Talking pictures : how they are made, how to appreciate them (c. 1937)

Talking Pictures picture on tastes and customs. It is suggested that this complaint is sometimes generated by foreign business firms because American motion pictures are believed to create interest in attractive American-made products. It was suggested in the discussion of settings that the motion picture is responsible for raising the average level of taste used in furnishing American homes. Various modifications of the "modernistic" trend in furniture are currently in vogue. Many interior decorators credit the start of this vogue to the film studio art director who first dared to offer in motion pictures a background in the modernistic mood. This director said, "I made this first modernistic set, not with the idea of starting a fad, but because modernism is based on simplicity. Any method of interior decoration which decreases the number of objects to be photographed would naturally be valuable in a pictorial medium. People saw the advantage of fewer pieces of furniture and less bric-a-brac. The result is that today, while we have passed out of the extreme phase of modernism, we have retained its virtue of simplicity, first brought to the world's attention, on a mass scale, through the motion picture." One art director suggests that the motion picture has aided and influenced the making of a more beautiful American home because it has never obviously set out to attain this end. It was long ago proven that for commercial entertainment purposes propaganda must be avoided. Therefore, motion pictures show, without editorial comment, attractive people amid attractive objects. There are many perfectly chosen objects of art [242-]