The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (Jan-Feb 1923)

vi. THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. January 1, 1923 THE DREAM: AND THE. BUSINESS. Being the Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. (By CECIL PALMER.) EING no longer what is termed a ‘* publicity . man,’ though still sadly burdened with all the vanity that is a necessary part -of his make-up, I am driven to write (on this occasion) as a publicist. Writing as the former on any aspect of the kinema industry, I should be bound to express my views cautiously trembling lest I hurt the susceptibilities of the ‘‘ powers that be’’ within the trade itself. But as a pub a licist, I am. free to say what I think, and damn the consequences. What distinguishes your publicity man from your publicist is that the former is usually-well paid and well received, while the latter gets nothing a week, paid regularly, and more than his fair share of obscurity. There is unlimited scope for some passionate pleader of lost causes who will tackle the problem of obtaining justice for poor, unprotected publicists. My friend, Mr. Charles Lapworth, would fill the réle admirably, while the Editor of the Firm RENTER could be trusted to supply the friendly badinage that spurs Charles apworth on and on, and up and up, and over the hills and far away. The meteoric career of Mr. Lapworth is one of the romances of the industry. It seems only yesterday that I saw him shaking hands with Mr. Norman-Wright. To-day, Mr. Norman-Wright shakes hands with Mr. Charles Lapworth, and what, perhaps, is even more significant, Mr. Norman-Wright calls‘-Mr. Lapworth ‘‘ an intellectual genius,’’ and Mr. Lapworth refers familiarly to Mr. _Norman-Wright as “old. man.’’ These two gentlemen are getting on together infamously, and now that Mr. Noel Rhys is safely tucked away in Mr. Wanger’s capacious pockets, there is no one left young enough or in possession of the requisite degree of ‘‘ cheek ’’ to disturb their urbanity. Not that Charles himself is lacking in ‘‘ cheek.’’ I have never recovered from the shock I received when I saw for the first time the cover of ‘‘ Goldwynner.”’ Only a Yorkshireman with American interests would dare to commission the greatest cartoonist Australia has produced to paint the emblematical British lion as a cover design for his firm’s house organ. But there is this to be placed to Mr. Lapworth’s credit, that the inside of his journal worthily upheld the character of the outside—— how those pages did roar to be sure! I am sorry to leam that. the “‘'Goldwynner’’ died broken-hearted in consequence of tlie untimely. death of.theHepworth Magazine (R.1:P.). Crciu PALMER. and in fear and’ Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made Of. History has provided its own judgment on the subject of what differentiates a visionary from a practical man. For all practical purposes it ignores the practical man, except to record the fact that such were the.men who stoned the prophets and scorned the poets. There is,. of course, a sharply defined difference between the type of men whom the world defines as practical and the type of man whom the practical men dismiss as a visionary. The line of demarcation may be faint, but it is capable of clear definition. Your visionary knows he is dreaming, which gives him a supreme advantage over the practical man who doés not even dream that he is dreaming. Your practical man must ‘‘ think ’’ about everything, and’ nearly everything he thinks about is worth nothing. -.If he should be accused of dreaming at all, he will assume a magnificent contempt, and, perhaps, an apologetic air, which, in effect, is intended to convey to you the fact that if he has been dreaming it was when he was asleep, and because he was asleep. God knows what would happen if some courageous feliow suggested to him that he was dreaming, because he was actually wide awake, notwithstanding she fact that he was fast asleep! Nature and Art and Beauty and Truth and little things of that sori are not to be thwarted as easily as your great, big, practical man deceives himself into believing. Even a full-blooded captain of industry cannot avoid taking an occasional “‘ nap,’’ and it is then, thank God, that he is caught napping! He shuts his eyes and opens -his mind. And that is the kind of futility from which the practical man cannot escape. It is only when he is asloep that he has the remotest chance of waking up, and when he wakes up he is instantly asleep again. If your practical man could dissociate himself from the tur ‘moil and clamour of the day’s work, and consider for a brief space the bondage that holds him fast to materialism, he would go mad. He retains his sanity by an-insane pursuit of one damned thing after another. Your visionary, for the most part, is a man who is willing to die for the things that make life worth living. When we, who pride ourselves on our matter-of-factness, happen to discover that his dreams have come true, we talk about it as enthusiastically as if we had though$ about it. Your dreamer, in reality, merely anticipates intelligently. A little intelligent anticipation goes a long way, but, unfortunately, it is a long time before the practical man sees it. To men who dream, life is a more important problem than living. Learning the art of living and the art of earning a living, are two quite distinct finctions. Nowadays, the former is almost extinct, while the latter is, mainly, a matter of instinct. Your visionary postulates that life is eternal, and that the thing which practical men call “‘living,’’ is ephemeral... What 18 wrong with the world is that most of us waste our Substance in the illicit kissing of the ephemeral,, and ignore the countless opportunities for embracing the eternal. Get On—Or Get Out. -The point I am anxious to make—if I have not already sat on it—is that the kinema cannot continue to be the