Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-05
MOVIES AND MOVIE PEOPLE
By MoLLIE MERRICK.

HOLLYWOOD. Calf, January 4
Hemingway. Bronlhsld. Bernard Shaw
C1n call the season coming the better
t,ovie season" and let the bigger"
side
-i1e intelligentsia have invaded cinema
ma lufacture. Of course, that isn't say
ing that the result will be entirely in
telligent-but it's a step in the right
direction. And it points out to us at
the beginning of the second talkie year
a most amazing fact
II is this: For all its 80 or IS years
Of existence, motion pictures progressed
but little in point of formula variance
or audience education before conversa-
ton stepped in to save the day.
Audiences who saw Mary Picktcrd
cCyly pluck a rose to pieces the while
Henry Walthall Cthen a menacing gal
lsnD made meaningful love to her saw
a changed movie product as the years
went on. But these changes were due
largely TO increased knowledge of
camera angles-to the varied improve
inents made by David Wark Griffith
in the technical END o; movie making
and not to a more intelligent PLOT
treatment or more searchingly analyt-
zeal theme chosen as the basis of the
cinema tale
In one of Pola Negri's last American
made pictures. for which Buchowetzki
was imported to direct. the villain in
the piece takes advantage of the her
oines innocent ignorance. And the
novel means chosen to reveal this was
none other than a closeup of a mans
foot, grinding into the mite a spray of
lilies of the valley. 1t has only been
done few thousand times before. But
the silent audience took it big" as the
movies would say, and many a we'll
upholstered lady wiped away the furtiVe
tear. If there was an elemental charm
to this pantomime there were also the
limitations imposed by the elemental
crudeness of the medium.
The main drawback of the silent was
the exaggeration of all emotion. Or.
rather the superlative quality in which
every motion had to be played in order
to set over. There we're no dynamics-
one had to go the full swing of the
pendulum. The sarcastic husband was
the bully in silent and the irritating
wife must needs be the shrew.
Stories emerged like as peas in a
pod, and the audiences ate them up.
The audiences, sad to say, didn't prog
ress yisibly to any extent Give a group
OF people who have not enjoyed the ad-
DODuldI
concerts and, by the end of the season,
you will have a definite indication of
trend in taste. After five seasons there
Will be marked progression. A ripple
OF applause may greet anything touch
ing on the modern composers Or a
movement from symphony may bring
immediate response.
There was response from the movie
audiences. Didn't the producers know
thati Audiences wanted sex. And
more sex. And, failing to get sex plus.
they wanted to laugh So we had our
Negris and Swansons and Bows and
Carlos And we had our Laurel and
Hardy our Harry Langdons, our Charlie
Chaplin and so on. And we had our
Eliner Glyns, Bess Meredyths, Francis
Marfons and Doris Andefsons. we still
have them. At the present time they
are (all save the first flamedJ writ
ing scenario adaptations of the plays
ana novels which are being made into
talkies
A dialogue generally recruit
ed from playWrlting ranks-does the
part. sacred to his craft. The scenar-
ist Is there to protect the interests of
the camera and to see that the tale
unfolds with the exact smooth-flowing
continuity of which the talkie medium
Is Peculiarly capable. And since talk
les VIII always be as much a matter
OF camera as of microphone, there will
always be need for the scenarist.
But talk, which has carried the movie
infant out Of swaddling clothes in &C.
ord-bft aking time, has shattered some
OF the old illusions and traditions quite
ruthlessly. 1t has given US such per-
formances as Louise Closer Hale in