Judge — January 7, 1922 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

the fact that motion pictures are educational. We are not think- ing of the films which are specifically called that—How Near-Beer Is Made, or The Courtship of a Katydid, or Refining Crude Oil in Eastern Dela- ware. No, we have in mind the by- duct of the feature films themszlves. In particular we are referring to “R. S. V. P.,” the latest Charlie Ray picture. lt is about an artist, and gives the audi- ence an insight into studio life. All this is enormously informative to people who live along Broadway. Ap- parently we did not even know what an artist was. Personally, we have al- ways accepted the word as used here- abouts and we were under the impres- sion that an artist was anybody on a vaudeville bill who wasn’t one of the trained seals. It came to us, then, as a distinct surprise to learn that they live in gar- rets where they paint pictures and starve very pleasantly. Vaudeville artists are not a bit like that. Of course some of them paint pictures with chalk. You know, it begins with President Harding and then by adding a beard and a little shading the thing miraculously becomes General Grant before your very eyes. But we rather suspect that these men with the chalk are not artists, because it has never been our good fortune to see any one of them starve. They keep on and on. Nor do they talk of Matisse but rather of the Keith Circuit and the Loew time. They are not of the authentic, or garret type. T tet is no getting away from F WE ever decide to reduce we shall most certainly begin by hiring a garret. There seems to be little diffi- culty in going without food in such a place. Indeed, according to “R. S. V. P.,” the business of missing meals is a good joke even though carried to un- usual lengths. The people in Charlie Ray’s studio sometimes were moved to pat their stomachs to indicate empti- ness, but they invariably laughed their heads off as they didso. A visitor witha beefsteak would have been a spoil-sport. Moreover, the actual business of How to Live on Paint By Heywoop Broun painting is much more exciting than we had ever dreamed. From watching men prepare signs announcing that they would walk a mile to get a Camel or that Chesterfields satisfied, we had re- ceived the impression that making pic- tures was slow, careful, and rather la- borious work. We know better now. Real painting is not a bit like that. According to the motion pictures a painter hops around his canvas like a base runner taking a lead off second. He returns to touch it very occasion- ally, but more often he is chasing peo- ple around the room, or making love to his model. Charlie Ray can go around a film painting in half as many strokes as Ted Ray would require for a short nine-hole course. “R. S. V. P.” sug- gested that par for a masterpiece is between eleven and twelve. At any rate, after the hero had taken a dozen dabs at the canvas, a dealer came in and insulted him by offering him several thousand dollars. Natur- ally Ray refused. With all that money he would have felt an obligation to go out and eat, and that gross touch would have ended his merry life of romance. He chose wisely and kept his appetite and his ideals. N THE end our painter also found his true love, which effected an ending even more happy than usual, for it is fair to assume that at the wedding ice cream and ladyfingers and other substantial food were served for the hero to break his fast. If he had not been an artist she would never have married him, but their encounter in the studio was too romantic for her to en- dure. We wish we could remember her name. For convenience we will call her Edna, which is undoubtedly incorrect. Nevertheless, Edna was a childhood chum of the painter played by Charlie Ray. The name of the man has also slipped our mind, and so we will con- tinue to call him Charlie. One day Edna went to call on Charlie and the first fascinating fact about him and his voca- tion which she discovered was that he lived on the sixth floor and that there was no elevator. She was fairly pant- ing with joy when she reached the top. 10 To add to her delight Charlie did not recognize her but mistook her for a model who had come to answer an ad- vertisement. Next he endeared himself by speaking frankly of the manner in which she did her hair and ordering her to change it. At this point there was a recess of at least three and a half minutes in order to allow Charlie time to begin and finish a masterpiece. After the great work was finished the artist became so much wrapped up in it that he forgot to say good-by to the girl, and so naturally she went home madly in love with him. F COURSE, there were a few in- tervening complications. Charlie and his roommate went to a dance at the girl’s house. Here there were addi- tional educational touches. It seems that at all small and swagger functions the butler stands at the door and re- fuses to admit anyone unless he can produce the invitation which he re- ceived. Charlie and his roommate had only one invitation, and so naturally one of them had to go in and, after giving up his card, steal it back again in order to drop it out the window to the other. Unfortunately, the two artists also had only one tailcoat be- tween them, and that also made com- plications. These are too numerous to detail, but it all ended by Charlie and the girl and the girl’s father landing up in the studio at the head cf the six flights of stairs. And the father said that the portrait of his daughter was 2 masterpiece, and Charlie said that he would exchange the picture for the model. Evidently he had overstayed his market and despaired of getting an- other cash offer from the dealer. The picture sounds silly, and so it is, but much of it is first-rate fun. No one deserves much credit for this but Char- lie Ray. “R. S. V. P.” is a huge im- provement over “Two Minutes to Go,” but it does not utilize Ray’s talents to the full. The picture people ought to remember that he is a comedian and not a farceur. There is so much merri- ment in nothing more than his smile that it seems a wasted effort to set him to slamming doors.