their female counterparts are. There are those who think they will never be replaced and that the emphasis of the future will be on story rather than star value. That theory seems to me to run counter to a basic American craving for heroes. My own pet subject for speculation is whether the coming favorites will be tough hombres like Spencer Tracy, or skinny crooners like Sinatra ; gracious, cultured ladies like Myrna Loy, or hot mamas like Rita Hayworth. But whatever they are they will reflect the ideals and the needs of a new generation. Those needs will, I think, encourage a widely expanded use of the documentary technique of which we have recently seen such excellent examples in The House on 92nd Street and Naked City. Thus far, the American wedding of fiction and documentary has been confined primarily to Crime and Punishment. But two excellent new films made abroad — Paisan and The Search — show how effectively this technique can be used for broader objectives. Maybe I am prejudiced in favor of Paisan because my partner and myself are the happy possessors of the American rights, and maybe that same prejudice leads me to overestimate the influence that I think the importation of a large number of unusual foreign films will have on American production. Although Open City, Shoe-Shine, To Live In Peace and Children of Paradise may achieve inconsiderable grosses compared to American standards, the effect of these films on the receptive minds of leading American picture makers will, I think, be as memorable as that of Caligari, the grandaddy of all our horror pictures. It was the first film I ever had anything to do with — almost 25 years ago — and exhibitors and public alike disliked it so heartily that for a time it almost ruined Sam Goldwyn, who had imported it — but Sam, like his Uncle Sam, takes a lot of ruining. OFFSETTING some of the encouraging factors to which I have been referring, was the ill-advised conduct both of the unfriendly writers and the possibly too friendly executives before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Eric Johnston himself said, "good pictures cannot be produced in an atmosphere of fear." Timidity on the part of its leadership, timidity which is in marked contrast to the fighting spirit demonstrated under the leadership of Wendell Willkie, serves to create such an atmosphere of fear in the rank and file of an industry. It also serves to create unwarranted suspicions in the minds of the public. As Quentin Reynolds put it, "If the hearings in Washington proved anything at all, they proved that there was about as much successful communistic influence in Hollywood as there is in General Motors." Not a single picture was pointed out as having any subversive material. Nonetheless, the industry suspension of the accused men was generally interpreted as a confession that all was not in order on the Coast. As a result of this, pictures with social significance will probably be junked by their producers. Between the pressure of government agencies, conservative bankers and cautious exhibitors, the studios will find it hard to escape from purely escapist entertainment. No resume of the forces which will affect American picture production in the immediate future, however brief, would be complete without some mention of television. Only four television stations in six big cities were on the air before Pearl Harbor. By the beginning of this year a total of 54 cities in 29 states were engaged in television broadcasting authorizations and applications, 65 construction permits had been granted and 45 applications were pending. Estimates for production for the current year range from 400,000 to 600,000 sets. In the New York metropolitan area alone, 90,000 sets were reported to be in operation by January 1, 1948. In other words, a vast new post-war industry has shot up over night. If you were to ask a dozen picture experts as to television's probable effect on movie attendance you would get a dozen different replies. My own old-fashioned conviction is that competition is not only a good thing for the public, but for the competitors themselves. The fact that the Joneses 18 The Screen Writer, June-July, 1 9 4 S