Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

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Talking Pictures The term "extra" which seems so firmly set in the minds of the public as a name for background players, is never used in the studios. It implies unimportance, and the competent minor player is anything but unimportant. He is a trained artisan. He may lack the ability or the face or the body to enact the role of Charles Laughton; but, possessed of the "finest cauliflower ear and broken nose in America," he is very important for certain deft character touches. He knows by experience how to conduct himself before the camera. He knows how to move naturally in a crowd. He resents the diminution of his importance implied in the term "extra," and hence it has practically disappeared from the modern film vocabulary. The experienced minor player is a valuable and respected member of any film-making community. In fact, the great concentration of minor players in Hollywood has been one reason why this community has retained its film production leadership. Eighty per cent of the types needed for dramatic motion pictures fall into about forty-one groups. For men the groups include: dress men, juveniles, bell hops, bald men, comics, police, collegians, butlers, beards (sometimes listed by the slang term "beavers"), riders, freaks, tall men, short men, dwarfs, stunt men, dope fiends (in appearance), military, character men (a general characterization in which may be found, perhaps, judges, lawyers, doctors, bill collectors), tough men, Negroes, Orientals, Hawaiians, Latin types, German types, Slavic types. For women the groups include: dress women (mean [130]