The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1946-06-07

with a pine cone. and it was one
Of the funniest things we have
seen in a long time. He was a
little black mongrel about six
weeks old, perhaps two months,
about as big as a understood
rabbit. But just as children can
imagine almost anything, this
little pup seemed to imagine
himself as a four-hundred pound
tiger, or something of that sort;
perhaps a ferocious timber wolf,
or maybe even the King of the
Jungle, old Leo himself.
He came creeping up on the
pine cone, wriggling on his
stomach through the grass. When
he was about three feet away
he would crouch for a long time
and then sail into it, biting and
yapping and chasing back and
forth in imaginary fury. The
pine cone rolled and bounced,
and in the pups Imagination
it probably became some great
jungle beast fighting back for
its life. There was a great yap-
| ping and growing and a stirring
| of dust. And then the little dog
would run off and hide, and be-
gin to creep through the grass
to do it all over again. II does
not sound sc funny when it is
described in words, but it was
highly amusing to watch.
THIS LITTLE INCIDENT GOT
us thinking, as we went along,
about how many countless little
dramas and farces are played
out in daily life that really have
more entertainment value than
the average run of artificial
trash and forced humor one
sees in the movies or hears over
the radio. What if some good
camerman, we thought, had
been lucky enough to be pres
ent with his equipment when
the pup began his mock battle
with the pine oDne. Wouldn't
this have made a wonderful bit
of film? So far as the acting
went, it was absolutely perfect.
There was not a false note, for
the pup of course, had no idea
that he was acting. People would
have laughed because it would
have reminded them of their own
imaginary heroics for as the
scientists found out long ago,
men laugh at animals because
they do SO many things which
seem to be a tke-off on the hu-
man race.
1t occurred to us then that some
fellow has already thought up
this idea about sneaking up on
animals with a camera-in fact
it is an old one. Pete Smith, who
produces movie shorts called
pete Smiths Sp~ecialties,' does
! it often, and SO does the funny
| man with the moustache and
accent, Lew Lehr, the fellow
who says Monkeys it'll the
cwaziest peoplesl'
why is IT. WE WONDER.
fthat no one has ever thought OF
making movies of natural peo-
pie in the same manner? To turn
Lew Lehr's statement around,
/! peoples it'll sometimes the eva
siest monkeys Sometimes the
newsreef cameraanen make a
af-hearted stab at this idea.
the effort to photograph ordina-
ry ,run-of-thermill beings in their
native hsbitats-but they do it
very poorly. When some house
wife wins a lottery prize they
drag her before a camera and give
her a little written speech to
make, but this becomes a highly
self-oonscious procedure, and
very artificial *. /
If they could only take real
people doing the things that real
people do-without makeup,
without acting, without glamor-
Gus movie clothes and artificial
backgrounds think they could
make a great movie out of the
material. 1t would be, of course, |
an extremely difficult thing to do;
it would take patience, skill and !
long effort. But the results
would be something entirely new
in movies, and the effect of see
ing real people doing real things
would probably have a surprising
result on movie patrons.
For what we see flickerine
across the screen under pres.
ent conditions are not human
beings. or even good limitations
of human beings. but the r
shadows of people who were
only limitations TO begin with.
Two thousand years ago > very
wise old Greek, Plato the Phil
osopher. used that COMPARE
son in describing Athenian
life. and the figure still holds
good today. Not all movies fail
TO capture reality. but the
great majority of them do. In