Evening star., 1926-12-12
Flashes From the Screen
BY G. e. NELSON.

"clinch fadeouts" and the Pollyanna
endings. This is pretty tiresome to
the movie fan; it was all right for
the first few years, before the de-
velopment of the screen industry as
a new art, but the storymakers have
not kept pace with modern affairs.
The producers who tack on the
sweet nothings for the customers
turn back into the account books
and refer to such pictures as "Greed'
when one starts to argue with them.
This photoplay-stark realism and
wonderful picture-was not a big
box Office attraction. 1t cost much
money to produce, but it did not
draw any amount of ready cash into
the Golfers of the exhibitors. For
Greed did not draw, the producers
turned thumbs down on such efforts.
However. the logical solution to
the problem seems to be in liberal
application of common sense. All
pictures do not require the happy
endings, and some of hem are
ruined when the directors move to-
ward that plan. AS an illustration.
one might recall "Manon Lescaut."
the Ufa film first exhibited in Wash
ington. The happy ending put it
into the storehouse with the "fops."
The German producers had been
warned that American movie audi
ences demanded the "clinch end
ings."
Why not get away from any
hard-and-fast rule concerning the
endings of photoplays? Why not
make the ending in accord with the
story. If the only man" and the
beautiful lady" are expected to live
happily ever afterward, the picture
can end with the half-Nelson against
the setting sun; if war is declared
in the last scene, the average audi
ence would not object to them
throwing radios and freless cookers
at each other.
1t is really the story, and the
"g.ad" fadeout never made a box
Office attraction, regardless of what
the producers contend.
CARL LAEMMLE and his press
~ department of Universal can be
depended upon to bring out new
publicity idea every once in a while.
The latest is group of awards to
be known as the Carl Laemmle-Vlc-
tor Hugo scholarships. They will
be given for essays on Hugo's mas
terpiece, LES Miserables." DR..
Nicholas Murray Butler is to become
one of the group who will rule on
the relative merits of candidates for
scholarships. There will be IL
awards, the highest amounting to
$1,000, and the total amount given
out will be $1,000.
THE progress of the motion pic
l. ture industry now goes into
tapestry. Sol Lesser has ordered,
from the Gobelins people a big
woven picture which will require
from three to FIVE, years to COM
plete. The still" of motion picture
history will be Is feet long and IA
feet wide. the main design repre-
senting "in striking symbolic form
or pageant the chief screen tri-
umphs and the development of the
motion picture industry" And per-
haps the gigantic tapestry will
carry likenesses of such we'll known
screen characters as Charlie Chap
lin. Bill Hart. Doug Fairbanks and
Harry Langdon. Who knows?
THE Germans have produced an
i other super film called Maya,
the Life of the Bee" and the pic
ture is said to be hit in London.
This offers all sorts of opportuni-
ties for American producers who go
in for the unusual Why not big
spectacle on "Adolph. the Career of
a Boil Weevil," or Celia, the Won
der Story of Champion Broad
jumping Flea!
Under the Studio Lights.-From
~ London comes the news that
Dorothy Gish was ordered out of
Hyde Park by the boobies while
making a scene in her new picture.
Then she appealed unsuccessfully
for more latitude for British films"
Carl Akeley. who died recently at
Kabale, Uganda, British East Africa,
was one of the pioneers of the mo-
ton picture industry, his speciality
being the photographing of wild
animals in their native haunts. He
was collecting specimens and MAX
ing motion pictures for the American
Museum of Natural History when