Photoplay/Volume 36/Issue 6/Brickbats and Bouquets

HIGH spots of the month's mail—

They're leaping on poor Lois Shirley and her article in the August issue of Photoplay about Garbo's double, all because Lois said that Greta was a bit ungainly and retiring. In the case of Garbo, the queen can do no wrong. Whatever she is, is not only all right—it's perfect.

The barrage of adoration from John Boles' admirers keeps up. So do the long and interesting letters in favor of the talkies, with a few dissenting votes. Some folks are impatient with producers for importing the Broadway actors at the expense of the old, silent favorites. And Nils Asther addicts are moaning for fear his accent will crucify him.

Many fans in smaller towns are mad on managers who put in poor talking picture apparatus and operate it incompetently.

A great grist of letters this month. Write long and often!

Last night I saw "Four Sons" for the second time. Though I am an ardent fan, I never see a film twice. So let me explain.

The first time I went to "Four Sons" I was intoxicated for the first time in my life. I got nothing out of it, and before it was over I had to be taken out of the theater by my friends.

I went again to see what my reaction would be. What a wonderfully fine picture! I shed a tear when Margaret Mann was sad. I rejoiced when her heart was glad. She made me ashamed of my condition the first time, and to think of my own mother.

I never realized my condition until I saw the picture the second time. When I think what this experience has taught me, I am resolved never to take even one drink again.

Being an enthusiast of the movie stars and of Hollywood interest, I would like to point out that I always go to cinemas, and feel tired of the same plots under different titles. I assume that new themes are very much appreciated by the public: not of the underworld dramas which are seldom passed out by the censors.

We are deprived of not seeing such pictures as "Variety, "Captain Salvation," etc., and the exhibition of such is banned here.

I think in America all are raving for talking pictures and what-not, but we out here have no such diets. Recently I went to see "Wings," which recorded a full house because this is the only sound picture which was out here that showed people in the East are also craving for such talkies.

"Old Ironsides" far surpassed many pictures. George Bancroft lent a firing interest to the story.

(A shock to all of us. So that's what Kipling wrote about—"Somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst—where there ain't no Ten Commandments," and so on. Don't tell Kip about this. It would break his heart to find there were film censors out there!—Ed.)

Please, my nerves! Since the movies have broken into speech, these broad A's threaten my sanity!

Why can't the actors be natural and say "Father was drunk" instead of gargling "Fawthaw was intawxicated"?

If the talkies want to live to a ripe old age, the artists must talk United States and forego that drawing room chatter. They must remember that their efforts must be pleasing to the natives of Chillicothe, Ohio, as well as to the ultra-smart set making refined whoopee on the Lido and points East.

I never talk like that. Nor do any of my friends and enemies. Whenever I do hear anyone using that manner of speech, I find that almost invariably it is an affectation, and heartily despised.

Let's be natural. The talkies have a rosy future, if they will only relax, take off their shoes, park their feet on the table and make themselves at home and homely!

As the father of a five-year old son, I'd like to remind motion picture producers that in making talkies exclusively they have lost one of their best markets.

Until a year ago, our son took us to most of the shows we saw. As long as Noah Beery and Baclanova expressed their venom in action, as long as Richard Dix and Conrad Nagel defended womanhood with their fists instead of with epigrams, our offspring was delighted with the movies and would sit through an entire performance without fidgeting once.

When the talkies came along, he waited patiently for somebody to break a chair over somebody else's head. When they did nothing but stand and speak, he asked for a drink of water. He got four drinks of water that evening.

A few more trips to the jabbering drama and he was done forever.

Mention movies to him now and a terrible expression of mingled boredom and thirst comes over his face.

There must be thousands of parents whose patronage of pictures has been reduced for the same reason. Something must be done to provide for the kids.

What are the movies doing to us back here in Bruno? Why, they're making true-blue Americans of us!

When a person can say that all his relatives were born in the old country, naturalization papers or no, he can't call himself all-American. What's more, if you settle in a foreign country where everybody is no farther removed from foreign influence than yourself, you don't become an American very quickly. We're nearly all Bohemians.

That's where the movies come in. Zehnej Jim, Buh! (God bless them, in our Bohemian language.)

Once a week an organization shows a motion picture before an average crowd. The music is player-piano, and the selections aren't too appropriate.

But as a result, we live differently, think differently, dress differently, talk differently. We are becoming Americans as fast as the movies can teach us!

