F I L M T R U T H

The Shame of Smut

I am of the mire too dirty for swine; I am of the filth that incinerators cannot destroy; I am of the stench that God’s own sun fails to purify; I am of the corruption that lies at the most dismal depths of man’s mind; I am the slime and slew that pervert the divine gift of speech;—I AM “SMUT.”

I am the foul breath of disease; I am the tainted hands of sin; I am Thought strangled by Shame;—I AM “SMUT.”

The muddied waters of the Ganges are to me as the rippling mountain brook.

I am the refuse that Hell discharges.

I AM “SMUT.”

And it is to me that the great Master of the Motion Picture has turned for succor.

I am selected as the tool to lure a vile profit.

To me it has been left to smirch the good name of a revered American classic; to dig a Grave of the Nameless for a play that clean men and women have loved.

I am the Satanic genius that makes an Artist—moulder of a pictorial masterpiece—poison his triumph in gangrene.

I AM “SMUT.”

My words need explanation. Yet from my own foul station I hesitate to descend. Here, however, is an advertisement that sullied the pages of a New York newspaper on October 4th:

“Why does every woman have to feel the straining power of seduction in one form or another—the hot, alluring breaths of deceits?

“This thing has been, time and again, from the beginning of history, through all the ages. Man’s most beautiful property, most sought after, most desired, has been woman. And through all these ages it was more through passion than the better desires.

“Even the saints of past history fought bloody battles; worked, dreamed, struggled through their love for women—not satisfied with one or two or three. These almighty men demanded hundreds—every variety of beauty, dainty little girls in their teens; blondes from the Northlands; strange slant-eyed brunettes from the Southlands. Mighty wars, broken nations, wrecked civilizations over the Helens-of-Troy and Cleopatras.

“Doesn’t the same battle go on today, though changed and modified? Is not every little girl still pursued? Why? What is this great mystery of love?

“There is the greatest revelation of a woman’s soul and a woman’s temptation in a tremendous play that is shaking the world; the greatest uncovering of a woman’s inner soul ever given. If you know, then you know all love and all temptation, joy and sorrow. You will know the DIFFERENCE between the alluring passion of deceit that leads to bitter ashes; the great overwhelming, all-enfolding SOUL LOVE that looks through the body and finds the great WOMAN-HEART; the love that every woman wants, with peace and purity, leading on and up to the great happiness, with the masterful, overwhelming bliss, all centered love of the great ONE MAN.

5“To learn the great lesson of ALL LOVE you must see ‘WAY DOWN EAST,’ and WOMAN and ALL WOMEN, and the story of Anna Moore in this play. And of David the farmer boy, greatest of all lovers. And Sanderson, with the old polygamous idea of deceit and shame for those women who fall in his clutches.”

May my respected ancestors forgive me the quotation. May the minions of Evil temper their contempt as I repeat:

“Why does every woman have to feel the straining power of seduction?”

“The hot alluring breaths of deceit.”

“Even the saints of past history——”

“These almighty men demanded hundreds.”

“Is not every little girl still pursued?”

Mephistopheles—thy pardon! Boccaccio,—turn not from me in repugnance!

Mothers of Men—thy prayers!

Verily, I am the dross that dares tarnish the sweet name of Woman; I am the ulcers of leprosy; I am the spawn of hellions;—I AM “SMUT.”

Yet—

Am I the tool of the Master?

Am I the bait that is sought to lure scurvy dollars?

Am I to be the left hand of the Griffith?

FILM TRUTH will now speak:

Why, oh, why, does the name of Griffith have to be signed to the slushy drivel of such advertisements?

“Way Down East” is a big picture; “Way Down East” can stand fairly, squarely, flatly on its own feet. “Way Down East” is worth two dollars of any man’s money.

6We paid two dollars to see it—and we are going to pay again. Provided Mr. Griffith’s advertising writers don’t convince us that our money would be accepted as a response to the salacious; our two dollars a contribution to the cause of promoting motion picture censorship.

“Way Down East” lived its life on the American stage honored and respected—without the need of such truck and trash.

“Way Down East” made fortunes for its stage sponsors, and yet the “Way Down East” of the spoken drama was as an amateur’s weak-kneed effort to the stirring strength of the screen gem that Griffith has given us.

