'Hollywood Has Nothing to Learn'

JUNE, 1931

BY WILLIAM ORTON

I

THE occasion, it must be admitted, was provocative. And perhaps Mr. von Sternberg was already in a bad temper. His remarks about Mr. Dreiser suggested rather clearly that he could get along much better with An American Tragedy if the author were transported to the fourth dimension. It must be very trying for an enterprising director to have all these authors lying around — particularly when they refuse to keep quiet. But keeping quiet is one of the few things Mr. George Bernard Shaw would admit that he cannot do; and when Hollywood said what it thought of his screened productions, Mr. Shaw naturally — never having been there — said what he thought of Hollywood and its methods. All that was necessary, said Mr. Shaw, was to reproduce his works as closely to their stage rendering as possible; and he added that Hollywood could do things very well ‘after it had been shown how.’ On both counts Mr. Shaw was demonstrably wrong; but Mr. von Sternberg’s reply was almost too good to be true. ’Hollywood,’ said he, ’has absolutely nothing to learn in motion pictures from any European country, neither from Russia nor Germany, and least of all from England. I am European-born, but all I know of pictures I learned in America.’ Just so!

Of course, there are certain respects in which Mr. von Sternberg has facts on his side — though they are not facts that have much intrinsically to do with the pictures. Hollywood certainly has little to learn about publicity. It is responsible for the largest flood of the most hideous advertising that any great industry has let loose. It is a quite interesting exercise to watch the movie posters, even of the better films, and wonder in what sort of minds such things originate — especially the color schemes. For personal publicity, too, there is nothing in the world to compare with Hollywood; not even the British royal family — though, philosophically considered, the two institutions have that in common which is worth exhibiting. Both alike fulfill a certain traumatic need of the mass mind. The stars of Hollywood, like the newspaper version of the Prince of Wales, do more than charm or entertain. Entertainment as such does not evoke fan mail. Sheer entertainment value would not support salaries of twenty or thirty thousand dollars a week. Their more important rôle is in relation to the psychology of the subconscious. They are symbols. And, like all true symbols, they focus and sublimate the emotional drives, the conative urges, that ordinary life can neither appease nor use.

Copyright 1931, by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.

In their own way, the publicity experts know this; and their main job is to keep their clients — perhaps one should say their creations — in character. It is not always easy. Miss Clara Bow, for example, is a somewhat more difficult problem than Queen Mary; and one cannot tell precisely what the mass mind demands, or will tolerate. Would it be better, for example, to draw the veil over Miss Bow for a little while, or would a flood of Hollywood domesticity float her safely over the shoals? The public wants so many different things — but never one that will really shock it. And the real shock point is so difficult to gauge! One thing, however, is certain: the public wants the process — the ministration to its traumatic needs — to continue. Certain producers, it is said, attempted last season to escape from the drain of star salaries on the theory that what the public wanted was just good movies. But the competition for stars has returned, keener than ever; and the public is apparently willing to pay for its catharsis.

In that still more impressive field of publicity which rejoices in the name ‘public relations,’Hollywood may justly claim that it has nothing to learn. The public utilities, particularly the power companies, have also done effective work in this domain; but they entered it later than the movie industry, and their efforts, elaborate and costly though they have been, have not been crowned with such unmitigated success.

The movie industry has been fighting the peril of censorship for over twenty years. It is fighting still; but so far it has won all along the line. Well over thirty states, and many scores of cities, have been interested in censorship legislation; Congress had the issue before it in the last session. But the industry’s brilliant and audacious defense has preserved its freedom practically inviolate. Its tactics have changed from time to time, but its strategy has been uniformly based on the slogan ‘Selection, not censorship.’ It has endeavored to associate itself with every public group that has become interested in this issue. It has welcomed ‘coöperation.’ It has arranged previewings, facilitated publicity for endorsements, patronized meetings, sponsored luncheons, provided office room and salaries for responsible representatives, and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in this field alone. Yet still there are those who complain!

The most serious menace to freedom arose out of a series of unfortunate occurrences in 1921. The industry’s counter-stroke was the publication of the famous ‘ thirteen points,’ whereby it abjured pictures ‘which emphasize and exaggerate sex appeal . . . scenes which exhibit nakedness or persons scantily dressed, particularly suggestive bedroom and bathroom scenes and scenes of inciting dances . . . scenes which unnecessarily prolong expressions or demonstrations of passionate love . . . stories which make drunkenness and gambling attractive . . . stories or scenes which are vulgar . . . salacious titles and subtitles,’ and so on and so forth. This voluntary declaration, with a few additions, is still the official policy of the industry.

