Judge — December 13, 1930 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

| | OVIE COMPANIES lost something M like half a billion dollars this year, That is just a drop in the bucket to the boys and does not represent only the discontent of na- tive customers, because out of that must be taken the cost of wide film and other new gadgets, as well as translation into the Scandinavian, transportation to Peru and Tibet, and expenses and salaries for the Will Hays organization. However, it is cnough to cause the boys some worry, and they have decided that sex must come back with a bang. So far the only manifestation of this drive to put sex on an old-fashioned has shown itself in the adver- rents of the celluloid corpora- tions, Such titles as “A Lady's Mor- als” and “The Virtuous Sin” are billed as graphic descriptions of the facts of life when, as a matter of fact, they are as misleading as the ballyhoo for a che The bally- hoo is sexy enough, but the perform- ance inside the tent is just about as erotic as the inter-office correspon- dence of the U. Treasury Depart- ment. I do not want to set myself up as an authority on the subject, but it seems to me that the boys have too long fooled the public with their nancy attempts at titillation, and the customers are no longer interested. For a long time press-agents were able to convince the provinces that Hollywood was a city of iniquity equaled only by Alexandria in. its gaudiest days, and the boys and girls went, not to see the movies, but the movie actors and to gloat over the probable orgies which took place in their Beverly Hills bagnios. It is true that a few million people still will go to see a good necking act, but now that sound has interfered with sex there are a few hundred thousand of the more adult population who find the superficial drama and prep school ideas of eroticism that p hooch show. JUDGE By prevail in the ordinary movie more than tiresome. The producers are making a great mistake in billing their movies as red hot simply because it is not possible to give a hundred million people Freud and make them like it. Already the W.C.T.U., finding itself outweighed by Al Capone and the last election, has turned to the movies for a job, and this noble organi petitioning Congress for Federal Censorship Board. The producers play right into“their hands. When they produce a gal with a nice figure and a boy with dimples and broad shoulders, and tangle them up before the camera, they hope the customers will get the same r W.C.T.U. Unfortunately, all of us are not built that way, and they can't expect to pay dividends from the W.C.T.U. trade. The best comedians in the world are kicking around Hollywood, and, even with sound, I should think a few old- fashioned comedies would be as profit- ble as the half-way smut that is now ing shoved over the counter. Will ays and the girls simply will not let them be really bold, and the compro- mises keep enough people away from the theatres to swell that big deficit the hoys have this year. Either they set ation is ction as the Recommended “A Lady's Morals." The very lovely Grace Moore makes it worth while “Billy the Kid." The best of the Westerns. “Feet First." Old-fashioned Harold Lioyd and very funny in places. “Hell's Angels.” Marvelous flying and quite a girl, one Miss Harlow. “Laughter.” The best comedy of the year “O:d English.” Tolerable show, with George Arliss. The White Hell of Pitz Palu sometimes exciting German pi nt, thank God, one-man JUDGWG TeMOVIES up a few expensive smaller theatres and try to develop a small but intelli- gent patronage, or else they lose that patronage and quite a bit of money. It would be possible to produce plays that might more profundity and less necking in them than any present productions, but for some reason ‘the club girls who okayed “The Cock- eyed World” know that the author who uses real emotions and not dirty words is putting something over on them, and it irks them. I know one director who wants to pro- duce “An American Tragedy” and an- other who has petitioned his company for’Strange Interlude.” I do not know that cither of them would be forceful on the screen or even whether it is possible to produce them, but I do know that the D.A.R. objects to “An American Tragedy” and any number of people to “Strange Interlude,” and the producers have bowed to the hounds of morality. either produc- tion might bring them millions of cus- tomers, but they would broaden the film market and that, I believe, is a fundamental of corporation salesman- ship. F you want to get a good compari- ‘on of silence and sound, see “Tol- ble David.” Eight years ago the silent version ¢ a strong, simple story of life on the Tug River that was logical and dramatic. The talk- ing version follows the old story im- plicitly, which is the first mistake. It builds up no explanation of the char- acter of the people, it moves slowly and without effect, and the actors take a wild chance at talking like Logan County hill-billies and = succeed in sounding like so many interior deco- rators, ; 1x anv Bitt” is a desperate at- tempt to graft water-front hu- mor to water-front tragedy. The re- sult is a drab miscarriage. comicbooks.com