Then why the need for advertising what is cheap, tawdry and contemptible?

The “Way Down East” of the stage did not need, and the “Way Down East” of the screen does not need, an appeal that says:

“Why does every woman have to feel the straining power of seduction in one form or another—the hot, alluring breaths of deceits?”

The charming lady on the cover is not a bare back rider. Appearances are deceptive. It is Norma Nicholls, one of a sextet of Vanity Fair girls who, under Hal Roach’s protecting wing will delight the tired business man in comedies to be released by Pathe.

P. S.—The other five are just as pulchritudinous.

On the inside front cover the attractive study by moonlight is one of Lucy Cotton.

And, we ask you, who couldn’t cotton to Lucy?

Our “Flynancial” Page

No publication is complete today without its financial department in which some thirty-five-dollar-a-week expert advises you how to get rich on stocks and bonds. The guff is written principally for purposes of draping around the ads of brokers who will give any sheet their money if it will start an investment page.

So this is our page. We have everything but the advertising. And our hopes are slim.

The Fan Film Corporation is offering stock in a million-dollar company to back Louise Du Pre, “Mary Pickford’s former understudy.” Charles Giegerich is “vice-president and general manager.” The four-page prospectus read interestingly until we came across a column and a half of praise for Miss Du Pre reprinted from Motion Picture Classic and credited, “By Chas. G. Rich.” We hesitated. We pondered. “Charles G. Rich”—“Charles Giegerich.” Why they must be one and the same! And so they are.

Our “flynancial” expert hereby advises Fan Film that no matter how good a proposition may appear otherwise, there’s a touch of the foolish when you quote the press agent flub-dubbery of your own vice-president.

The Cortland Pictures Corporation, of Indianapolis, has an honest-to-goodness picture director for president and some fine local names on the board. They modestly hint that five thousand theaters are going to set aside one or two days a week to show their pictures—with net results at the end of the year of $1,497,500 in profits.

Wonder if someone has thought to tell the five thousand theaters what is expected of them?

“Guilty”

Score one for “FILM TRUTH!” A bull’s-eye zipped right to the center of the dot! A ten-strike down the middle of Swindler Alley!

Way, way back in its May issue—six months ago—“FILM TRUTH” turned its trusty spear in the direction of one George A. Strader who was victimizing would-be scenario writers on the strength of stationery which proclaimed him “Formerly with the Famous Players-Lasky Company,” and “a member of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry.”

George found the high muck-a-mucks of the magazine field willing to carry his ads telling amateurs in glowing terms of the wonderful opportunities in photoplay writing, and of his own intimate inside opportunities to sell scenarios. After the sucker forwarded a story Strader would counter with a letter suggesting that a few expert touches were needed—price $10—and a sale would be certain. Of course a little typing would be charged for too, perhaps. But the “touch,” the $10 was the main thing necessary for the sale.

“Expert touch” was right—for nothing ever happened after George got the ten dolderinos.

“FILM TRUTH” told the truth—way back in May, and regardless of possible laceration of Strader’s feelings, his protests, wails or threats.

That was in May. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but October rolls around, and, one bright Indian summer morning, we pick up our newspaper to read: “George A. Strader was convicted yesterday in the Federal District Court on an indictment charging him with using the mails in the operation of a scheme to defraud.”

One down!

Letters of a Director

Dear Liz: Three cheers, kiddo! Hoorayeureka! I’ve discovered the place where they bury the bodies. The secret is mine. Within six months, dearie, I’ll be drawing down a thousand a week and owing more money than the national debt. I’m going to be one of the big, bigger, biggest directors.

Don’t laugh, sweetie. I know I’ve been piking my way making good pictures for a slim three hundred a week for so long that you won’t believe I can step out. But listen—I’m going to be a big leaguer if I have to wear a pillow slip on my coat lapel. Watch my errors, Liz.

I’ve diagnosed my own case—and do you know what has been responsible for the anaemia of the bankroll that has afflicted me all these years? My early training was all wrong. Every time I spend a dollar I squeeze it till the birdie cuckoos “One hundred cents!”

I guess that year I spent in school spoiled me.

I took them there copy book Maxims too seriously. You know the stuff I mean. About—“Two bits saved is a jitney earned,” and “Save the pennies and the dollars will draw four per cent.”