Its enunciation was followed by the advent of Mr. Will Hays, who formed in 1922 an organization known as The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. This body proceeded to secure the coöperation, on an organized footing (which it financed), of no less than sixty-four voluntary groups, mostly of women. The policy of preview, endorsement, and special publicity for approved pictures was thus put on a regular basis; and for a short time all went well (especially the unendorsed pictures, which continued to go very well indeed). Unfortunately a virus of disillusion spread among some of the ’coöperating’ organizations, and the machinery has had more than once to be overhauled; the policy, however, continues in full force. At present, according to Mr. Hays’s association, the previewing groups in Los Angeles include the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, the Federation of Catholic Alumnæ, the Association of University Women, the Library Association, the Y. M. C. A., the D. A. R., and the Boy Scouts. A certain amount of previewing is done by some of these groups in the principal cities also. Lists of ‘endorsed’ pictures are circulated both nationally and through the branch associations. Local theatre managers, where the local organization is vigorous enough, are encouraged, by the promise of extra publicity, to exercise what little choice of pictures they have in favor of the approved ones. And in a few cases ‘ family nights’ or ‘children’s matinées’ have been arranged. Effort of this kind is at present particularly welcome to the exhibitors in view of the decline in children’s patronage since the advent of sound — a decline sufficiently marked to have an appreciable effect on profits in a poor season.

Some of this work coincides with, some of it duplicates, the efforts of the National Board of Review. This New York society dates from the stormy episode of 1908-1909, when for a short time the mayor closed the motionpicture houses on moral grounds. The National Board works through local ‘Better Films Committees,’ of which the membership, like its own, is individual rather than representative of organizations. Like the other groups, it is dependent on the industry itself for its previewing and some other facilities; but otherwise its connection is much less close. It has also taken an interest in other than the ’moral’ aspects of the movies; it is, in fact, the only public organization that keeps systematically in touch with the newer developments in art and technique. From this point of view the average list of ‘approved’ or ‘endorsed’ films is about as depressing to the eclectic as it is to the box office.

There has been, as was said above, a certain amount of skepticism both within and without all this organized endeavor — just enough, in fact, to keep the business interesting for Mr. Hays. Some groups have seceded, apparently under the impression that both they and the public were being elaborately and effectively fooled by it all. Minorities in other groups have at times made things lively for their Hollywood representatives. A good deal of this secessionist movement is now headed up by yet another organization, the Federal Motion Picture Council of America, Inc. (the impressive titles are probably a hangover from so much previewing). This organization rejects entirely the gentle slogans of the Hays office. ‘Selection, not censorship’ it declares to be a swindle. It refuses to ‘coöperate’ with the industry in a voluntary censorship. It even refuses to coöperate with the state in a legal censorship. What it wants is nothing less than control at the source. To this end it favors the proposals of the Hudson bill introduced in the House of Representatives last year. The bill declares the motion-picture industry a public utility, and creates a Federal Commission to control it — to control not merely its trade practices, or its observance of its thirteen points, but to control also actual script, scenario, and production. ‘The commission shall appoint supervisors to assist producers and directors in the process of production, in applying the standards of this Act as interpreted by the commission.’ Though nothing is said about it in the bill, it is presumed that bodyguards and occasional interment charges for the supervisors would go on the expense account.

While the foregoing is by no means an exhaustive account of all the elements in this ‘public relations’ business, it may suffice to indicate the main problems with which the industry has had to deal. On the whole it has dealt with them in a fashion which justifies Mr. von Sternberg’s claim. It has gauged the gullibility of thousands of good women with an audacity and a pragmatic wisdom that Mr. Sinclair Lewis could hardly have bettered; and it has appealed successfully to the pet doctrines of liberalism for defense against the threat of external control. The vindication of its policy is the simple fact that the industry remains free to produce what it likes — or what it thinks the public likes. There is an air of unreality about all this uplift and agitation. Film policy is ultimately determined by the conferences of the distributors. They know what they are talking about — in terms of real dollars and cents. What they say goes. What anyone else says must get itself translated into figures before it is even audible.

II

After all, whatever the Russians and the Germans and the French and the English may say about the movies as art, motion-picture production and distribution is a business. It is said to be the fourth largest business in the world.

It spends one hundred million dollars a year on advertising and entertains one hundred and fifteen million spectators per week in the United States alone. It has an investment of some two billions of dollars, and no ‘angels.’ Why should one expect any more social altruism from it, in the cause of morality, education, or art, than one would of the meat packers or the steel corporation? It is too bad that what Mr. Will Hays recently called ‘that inner urge which marks every one of our producers as a true artist’ should be so continually constrained and thwarted. But how can one expect these true artists to defy their sales departments and take gratuitous risks? Why should they hazard their backers’ money in wild attempts to reach a public that for all they know does not exist?