Your talkies have conquered London, in spite of the prophecies of the critics that American accents would spoil the interest.

"The Broadway Melody" has been the prime favorite, running for nine weeks at the Empire Theater.

The American accent, which has been the great bone of contention, is, after all, quite correct when the picture is of modern America, and the slang is catching, and is becoming quite a craze.

A costume or period play would not be convincing abroad, and in this field your silent, spectacular films will always appeal. However, your country has a wonderful opportunity to present the U.S.A. today.

After reading all the hullabaloo that has been written since Richard Barthelmess had a voice double in "Weary River," it's time someone came to the rescue.

What if he isn't gifted with a singing voice? If he can act, as critics admit, shall we scrap him? Why is it worse to have a voice double than any other? We know the stars use doubles for dangerous stunts, and nobody stays away because of it. No one objects to trick photography.

Yet we read that Barthelmess has cheated the public and that he shouldn't be allowed to do such a thing. How have we been cheated when we have known from the first that a double was used? Let's not turn them down because they can't sing.

Hollywood is the home of the motion picture and New York is the home of stage stars. So give us more Hollywood talking pictures and less of the stage people.

We don't want so many pictures that have a cast of players unknown to us movie fans.

We pay our money to see our favorite screen stars, like Buddy Rogers, Nancy Carroll, Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Bessie Love and others, and not to see a group of unknown stage actors.

Where are the types of the good old days? Like Clara Kimball Young, Katherine ​MacDonald, Theda Bara, Bessie Barriscale, Margarita Fisher?

These girls were really beautiful. They had enough meat on their bones to make lovely figures. The girls in pictures today are so skinny they look like shadows of the beautiful beings they could be if they were not starved.

It is pitiful and deplorable. If directors think that is beauty they certainly lack good taste!

I wish to express my opinion about producers who insist on making the poor stars starve only to gain pitiful figures.

I believe Joan Crawford a very good actress, but I never enjoy her pictures because of her sickly appearance.

Instead of admiring her, as many do. 1 only pity her. The same thing happens whenever I see Mary Philbin, Myrna Loy, Dolores del Rio and many others.

Please give us more healthy looking girls like Clara Bow, Anita Page, Thelma Todd and others. Do not spoil the health, not only of picture stars, but of all the women in the world!

This is a plea for pie throwing and slapstick! Where are the good old rip-snorting comedies of yesterday? Only the smallest provincial theaters show them. The large houses are overloaded with talkie novelties, movietone specialties and vaudeville—with never a thought for the side-splitting, relaxing comedies that used to accompany the big films.

I saw "Evangeline" recently. I can't feel uplifted or purified by a good cry over her sorrows. I felt that afterward we ought to have an extra good comedy. Did we have one? We did not! We had a lot of jazz songs and a sad one or two by a lot of personality-singers.

Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe producers are now busy making extra funny comedies, 1929 style. But I sure do wish they'd hurry!

My pet grievance is directed against the so-called "starring vehicle" written by hack writers around the personality of some star, either to save the star the necessity of acting, or to cash in on the personal popularity of an actor.

The plots of such operas are invariably trite and time-worn, on the principle that anything new might not be understood by Main Street. The members of the supporting cast are chosen with little or no consideration of their fitness for their respective roles; and even if the star is capable, it is hopeless to expect him or her to carry such an unleavened mess. It is merely an attempt of the producers to pare enough from the legitimate expenses of production to pay the exorbitant salaries of the stars.

I think the movies take in too much territory when they boast of their beautiful women. True, there are some attractive actresses, but not one that can be classified as beautiful.

What Hollywood needs is more sleep and less make-up.

There is a young girl in my home town whom the movie actresses cannot compare with when it comes to good looks. This young lady has proved herself a capable actress in all home-talent plays.

​I, and many others, think she is the most beautiful person God ever created.

Being possessed of all my faculties, I feel that I can quite justly lodge a "complaint" against the talkie invasion.

In order that I may hear the lines spoken, I must sit in or near the first row. But in order to protect my eyes I must sit well to the rear. What's the answer?

This is a great big bouquet full of beautiful posies for John Boles of "The Desert Song." What a find! And where has he been all the time? I never got such a kick out of screen love-making, and I've been seeing movies all my life. Oh, his expression—his voice—his singing! And everybody feels just the same about him.

Happy days to John Boles.

(Johnny's fan mail in Photoplay's office is enormous. There are evidently a hundred million others like Trix.—Ed.)

