Evening star., 1923-09-22
VILLA|NLESS FILM
LIKELY IN FUTURE
Screen Cannot Have Bad
Men Without Offending,
Say Producers.
BY ROBERT n. SMALL.

Special Dispatch to The star M
NEW YORK, September a2.--A
dreadful vacancy of villains and a
famine of funny men confront the
movies. The heads of the producing
organizations centered in New York,
but with studios and locations" all
over the country, are not alarmed
over the protest of a farmers conven-
tion held in Chicago against the por-
traying of the man of the soil as a
"hick," They say that the farm type
. portrayed on the stage and on the
films never was Knockout" at best.
and they are only too glad to fall in
with the request of the farm organi-
cation that the "hick" with straw
sticking out of his ears and his
mouth and pants stuffed into red
. topped boots shall be taboo in the
future.
Most of the successful comedians of
the screen are successful because they
are themselves not because they take
on the disguise OF farmers, or Irish
men, or any of the other types which
have ed~forth protests from time
TO time. Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chap
lin. Larry Semon and all the other
first ranking comedians of the films
are always themselves, no matter
What the situation or surroundings.
Lack of Villains.
But with the villains il is different.
There really is a dearth of desperate
: men and the movie producers are rap
idly approaching the point where
villains will have to be eliminated
from all nlOtS OF pOmrSa ba u.onId
be against all the traditions of the
stage. Heavy" roles always have
heen demanded both in the drama and
on the screen. But what with first
opportunities for villainous action are
being so restricted that the art
threatens to die of inanition.
The farm organizations say that If
farmers must be depicted on the
screen, they should be painted in true
modern colors-well dressed. opulent
appearing and stepping always from
a well-groomed flivver of a Rolls
Royce or something equally effective.
And so il is with the far west.
out there they want no more bad
men" pictured as roaming the plains
and shooting up the towns. They say
the only real bad men in the country
today live in Chicago and New York.
The Mexican government at one
5 time and another has protest ed
against the policy of making Mexi-
cans always the villains in border
dramas reproduced on the silver
sheet. 1t was even intimated at one
time that so long as the Mexican was
held up to infamy on the screen there
was no chance of an aceord between
the United States and her sister re-
public to the south. So Mexican bad
men" have also been largely elimi-
mated by the responsible producers
Recent Spy Pictures
The Japanese government has felt
more or less incensed from time TO
time because Japanese generally
has been pictured as the spy" in
screen productions of war OF near
war. %@f
The Italian government doesn't like
the Kisses for the villain to fall
upon it's citizens. 1t also objects to
yes. we have too many bananas and
banana merchants as representative
Of the life and ambitions of thet1tal-
ian people. ~---.---- --
And so it goes all down the line.
One classFobjectMt6s this and another
class objects to that, until the scena-
their wits ends SO many restric-
tions and inhibitions have been
thrown around latter-day stories
written for perturbation that it is
small wonder the producers are fall
ing back as much as possible upon
hiSloTlC rOmanceS ana novels that
passed public censorship long ago.
These, at least. they regard as safe.
But the most amusing, and at the
same time most insistent protests that
come against the villains are from
those screen patrons who resent the
casting of their favorite actor in a
heavy role. These protests are loud
and clamorous. The producers would
grin gleefully at such protests. ordi-
harily, but they know in their hearts
that they seriously affect the draw
ing power of the film.