Pictures (August 1926)

Revivals Aren’t Always a Pleasure $15 PRIZE LETTER Dear Editor: Pictures has had so much praise heaped upon it through the pages of the Mail-Bag that there is very little one can say without repeating oneself. I like your magazine especially because, more than any other, it makes an effort to draw its It throws out bait to them, people want to go and have their precious dreams dissipated, let them go. But I do urge people to think twice before they go in and lose forever a treasured illusion. Sincerely, 92 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, New York. Janet Morse, More Real Ths Real Life $10 PRIZE LETTER ‘readers into the inner circle. and draws back their opinions. Your editorial on reviving old pictures was especially provocative. Theoretically, I am as enthusiastic about the idea as anyone. I often think with a sigh of ‘Where the Pavement Ends,” “The Kid,” and a few others that have given.us neverto-be-forgotten hours. With so many other people I say, “If only they would revive that one!’ But as soon as you try to put the plan into practice, its glamor disappears. You know how it is to meet someone you knew and admired years ago. With a sickening disappointment you almost always find that you have changed— if she hasn’t—you have grown away. from your enthusiasms of yesterday, and qualities that seemed charming to you then have lost their power to interest you. You go from the meeting with a sense of disillusionment, saying, “Oh I wish I had just gone on remembering her as I used to know her!” Old pictures are like that—except that the danger of disappointment is even greater. Because there is always the possibility that your friend will have grown up to you and kept ent tO een Oo This Page is an Open Forum T matters tremendously what you think about everything that has anything to do with motion pictures. Write us frankly about your reactions to either the stars or the: productions themselves. You must have many theories, many prejudices, many enthusiasms, that you would like to give voice to. For every letter we publish we will pay five dollars. Tell us what you think about things. get the better pleased we will be. And what do you think about PICTURES? We are curious about this too. Tell us what you like best about it and what you dislike about it. Also, what you would like to see in it that is not there now. Please help us with your suggestions. We want to publish what the readers want. Every month we will print two letters which come from our readers about this publication. For the best letter we will pay fifteen dollars and for the next best etter we will pay ten dollars. —THE EDITOR. The more letters we Dear Editor: Your magazine is a very important factor in my life. It is hard to believe, I suppose, that some people are so much alone that the imaginary people and events of the moving-pictures are more real to them than their own lives. But this is true in my case, and I look forward to Picrurss as I would to letters or other news from my own friends. It is not the best way to live, perhaps, but if it is necessary you can get as much thrill out of the events that take place on the screen, and the lives of these magical people as they are revealed in magazines, as you could if you yourself were the fortunate one to live in such splendor and delight. The many pictures you publish are a delight to me, and the intimate news, but what I like best of all are the interviews in which we hear these people speak for themselves. That is the reason why I think “The Editor Gossips” is the finest thing in the magazine—because it brings you into such close and authentic, personal contact with the stars. Please have this department always, and longer! A devoted reader, her attractions on a level with the times. But what hope has the poor picture? Styles change, and they simply can’t be ignored. No matter how seri ously you may want to take your eae. movie fare, I defy you to abandon yourself titterly to some emotional scene which is being acted. in: the costumes of 1918. After three years, the subtlety and humor of “The Marriage Circle” was considerably marred by the weird looking women involved in it. You are quite apt to. find that the actress who seemed beautiful to you in 1920 is just a frump when exposed to the gaze of 1926. And there is a new technique, new standards of picture-making with which to compare the old—not always favorably. - Then there is the purely mechanical side of it. Films aren’t made to last. That may come, but at present a film is very short-lived. Anyone who has gone into a theater expecting to : taste again the delights of some favorite film, and has found ee ae eT We Set his beloved cut, positively butchered, in the worn out places, spotted, and flickering and jumping epileptically, will know what I mean. Last summer I saw a revival of “Scaramouche” that was acute agony for me. I have heard that Rex Ingram works with such very soft lighting that his pictures don’t even have the life-span of the ordinary film. A sad fact for me, as my t of revivals would be largely composed of Rex Ingram. Of course I don’t want to argue against the revival of old ures. After all, I don’t have to go to them, and if other a Mat Raymond, R. F. D., Enfield, Massachusetts. Wi hen Those Who Come to Mock, Remain to Write $5 PRIZE LETTER Dear Editor: In the midst of all this controversy as to what’s the matter with the movies and why there aren’t more stories available— original stories—I have a theory to offer. No doubt a foolish one, but it seems sound to me. I think the whole trouble is the reputation for cheapness and commercialism that the movies have managed to blight themselves with. No good writers will take them seriously. You will notice that whenever a fine, established writer goes to Hollywood, he apologizes for himself by taking cracks at the movies, and if he patronizingly consents to write a script, he does so with the intimation that he is doing his very worst work—as if to say, ‘““My poorest moments are better than the best that moving-picture people can do.” He wants their money, yet feels that he is avoiding the ‘‘stigma”’ of being connected with movies, by derision and poor work. I was especially impressed with this after reading Joseph Hergesheimer’s reflections on Hollywood. When he wrote his first original story for the screen, ‘Flower of Night,”’ he took the attitude that I have described. He casually and carelessly wrote a story, giv— ing no thought to the requirements of (Continued on page 95) —