The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-08-27
(Kansas City Starr

(Kansas City Starr
The AmericaniZation Of this coun-
try goes on at a great pace" says
much concerned Briton, of his native
land. american stories are stacked
on every bookstall. About half the new
plays come from across the Atlantic.
We get our dances from America, with
the weird music to which they are
enacted
Young couples and middle aged
couples jerk and jazz, while Ministries
initiate or exaggerate the noises which
arose from the banging Of tin kettles
and rafting of saucepan lids at negro
camp meetings in the Southern states.
Thus does the course of empire pursue
its westward way!"
Films American.
The writer-Sir Sidney Louvre
serves special irony, however, for what
he believes to be the most culpable
agent of Americanization-th cinema.
Sir Sidney-who writes in the Fort
nightly Review-manage to leave the
impression, without actually saying So
that he really thinks a certain re-
strained dose Of Americanism is mot
half bad" for his countrymen-Amer-
lean ideas of business advertising, for
instance. But. apparently, he believes
the whole thing is being laid on "a bit
too thick
I'm the world Of the film" asserts
the writer, america Is supreme, at
any rate she has far more than a two
power superiority" He hopes that
something may come Of the much her
aided big British producing companies,
but is not over sanguine.
But, in the meantime, America holds
the field and supplies something like
90 per cent of all the pictures shown
in the United Kingdom. They are the
chief recreation of all the people, sup
planting in interest church, meeting
house and lecture platform; and they
are all-all American.
Everybody-richa and poor, old and
young-is habitually and constantly
seeing life through American spec
tacles:" and he thinks that certain
phases Of American life must be better
known to the picture enthusiasts
than their own.
Take 1t All In.
"They know all about the mammoth
hotels, and the sumptuous restaurants,
and the dance halls and night clubs,
and the seaside or hillside pleasure
resorts They know the ways of the
millionaire, upright or shady-general-
ly shady-and the ways of the adven-
turer who aspires after his dollars or
his daughter, and the ways of the
Wild West, where stalwart young men
with revolvers defend virtuous school
mistresses.
They know all about these other
young men, the fast young men who
engage in the pleasures of the town.
n re- thrlc 81 ri
the paths of error. They gaze at
American houses, American furniture,
American scenery; they confront
American police captains, and Amer,
lean trainmen, and American Grim
inals. For them the difficult epigrams
in which the composer of the American
scenario Is accustomed to express his
thoughts have no mysteries.
They can construe the subtitles of
hand, translate even the obscurest OF
them at sight No wonder our young
| er generation talks American! o
Henry and the American magazines
and Uncle Sam plays, and the
cinema, but most Of all the cinema
have made it familiar in our mouths
as household words. No missionary
, ever had such preaching stool in for
eign lands as this pictorial pulpit
which is set up several times a day
| everywhere"
| While Sir Sidney admits that every
body wants a closer understanding
with America, closed communion O
spirit-he seriously questions whethe,
| the plays and Inns and novels consti
tute the proper sort of missionaries.
These over-emphasize certain phase:
of American life and utterly ignore
others-and the others are mostly the
desirable phases. After ALL h
says, "a great nation does not consis
mainly of crooks and criminals ant
dishonest financiers, and impossibl.
sentimental girls, and fatuous societ.
wornen,' and funny men playing TIL
fool brilliantly.
A False Idea.
; 'If you were to judge the Unite'
States from the majority Of the pic
ture shows, or from the magazines OF