Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood receipts), they, as actors, might mount yet higher in the salary scale. So the stars had to be on the alert, to estimate. To submit themselves wholly to a grand success might prove to be the best of good luck, but, on the other hand, to sacrifice ever so small a section of their public esteem for a poor picture would be mere folly. To be cast for such very sordid characters was trial enough, but to be forbidden to relieve that sordidness by the sweet pathos of a suggested innocence or by rude good nature might mean catastrophe. Here then was the reason of that silent struggle which caused us to divine a sense of tension between the director and his stars. Nor did we know that Von Sternberg was himself treading on his own heels. The imitating monkey spirit that makes modern business pounce upon any success and by a flood of imitations inundate the market, thus robbing the inventor of a proper proportion of his legitimate reward, is intensified a hundred times in the film world. Few studios have the courage to try out new ideas or techniques, but should any experimenter have a hint of success the others fling themselves on to the trail. Every studio at once copies both manner and matter, a dozen variants of the film that has hit the public eye are at once rushed into the theatres hoping to participate in the profits of success. So, almost before the originator has had time to repeat his lucky hit, the public has become nauseated by the continual imitation. Von Sternberg had made one such hit with his film Underworld, At once a dozen underworld films leapt upon his back, and he himself was now trying a second film with an underworld flavour. Unluckily the moment had passed, and among the host of imitations The Docks, in spite of its often remarkable pictorial qualities, failed to repeat the initial success. Not only does success inspire imitations, failure creates [so]