Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-20

TU5T because the club womer
of the Nation decided Il
send a representative tx
Hollywood to oversee movie
matters before the pictures reach
the paying public does not mean
that these pictures of the future
are to become "high-brow." From
various quarters fears were ex-
pressed that the permanent rep
resentative of the club women
who is Mrs. T. G.. Winters, might
seek to change our screen enter
tainment in such a way as to
make it suitable only for the in
telligentsia or for the younger
generation. Will Hays, Gear" of
the producers and exhibitors. ad-
mitted that he was favorable to
the ideas Of the club women and
that he would do everything with
in his power to assist the repre-
sentative in Hollywood.
Now comes Mrs. Winter with O
statement that she is not a re-
former, a censor nor a critic. She
also denies (Which will be blow
to certain critics. that immortality
is threatening the films. Her OBJ
lection to the present pictures is
banality. There is no woman's
viewpoint" she says. "It is all
toSh that women'S minds are any
different from mems. What the
men want in movies, the women
also want. Their interests along
this particular line are very much
the same, except that women are
more practical than men and less
dependent. / think the photoplay
producers, until recently, have I'M
dereStimated the mass of people,
and I think that the So-called
common people have more astute-
ness than the intelligentSia, who
usually have a few pet formulas
that they think by and insist upon
judging everything accordingly,
by anything but the taste Of the
common people. No work OF art
has ever been perpetuated by the
Judgment of high-brows."
There is considerable mystery
as to how Mrs. Winters, who was
selected at a meeting of the club
women in Nav York, expects to
go about her work of improving
the movies. Although she will
have the advertised aid of Mr..
Hays, she will be working almost
alone around those terrible studios
OF Hollywood. Will she, within G.
short time, acquire the Hollywood
viewpoint Or will she become a
sort of motion picture Carrie Ma
ton, swinging a figurative Ratchet
and allowing the movie chips to
fall where they may? Anyway.
we shall be sitting back and
awaiting changes in the scheme
of things, a-flutter regarding the
whole future 1t is this writer's
contention that the movies are
getting better from day to day.
All this comes about naturally. If
the producer turns out a poor
product, the public itself is not
the big sufferer. John J. Public
simply turns thumbs down and
goes on about his more important
business. The picture goes into
the red side of the producing COM
pany'S ledger. Good pictures, as
a natural course of events, mean
good box Office business. How can
it pay the producer to turn out
a stream of poor film attractions
any more than it would pay a
Shopkeeper to sell poor-quality
goods? Sounds logical, does it not?
And the public has demonstrated
time and again that it will not
hand out good cash for poor en-
tertainment, although it will go to
the very lining of the pocketbook
for something that is especially
worthwhile.
FOLLOWING the success of such
pictures as "Movietone Fol-
lies" and Hollywood Revue" the
New Orleans Frolic'' is billed for
exhibition one, of these days-and
such a list of stars! Among those
scheduled to show their parlor
tricks are Will Rogers, Tom Patri-
cola, Stepin Fetchit. Victor Nc
Laglen, Walter Catlett, William
Collier, Charles Farrell, George
JesSel, Warner Baxter, George
MacFarlane, Edmund Lowe, George
O'Brien, Marjorie White, Nick
Stuart and Henry Kolker. The
picture is being made on. the
Movietone lot at Hollywood.
~ \
SOME of the rules of the State
censors have played havoc
with the exhibitors and their pic
lures. For instance, week or two
ago "The Cock-Eyed World" was
offered in Pittsburgh, and, al
though the picture was ruled
proper for screening, certain parts
of the dialogue we're ordered
out" There was nothing to do
but get busy with the synchroni-
cation apparatus, and the screen
entertainment, when it finally
reached the audience, was pecu-
liar to behold. Not an inch of
the film was cut, so there were
certain parts where the players
we're speeches.. Their lips moved,
but they were dumb; and then,
suddenly, they started talking
again.
This was what the censors de-
clared proper for the people of
Pittsburgh. In other cities, parts
of the film were cut, together with
the dialogue, so that 1.-THE Cock
TTxyAI rAoAiual - -