Well, here I’ve been in the fillum flurry a dozen years little one, before the truth dawned on me. They shoulda put silencers on them Maxims or else handed them to you with interpretations and reservations. Chief of which same is this here: “Nothing in these articles shall be construed as referring to THE BOSS’S MONEY.”

His bankroll is made to be shot; he isn’t happy unless it’s riddled. He won’t say “Good Morning” to you unless you caused him to say “Good Night, Mr. Receiver,” the day before.

10I’m starting on a new picture now, Liz, and to tell the truth if I hired an oil promoter for property man I don’t think I could spend more than fifty thousand dollars making it a good picture. But I’ve learned the secret—and if I break a leg doing it I am going to take more time on this picture than George Loane Tucker needs; I’m going to spend more money than Von Stroheim; I’m going to build more sets and tear ’em down faster than Mickey Neilan at his best; I’m going to have a bigger hospital bill than a Holubar production.

If I don’t spend more than two hundred and fifty thousand on this picture I’ll be willing to take a job making LoKo comedies. Of course, two hundred and fifty thousand doesn’t put me in the class with the big boys but it’s a pretty fair start for a guy with wrong upbringing.

It was this nut Stroheim that give me the idea. You know, Liz, when this Von got through serving the time in the army that all them Heinies has to, he came here and first broke into the United States histories in the packing room of a department store. He studied stagecraft wrapping planks around “This Side Up” signs.

He musta come to Los in one of his own shipping cases for when I first saw him hanging around the studios looking for extra parts he didn’t look as though he’d ever possessed Mister Santa Fe’s price. The boys gave him a rough deal in those days—you know it wasn’t a popular time for gents with the “Von” handle on their monickers. But we had so many beastly Berlin pictures that we all had to use him. He played more German captains than there were in the Kaiser’s army.

Then one day he negotiates a ten minute loan of Carl Laemmle’s ear and comes out of the office with the title “Director.” He earned the brackets by guaranteeing to 11make a picture for twenty thousand, and faithfully fulfilled his promise by spending not a cent more than fifty. What’s more it was a good picture.

Universal foolishly thought the gink would be grateful for the opportunity they gave him so they turned loose the noisiest advertising and publicity they could. That queered it. He started going loco then and he’s three laps ahead of a flea-bitten coyote ever since.

Stroheim spends more money now on his own clothes than he guaranteed to make that first picture for. Out here where every director has to look like a Hartschaffner ad touched up by a futurist painter he manages to hold the jazz record. What a swath he cuts with the extra girls!

As for his pictures—if he reaches a cent less than five hundred thousand on this “Foolish Wives” he’s making now he’ll probably be so peeved he’ll try hari-kari. Why, do you know, Liz, he’s spent enough money building Monte Carlo’s up at Monterey to relieve the housing shortage in six states!

Do I blame him? Not a bit. If he didn’t toss the coin that way people wouldn’t believe he was one of the biggest directors. His company would probably fire him for getting old-fashioned. Then they’d bail Ponzi and put him on the payroll.

Once you hadda put a close-up in every ten feet to be ranked an up-to-date director; now you have to find new ways for filling up the Home for Incurably Insane Cashiers.

Another fellow whose boss has to make the money with a machine is this here fellow Holubar. I think that Holubar and Stroheim musta formed some sorta grudge when they hung out together on the Universal 12lot. Now they take it out on the boss by racing neck and neck on the Expenditure Extravaganza.

Holubar’s just finished his first independent feature starring his wife, Dorothy Phillips. “Man, Woman and Marriage” they calls it. Al Kaufman, who supplied the money, must agree that this married life is expensive. Here’s one way they ran head-long into the subtreasury, Liz:

Holubar decides that a little prehistoric stuff showing a battle of the Amazons with the Male Brutes would be good stuff. So five hundred horses and five hundred dames are hired and turned loose for the action. The janes are in the near-nude, and beside you can’t expect that many girls in one city to know how to handle horses, so quite a few of them take a tumble when the battle reaches the rough stage. The first thing you know the ambulances are chasing to the Holubar lot as though they belonged in the story.

