San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-08-26
By JACK JUNGMEYER

= Hollywood, Aug. 25.-The movies
ffrly purr with stale limitations OF
TIE copy-cats. Directors copying their
s1nfreres; producers doing the lock-
step; asteroids emulating stars; all
bat the few in each copy category
making film tracings OF the other fell
lows stuff-and wondering why the
public yawns.
Zone example of this imita tiveness,
almost as .hopwOrn as the late Ia
Inent about the scarcity of certain
. fruit, will serve TO conjLre many
others. Some years ago Mae Marsh,
/. think it was, initiated the little
; kick of ecstacy as she was being
kissed. Since then every ingenue
kicks as she kisses, and il she doesn't
feel like kicking, the director makes
her. Sweet line of asterisks
. How refreshing then, how like a
spring in the desert, the play of
originality on the screen. All of
which is a pertinent, if bit round
about introduction TO an interview
with Creighton Hale.
Hale is not copy-cat. Actor
Since early boyhood, ard son of a
prominent English actor, he had dis
sected and learned to use with dis
erection every trick of his profession
long before most of the present movie
crop discovered" or ADOPTED them.
II believe few producers and di-
rectors realize how deeply the pub
lie is beginning TO resent monotonous
limitation in pictures. amounting in
some quarters TO positive loathing,"
opined Hale, crisp, genial blond of
the motive type, who 81 the moment
is playing the young barrister in
G0ldwyn's rendition of Gaines Mas
ter Of Man"
1T is, of course, no easy thing to
avoid the stereotyped manner. When
young men and women of the screen
almost daily watch the performances
of their stage elders and betters, the
tendency TO copy their ORDINATIONS
is almost irresistible. 'lieve every
against it. For myself, | stay away
from the movies on that account.
And j never go to play in which
there is character or role similar
10 one I'm taking on. l will not take
a.chance at unconsciou' influence.
For while a great deal of imita-
ton is deliberate, part of it in the
films as in writing and other pro-
fessions, is unconscious-bits of act
ing, tricks of expression, technical de-
tails garnered here and there and
popping out under the mask of
originality.
S'Of course, the personal manner
must be somewhat guided by dra-
matte requirements. Originality has
rather close limitations for the screen
actor. And it is only when tricks
and mannerisms are obvious steals
from another, or when a whole school
of imitators parade them through pic
ture after picture, that the practice
becomes positively nauseous."
Creighton Hale will seldom read
book from which his role is taken.
$50 much of the book" he explains,
lis usually sliced out in making the
picture script that it is simply con-
fusing to become familiar with the
original text. You get a fixed idea
of what you're to do in certain scenes,
and then the director may tell you
he's cut these scenes o.. totally"
Hale's mother in England wanted
him to become banker, and to this
day isn't reconciled to his stage career.
Creighton himself isn't quite satisfied
either, although he has a fine collec-
ton OF screen laurels. He wants to
be an electrical engineer. and swears
he's going to be yet. though at present
he confines the inclination to tinker
ing with his auto.
Man never is, but always to be
blest-isn't that he way It goes?