The Washington times., 1929-04-18
.GLEANINGS
SCREENINGS
By ANDREW r. KELLEY

aAC pOhHS hVP~ANA AAhBGL
into the movie business, asks.
"Isn't it just as easy to pick
the wrong picture to produce
as it is to pick the wrong play? ?"
With few, if any, available
statistics at hand on the per-
centage of screen failures. l
would say, 0ffhand, Eyes"
D. w. Griffith, in the .heighth
of his Birth OF a Nation" glory,
interested thousands of "iust
folks" in the fortune to be made
in making motion pictures. Tr;-
angle Pictures, which was the
Griffith hope for the thrifty in
vestor, proved a dismal failure,
and his own fortune was swept
away in the financial disaster.
All the Griffith genius for direc-
tion and talent for story selec-
tion failed to save it.
Enrico Caruso, at the pinnacle
CT his singing glory (but before
the sound picture era), proved
a costly experiment as a picture
star for Paramount.
Ed Wynn, just signed by
George White for a new musical
comedy at $500 per week,
made a picture called "Ruboer
Heels" It was a silent picture
and everybody concerned, includ-
ing Ed, now prefers silence
about it.
Ann Pennington, while Zieg-
field star, went West and tried
her charms before the camera.
She was a flop. Now she is
in Hollywood again, hopeful that
the sound films will transpose
her into a screen success.
F. w. Murnau, one of the
most artistic of the foreign
directors, made Sunrise" for
William Fox. The feature drew
adulation from serious-minded
cinema critics but was a finan-
cial failure. The Fox company
was not interested in exercising
an option on the Murnau con-
tract and he will return to
Europe.
Eric Won Stroheim is ad-
mittedly one Of the greatest Of
the foreign directors. but his
pictures are consistently a poor
bOx-office product. Greed"
one of the finest of the Won
Stroheim features, won pages
of praise but few dividends for
exhibitors or producer. Para
mount spent a young fortune to
produce wedding March" which
after merciless cutting to make
it fit into the regulation pro-
gram, was anything but a 81
picture. Here is a superlative
director whose talent is not
congenially adjusted to produce
ing films that pay.
Jack Dempsey, with all his
boasted popularity with a tre-
mendous sports public, was a
movie bust. So was Gene Tun-
ney. Babe Ruth's Hollywood
champions found that "Babe
Comes Home" the home-run
clouter's effort to become a
camera star, could not lure the
film fans to the ticket windows.
Ruth Elder, fresh from her
cross-Atlantic triumph, was a
Gold Coast failure. So was
Gertrude (Trudy) Ederle. Ethel
Barrymore had her brief fling
in pictures without creating a
stir. Tex Guinan made wild
westerns for the five and ten
houses and never caused the
uproar her night club activities
have aroused.
Charlie Ray, we'll on the way
to a seven-figure fortune, sunk
it all, every dollar in "The Court
ship of Myles Standish," his own
idea of a great picture.
The Selznicks lost power and
fortune trying to pick out and
produce the right pictures.
Elsie Ferguson, admittedly one
of the worlds most beautiful
women, remained on the movie
lots until the public refused to
buy her pictures.
"Old Ironsides," on which
Paramount spent fortune, did
not return a reasonable profit
on the great investment. Fail
ure of the flapper trade to en-
thuse over Emil Jannings, con-
sidered by many the greatest
actor before the camera today,
has made his pictures just mild
successes They draw bigger
audiences abroad.
There are hundreds in the
u. S. Government departments
here who have souvenirs in the
shape of stock certificates for
a picture called DETERMINATION"
whose producers promised it
would be a superspecial and
earn everybody fabulous re-
turns. Finally completed, every
body concerned lost money.
Warner Brothers signed Fan
ME Brice and she made My
Man." a sound picture. Now
she has been signed by United
Artists. Why did she switch
companies?
"Abie's Irish Rose," as a film,
will never approach the success
of that Anne Nichols play.
These are a few instances, set
down without research, of pic
lures and stars, which have
failed to pan gold for the pro-
ducers as expected. To return
to our mutton: isn't it just as
easy to pick the wrong picture
to produce as it is to pick the