The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-04-16


sin again; but then everybody sinned
again and again.
"She wondered who that fellow of
her destiny would be-Tom Hobby.
maybe; Austin Boas, or still another
perhaps; or others perhaps, includ-
ing him or them! In any case he
Cor they) had better behave and play
fair! AS for being a mother, let that
wait, too. She was going to mother
the multitudes and tell them stories
to soothe them.
'She had a soul to sell and it was
all her own. and she was going to
market"
Finally, it is vicious because 1t is
assuredly very bad argument. So
far from proving its case it begs the
question throughout. 1t carefully
answers the obviously silly criticisms
and objections to the screen and to
the morale Of the moving picture
world and entirely ignores the seri-
ously conceived COMBINATIONS, of
those who are unable to follow Mr..
Hughes in his ecstasy over the ar
tistic attainments of the photo-play
as it is. 1t needs no 400 page book to
demonstrate that official censorship
is almost invariably and inevitably
stupid, or that any form of art is
scarcely to be Judged adequately and
Understandings by the eighteenth
century standards of a narrow
minded country parson. We may
heartily agree with Mr.. Hughes as
to such matters. But the book offers
no reply at all to those who find in
a great deal Of the pictured play no
more than utter banality. stupidity
uninteresting twaddlings, or raw
vulgarity. and who find in a very
large percentage of other plays a
poison Of salacfty, leer, a gloating
over suggested or open indecency for
its own sake. The real point is that
the impulse behind these plays (and
the same is true of the spoken drama
to some extent) is not at all artistic.
not at all a desire to hold a mirror
UP to nature or to produce beauty.
1t is no more than a pandering to
criticism. Not that it is wholly
mercenary; it is sometimes more
subtle thing than that. In her last
novel, "The House of Rimmon," Mrs.
Watts has made the most acute
diagnosis in her analysis of "Delmar"
of this subtler element:
He was so solemnly convinced of
the worth and weight of his deliver
ances than which nothing more stale
and shopworn in the way of rhetoric
was ever uttered since men first be-
gan to deceive themselves with
words; he exploited the vulgar and
the salacious with so splendid a ges-
ture, serving Art with his whole soul
and never forgetting the box Of
fice."
The caustic satire of that sum-
mary fits the movie" even more
aptly. and to that Mr.. Hughes offers
no reply at all other than to adyo-
cate wholesome smut" and object
to the eccentricities of a censorship.
AS to the charges of immortality
among movie actors Mr.. Hughes first
assures us that Hollywood and Gull
yer City, &c, are. in fact. the con-
crete realizations of Spotless Town
and then jumps the other way and
tells us that If they are truly
naughty they are no worse than anv
outside community. 'Is there any
part OF the country" an actor asks.
where booze parties are unknown?
The dope fiends are not all in Holly
wood. Every other town has about
the same quota" The argument is
not impressive, especially when it
glances, for example, at certain cases
recently featured in the criminal
courts.
Taken simply as story the first
third, or so. of the book is very well
done. 1t is hardly necessary to re-
mind most readers that when he likes
Mr.. Hughes can tell a story admit
rably. He starts his heroine as the
daughter of a strait-laced parson in
a mid-western village. She is preg-