Sodom and Gomorrah : the story of Hollywood (1935)

82 SODOM AND GOMORRAH crank out material, either goes mad and leaves, or else he looks at his bank book, groans, and, for the sake of his wife and children, stays on. The former clothes manufacturers who have become the lords of filmdom pay good salaries to those who are fortunate enough to be in the few select divisions that pay them. But in return for the abnormally large compensation he receives as a studio employee, the artist ceases to be such by becoming a machine that turns out pseudo-art by formula and on schedule. The result of this combination of business and art is that motion pictures are neither. That is why the idealist is so bitter against the films, and affords an explanation of why the business man experiences the same unhappy emotion when he discovers that his film stock has again passed dividends. Perhaps it is because of this extraordinary situation that such deplorable moral conditions exist in the upper strata of the film personnel. Not only the upper strata, but even the entire organization is honey-combed by all sorts of depravity and looseness. However, large-scale immorality is a luxury, so it is to be expected that the worst conditions will be found among those who can afford to pay the price. * But whatever the reason, it is a fact that the moral conditions is the film industry are worse than those existing in any other industry with the exception of the white slave traffic, which,