The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-22
FLASHES and
CLOSE-UPS
RE LENS

other night Of two Soviet films
to q crew Of Hollywood professionals
at the Paramount Eastern Service
| Studios, Astoria, L. I. The major
ity Of the group Of spectators had
never seen a Soviet film before and
the reactions were interesting. For
the most part these fabulously paid
/ people live and think in a vacuum.
To them, stuffy studios, decadent
luxury and Malibu Beach are the
only realities. Some, like Ben Hecht
for instance, are downright intellec-
tual harlots who have given up all
! pretense at honesty and turn out
distortions like THE Front Page" at
so much per scenario. (Hecht, who
together with Macarthur is direct
ing a piece of kitsch at the Eastern
Studio, was PRESENT.
Others, and these form the ma
iority, are synthetic souls far re-
moved from the turbulent currents
Of the realities that are shaking
the world about them and who are
almost naive in their ignorance of
anything outside Of their circum-
scribed artificial world years of
participation in the weaving of
fairytales and bluff on celluloid for
mass consumption have made them
that way A few Of these were
present.
An extremely rare few Il can
count them on the fingers of my
two hands, are genuine artistic
creators who have compromised and
are holding on to Hollywood in the
dim hope of being given chance"
to produce something away from
the idiotic Hays formulas. Such
man is Slavko Vorkapich, who for
seven years has been trying to ap-
ply his brilliantly original ideas in
the midst of apathy, mediocrity,
ridicule. Only his remarkable abil-
ity as a consulting expert on "spe-
cial effects" which make his serv-
ice almost indispensable at times,
has permitted him to survive in
that most arid Of capitalist creative
centers, Hollywood
Slavko Vorkapich was also pres
ent at this showing. 1t was at his
invitation that Hecht and his wife
came. After squirming restlessly in
his chair during the showing of
Yutkevitch's Golden Mountains.
Hecht remarked in a cynically wise
cracking VEIN That thing could
| stand the scissors I've ALWAYS
contended that the Russians don't
make the propaganda obvious
enough They don't lay it on
thick enough
What most impressed Benny in
Golden Mountains" was the pure.
ly muscular impact of the brawl in
the last reel. Much in the same
way that eight-year ODDS are moved
by final reckonings with villains in
Hollywood westerns" You can
now get somewhat of an angle on
the profound brain that pictured
radical in Front Page" as a patho-
logical specimen At for the padded
cell.
\ CASTING director present dur
ing the screening became gen.
timely interested, engaged me In
conversation and jotted down book
references on the theories of the
great Soviet directors.
A beautiful young cutting room
girl shouted in admiration of some
of the superb sequences in Vertov's
Man With The Camera" She ap-
parently enjoyed the films tremen-
dously and wanted to know why
the director made this picture?"
and why did he cut in closeup
Of a face between long shots of a
busy street," ETC., etc. To her such
films were like some revelation.
strange and fascinating.
At the end of Golden Noun
tains" Mrs. Hecht applauded wildly
and exclaimed; What beautiful
film! 1 really feel like shouting
Long Live the Soviet Union" Mrs.
Hecht is an honest, sincere woman.
and unlike her boy-friend, devoid
Of his vitriolic cynicism.
Slavko Vorkapich, who could
teach the art of the cinema to all
OF Hollywood's masters" If they
we're but capable of learning, was
so genuinely stirred by THE Man
With The Camera" that he ex-
claimed: We'll, boys! I'm packing
my things and going to the Soviet
Union!" Mrs. Vorkapich. q sentive
and intelligent woman, expressed a
similar sentiment.
AS We walked to the subway on
our way home, young Hungarian
Woodworking Sunderland let loose
and sang the international" in his
native tongue.
(Slavko Vorkapich, about whom
more will be said in this column in
the near future, has become a friend
OF the Film and Photo League
having already given concrete ex-
preston to his sympathies in the
form of a substantial donation and
a promise to lecture before the
students of the Potamkin Film
School. Red front! Comrade Vor-
kapichD