Hah hah hah! Ilee hee hee! Yes siree, Stan Hah hah! Laurel and Oliver Hah hah! Hardy are positively Hah hah! Riotous!

The two greatest short reel Hah hah! comedians on the screen today, bar none. Hah hah hah!

I am one of the many movie fans who prefer familiar faces on the screen, even though we are assured that all the voice reproduction is not their own. These screen people have been very satisfactory as to acting ability, so does it matter that they have doubles do their singing and playing?

There have been no more touching scenes filmed than Richard Barthelmess singing in "Weary River," and what more divine than Corinne Griffith in "The Divine Lady." It seems to me the most wonderful progress in the picture industry when we can see the beauty of face and form of old friends, combined with the beauty of voice we like to think theirs.

After all, movies are all the romance the majority of us get out of life, so why not let the actors remain ideal in our hearts and minds? Even though the stage voice is behind the scenes, let us continue to look upon the loveliness of the screen stars.

I have been a movie fan ever since the days of Maurice Costello, Florence Turner and the late Arthur Johnson. Stars of yesterday, and shining stars they were.

Having recently gone to hear and see the much talked about "talking pictures," I admit I enjoyed several; but there is a handicap. The audiences in most picture palaces do an immense lot of talking and running here and there for better seats. And along with them can be heard the ushers calling out sweetly (?), "More seats in the balcony."

Now I ask you, what chance have the patrons to enjoy talking pictures under these conditions? After all, the motion picture houses were built for the masses, not for the classes. There is room in this vast country for both talkies and the silent drama. Let's have our choice, the same as in the legitimate theaters. Where one is playing musical comedy and another is playing drama, both are well patronized.

"The talkies may make the actors talk,

But they can't improve our Charlie's walk."

Don't you agree that you can't improve a superlative?

Some think the moving pictures are bad, but they do not stop to think that the players must make a living some way.

Houston, Tex., reports! ESTELLE WADE writes that her town votes 50 per cent for talkies, 25 per cent for sound, and the other quarter for the silent kind. She pleads that all three he kept going, to take care of such diversified tastes.

From Hongkong, China, FRED K. NICHOLSON thanks us for the story on Lew Cody and Mabel Normand, printed months ago, and prays for their recovery.

MARY ANDERSON, Olympia, Wash., sends a nice bouquet to Edith Chapman and James Neill for their work in "The Idle Rich."

This is what BESSIE GLOVER of Montgomery, Ala., thinks of talkies: "A silent picture makes you feel like you are having a wonderful dream, but when you hear a voice you awaken, and that spoils it all."

Speaking for Wichita, Kan., D. DAVID WINTERS says, "We of Wichita will always be glad to see Nils Asther, accent and all!"

Will Bessie Love please come up to the platform and get this nosegay? MRS. C. C., of Trenton, N.J., says, "I think she is keen, peachy, and fifty-seven other varieties of nice things."

And OCCO ORBAAN, of New York City, tosses a goodbye nosegay at Phyllis Haver, who says she has left the screen for housekeeping.

The little town of Exeter, Neb., gets an enormous thrill out of such peppy Broadway pictures as "The Singing Fool" and "The Broadway Melody," according to ESTHER PHILLEO ARNÓT.

GEORGE ATTIN, writing from the Island of Trinidad, says that the public wants moral pictures, particularly those relating to incidents of real life.

This is for producers. "Give us bigger and better talkies, but add a little more story and don't over-emphasize the theme songs," says EUGENE GILLESPIE, of Atlanta, Ga.

JULIAN LA THORRE, of Manila, Philippine Islands, is peeved at harsh critics. "Those movie fans who are always grumbling about stars and pictures make me tired. If they don't like a certain star, why go to see him?"

The lovely and talented Ruth Chatterton continues to build up a solid army of devoted admirers. "Happiness always to our beautiful, patrician star, Ruth Chatterton! May she shine on forever!" is the wish of ADELE L. SIMONDS, of Hollywood.

Senorita CARMEN LALLVE, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., will soon be all set. "I have never heard Garbo. But I'm waiting, and when I do I shall be completely happy," says the senorita.

EDWARD FLETCHER, of Chicago, says that Dolores Del Rio and Greta Garbo are our leading actresses, and hates to hear them lambasted.

Hey, Johnny Mack Brown! MARY J. C., of Boston, says you should "learn to throw your voice out." In "Coquette" she could hardly hear you.