Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — The Artist of the Film We knew an English professor who earned over a thousand pounds a year in New York by telling ladies about the contents of books that they ought to have read but had not the time to read. The book-clubs provided their bookshelves with the volumes that should be on show in any up-to-date household. These two were features of a new hypocrisy — the hypocrisy of culture. The travelling lecturer and the handshake is a variation of the same spirit. She who had heard an author lecture and had shaken hands with him was relieved of the necessity of reading his works, yet could still boast of him. We can hardly picture the terrible stress imposed by the intellectual cult on the ordinary woman amid the rush of American life. She must be up-to-date in reading, but has hardly a moment to spare for books. This very superficial contact was the accepted substitute ; for, since almost everybody went to the same lectures and belonged to the same book-clubs, there was little danger of their catching one another out. The simple person who has shaken hands with a celebrity imagines herself to be a bigger, better, and more instructed person by the mere act. The film producers had a parallel instinctive feeling. A film that has, so to speak, shaken hands with the superior culture must be superior. " Story by Victor Hugo " is the handshake certificate. No doubt also, as Mr Van Vechten suggests, some of the waste was due to an attempt to salve the conscience. There must be a dim feeling that huge salaries and huger profits demand at least an appearance of some higher aim than mere amusement. The movies bow lavishly to a semi-intellectual appearance, as the man who has just made a million by ruining smaller competitors gives lavishly to charity. The money spent thus in Hollywood is partly hush-money. The name is bought, and to most persons the name is the thing. [i89]