Judge — September 18, 1920 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Closed Ear HEN everybody inside an industry sits around tell- 1d and wise and artistic spade scores, when it can and di There’s just one such jou’ That is called “W influences in the entire industry ning, started out calling a spac jon picture exhibitor. not because he wanted to, but because he honestly had to. And then, when he could and did boost, his boost carried a kick like a mule’s hind leg ing everybody else how and beautiful and efficient and economical and busi- ness-like and progressive and just creat they all are— ide the industry says how poor and puerile and everyboc and piffling it i It’s not quit t's time to take notice. it’s plenty bad enough can mention. Tell a movie man that nearly all pictures are still hardly more than juvenile, and he'll merely look at you pityingly out of his great big beautiful eyes before tuming on his heel to he is disposed to argue the with his own violent walk away. Unl that matter—convincing himself arguments. That's unhealthy. anew it’s a calamity. ‘ou can form a pretty good esti- ate of a man’s attainments from the way he takes or rejects criti . The small man, the incompetent man, can’t stand it. The average man tolerates it —with some difficulty and the exercise of proper self-restraint. But the really great man welcomes it. Open-mind edly. Weighing it for what it is worth Same way with an” industry. The degree to which it accepts honest criti cism is a fair criterion of its devel- opment According to that, the movies are still pretty close to their swaddling clothes. “Don't knock—boost!”” i that has to be scrutinized pretty c fully. Without criticism—if everything has to be considered good enough as it is ‘ou get no progress. Moreover, the man—or industry— that always “boosts” soon loses weight; the “boosts” lack punch; they mean nothing. Look at the “boosting” reviews of motion pictures in trade journals and small dailies—y din most of the big city papers, too—and see how much weight they carry. Practicall¥ none. as bad as that in the movies, where there's big improvement during the past few years; but Asa whole, the picture industry is more impervious to criticism, yet resents it more, than any other you It’s bad enough for an individual to resent and reject honest criticism; with jan industry that reaches and intluences millions on millions of human beings By Myron M. Stearns (“LeNso”) and waxed great. Unfortunatel: it increasingly apt to ring home. though still far in advance of an punch they once contained. but they speak more softly, and the noble truth isn’t quite so But the trade journal that can and does call a spade a 's boost, a hit every time. in the movies, so far as I know. 1's,”" and it has been one of the healthiest Its proprietor, “Wid” Gun spade, for the benefit of the Nine pictures out of ten he knocked; and under favoring stars he prospered with increasing prosperity “Wid” has found ifficult to remain as peppery as formerly, and y others, his reviews lack the They try to voice the same truth, Today, no intelligent, well-posted, observant human being can wander into movie palaces at random without being struck in spite of the admitted improvement of the past years by the extreme mediocrity (to put it gently) of the product Pictures Worth Seeing: SUDS Good Pickford character-story. THE NOTORIOUS MISS LISLE Better than the name THE MUTINY OF THE ELSINORE Realistic Jack London stuff. A CUMBERLAND ROMANCE‘ A truly artistic picture. THE JACK-KNIFE MAN Amusing tale of old men and a boy. THE WHITE CIRCLE Melodrama, artistically filmed. HUMORESQUE* “Heart interest" story of Hebrew life. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT De Mille science film. EARTH-BOUND Death by double exposure. THE MOLLYCODDLE Pleasant Fairbanks foolishness. THE LOVE FLOWER Colorful Griffith melodrama. THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE* A tragedy of gossip. *Exceptionally good. 22 on the screen. Here and there he may find a picture of real value; he'll certainly find plenty of no value. Let him look up, if he has time, the “reviews” of some of those hopeless photoplays—and sce if he agrees with the “optimistic” critics. But wait a minute. In a current magazine is a story in which we find: d ile ndmother muttering “blood Her brutish son His wife. crippled through his brutal- ity. ” Their half-witted child, who catches yellow butterflies to pin on the wall. A man is murdered near the shack where these four pleasant people live. When officers come to arrest the hus- band, he accuses his half-wit son. After the officers have taken the son, the crippled wife accuses her brutish husband, and he murders her with an axe, while his mother mutters “blood!” The wife dies happy, knowing this second murder will get her husband hung. A yellow butterfly lights on her dead breast. The End. ‘ Well, maybé,the movies aren’t so bad, after all. In fact, I think they're pretty good.