Continuity calls for the women losing the battle for the obvious reason disclosed when a later scene shows three hundred of them nursing babies. A hurry call is sent out for three hundred infants willing to yawl a few hours for the movies. How that assistant director got ’em I don’t know—but he did.

“Shucks,” says someone then. “Now we gotta get three hundred women to nurse the infantry.” That was a tough assignment—but some miracle worker produced the women.

Do you know what happened then, Liz? The kids went on strike! They might be of the nursing age but hang it, they were particular where and when they nursed And they had no sympathy for the battery of cameras anxious to grind.

13All was at a standstill. What could be done? Then a clever chap who deserves a Croix de Gerry Society had an idea. A few whispered words, hurried telephone call, truck load of honey arrives. Honey applied to the proper spot, youngsters start to work with a will. Cameras click.

Isn’t it a great life in the West, Liz?—Your own ex-chauffeur friend, Bill.

While they last, the publishers of FILM TRUTH will send the first six issues of the book, April to September, inclusive, to any United States address, upon receipt of $1.

Foreign postage, 25 cents extra.

Details will be found on the inside back cover.

Corner in Chaplins

Sometimes we let our readers on the inside of a coming movie event so far in advance that we are afraid they will forget all about our having told them when the happening comes to pass.

A reader has just written us, “I know you’ve told us about the delay on Chaplin’s new picture, but why is it we don’t see so many old Chaplins either? A couple of years ago every other theater was playing a Chaplin, some of them so old the prints could hardly hold together.”

Some four months ago we told “FILM TRUTH” readers about the Chaplin serial that is already made—or rather, assembled—and about to be launched whenever the moment seems ripe. Well, in that inside note, is also contained the explanation for the scarcity of old Chaplins.

The market is being scoured and cleaned. Every granddaddy Chaplin that shows its head is being bought and retired to the home for the aged. If you have a friend in the junk business tell him to look over that pile in his backyard. It may disgorge a Chaplin print. And today it can be sold.

The men who hold the Chaplin serial up their sleeves are the wisest of the wise. They won’t say the word “Go!” till the stage is set. One of the essentials is freedom from junk competition.

So wait a while longer for the Chaplin serial, readers. But when it comes remember that “we told you so.” There are thousands of folks deep on the inside of this movie game to whom it will be the surprise of the year.

S’s’sh——! Some Gossip!

Is it unfair to ask what Garret Hughes can see in Mildred Harris? Or vice versa?

“Forbidden Fruit” is the next DeMille production in titular succession to “Why Change Your Husband?” Just think of all we are going to see of Elinor Fair, Gloria Swanson and others. The Los Angeles Hosiery Hucksters and Lingerie Lizards have entered a protest against the continuous overtime.

Oft in the still and starry night we have paused to wonder why DeMille is willing to share so much of his favorites with the general public.

Temperament? If you want to know the meaning of the word ask Maxwell Karger, director general of Metro production, about Ina Claire. Karger, being a diplomat, probably won’t answer you. But anyone else at the studio can tell you that Ina has the tempestuous, rock-bound coasts of Maine licked to a frazzle forty ways when it comes to the stormy stuff. Ina is only making her screen debut in this Metro picture but she knew what she wanted—and by all hemlock cantankerousness, she got it, too.

It takes some pepper pot to create any notice in a studio where Nazimova has worked.

Isn’t it rather sad, to say the least, to have fame affect some of our stars, as it does? Our attention has been directed to Charles Ray—rather more strongly to Mrs. 16Charles Ray. Charlie’s rise has affected her—so much ’tis said, that there is a dearth of chauffeurs at the Ray villa. This in spite of the fact that a half score or more have entered employ—and rather quickly tired of it. One of ’em tells us his reasons, and we admit they would peeve a brass Buddha.

And, by the way, was it Mrs. Ray whose attitude toward a grocer’s delivery boy who carelessly let his Ford drop a bit of oil on a macadamized driveway, caused so much mirth around the colony lately?

An event long looked for in the Somborn household (Gloria Swanson of yore) has occurred, and a bouncing girl is announced. Months ago we were told that Gloria’s contract with DeMille, at a comparatively small salary, could be broken only by such an event. Mr. Somborn, being a picture magnate, is said to naturally have wanted to star his wife. Now the way may be open. We shall see.