The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-03-14
THREE LITTLE
 WORDS CUT IN
 MOVIE LOVING
There Is Good Reason, Too Those Who Know
 Speak Right Out
By ROBBIN COONS

HOLLYWOOD, March IA. = Have you been missing those three little words in movie dialogue lately?
 You have, and there's a reason. Screen dialogue writers will go to desperate lengths to avoid having characters say T love you" in so many words. Most of them agree that tender passion makes the toughest dialogue.
 Sam Hellman eschews 'I love you" because it's "the hardest thing in the world to get an actress to say those three words convincing ly" And if it isn't done convinc- ingly you get laugh.
 Lamar Trotti concurs. Says he: All scenes are hard to write and the love dialogue particularly so. Romantic scenes are difficult to keep within bounds. Unless you watch your step. they're apt to go sour, mauldlin and overly senti- mental In Tn Old Chicago the love dialogue between Alice Faye and Tyrone Power was much easier be- cause we had the elements of an- tagonism and humor to set off the love interest"
 Takes Ingenuity
 Sonya Levien, who co-authored the screen play of Tn Old Chicago with Trotti, is of the same mind: Personally, I find that more in- genuity and effort is required in writing these (love) scenes than in all others. Nowadays, the action may say I love you but not the words"
 Working on State Fair" Miss Levien took more time on one love scene than on any other sequence in the film.
 Richard Sherman dissents but slightly: Any scene dealing with deep and profound emotion is diff cult; and love, I find, is a harder to treat intelligently in writing than death, sudden disaster and other occurrences in life that shock and move the heart They are all hard. in fact"
 But Ernest Pascal insists the love stuff is easy if it is honest and sincere. If the love scene or any other situation is synthetic and contrived, it is the most difficult to get down.
 All Scenes Tough
 Morrie Ryskind ("Stage Door, , There's Always a Woman" etcD concurs in spirit but won't take sides: All scenes are tough. The next scene in the picture is always i the toughest"
 Sidney Buchman c'Vacation Bound') finds one scene like an- other-equally difficult If consci- cautiously approached The writer who finds a particular scene ap- parently easy to handle should examine it suspiciously for cliches he declares.
 Gladys Lehman opines that the most difficult thing is to get ''effec- i tive naturalness" with the economy of wordage imposed by film tech- nique-in love scene or any other.
 Love Is Dangerous
 And John Lee Mahin holds that the best love scene is the one with the least dialogue.
 Dialogue" says Mahin, is al- ways dangerous in love scenes. The least lack of balance can betray a I tender passage into raucous merri- ment."
 The veteran H. J. Mankeiwic7 sums it up aptly:
 Love scenes are incredibly hard to 6ialogue-even when they're 1 on the level-as when boy is actually trying, in real life, to make ! love to some girl. And don't know why art should be any easier than nature. The ability to carry off love 1 scenes must carry with it the abili- 1 ty to believe yourself in love while you are writing. It's quality that many an otherwise fine writer i lacks"
 1 It wouldn't be Hollywood ii Nick Thompson, who for 29. years