Were it not for Mr. von Sternberg’s assurance that these people have nothing to learn, one might suggest that even box-office figures are no final criterion of public taste. Take that fourmillion-dollar libel on England, Germany, and human nature recently released under the title ‘Hell’s Angels.’ False from beginning to end, false alike in fact, sentiment, and technique, it is the most devastating exposure of Hollywood mentality that the screen has shown for years. But it is an easy matter to create enough public curiosity about it to induce large audiences to go — once; and nobody is in any case counted upon to go twice! Not all the women’s clubs in America, however indignant they wax over the grossness of the sex scenes, can make much headway against the publicity put behind such a colossal investment in vulgarity. But the fact of its making money is no final proof that it is what the public ‘ wants.’ Low as public taste may be on the hundred-million level, its tolerance of Hollywood’s worst is no evidence of its intolerance for anything better. In movies, as in radio, there is evidence that public taste is at least ahead of that of the glove salesmen, the jewelry vendors, the trouser pressers, the bondsmen, the nickelodeon proprietors, the advertising touts who have inflicted their mentality on the industry. Two recent ballots are interesting — one a popular inquiry conducted by Motion Picture Classic, the other an inquiry among 333 newspaper critics conducted by the Film Daily. Here are the leading ten of each list, with the votes cast: —

The Divorcee (315)

All Quiet (224)

Common Clay (196)

Holiday (189)

Romance (178)

Disraeli (166)

Let Us Be Gay (161)

The Big House (154)

The Dawn Patrol (150)

Anna Christie (147)

All Quiet (271)

Abraham Lincoln (167)

Holiday (166)

Journey’s End (151)

Anna Christie (141)

The Big House (141)

The Byrd picture (121)

The Divorcee (94)

Hell’s Angels (91)

Old English (87)

In the second list, which covers 54 pictures, ‘Let Us Be Gay’ ranks as number 19, ‘White Hell of Pitz Palu’ as number 35, ‘Africa Speaks’ number 52, and the Fox experiment, ‘Just Imagine,’ number 54.

It is fair to point out, however, that each list rates quite highly certain pictures which have been box-office failures. The point is important in as much as it indicates the main defense of the block booking system. That system is described by the industry itself as the wholesaling of pictures. Under it the exhibitor contracts for a stated number — usually a season’s supply — of the current pictures, many of which he may not have seen, some of which may not as yet be made. If he does not book in this way, all he can as a rule secure is old or rejected pictures that have passed — frequently in poor condition — into the hands of the small number of unassociated distributors, and have long since lost their box-office appeal.

Obviously the exhibitor has very little opportunity for discrimination in the output of the firm or firms whose films he is to receive; in point of fact, the blocks compete largely on the names of the stars who are under contract to appear. He has some discrimination. He has a right to decline pictures that his town authority will certify as offensive to the community. He has also a theoretical right to cancel 10 per cent of his contract, but only on payment of half the stated rental for the refused film or films. He may also, of course, — and sometimes does, — accept delivery without exhibiting a particular picture. Both these elements of choice obviously involve financial loss in cases where booking is done on an advance-payment basis. A very salutary development, however, is the growing abandonment of this basis in favor of a percentage system based on the gross receipts of each picture. Under the advance rental, or the guarantee system, the distributor — and through him the producer — retained only a very slight interest in the final showing of each picture to the public; the picture was paid for, or guaranteed, long before, and there the matter ended. Under the percentage plan, though block booking still obtains, the appeal of each individual picture is reflected right back to the producer’s sales department. And though the result may not make for better pictures, it will at least give a more sensitive index of public taste and encourage greater variety in the output of each firm.

The thirty-two distributing boards which constitute the wholesale division of the industry are themselves controlled by the Hays organization, and through their hands passes 98 per cent of the American commercial output. Critics of the industry maintain that under these circumstances the exhibitor is practically powerless, no matter what pressure is put upon him or what personal standards he may have, to control the quality of public entertainment. The industry maintains that block booking is the only way by which films of anything less than mass appeal can be financed — that in fact, without the block system, many of the better films would be unable to pay their way, as exhibitors would not take them independently.

The arguments are not incompatible. To some cases the former is more relevant, to others the latter. But what appears incontestable in either case is that the incentive to producers to try out a wide variety of different types, with the intention of satisfying as many different tastes as possible, is thus reduced to a minimum. As with radio, so with the movies: the assumption— the financial assumption — that practically every offering must please everybody makes for low standard of quality and a high degree of artistic or technical inertia. Novelty becomes almost gratuitous and experiment positively dangerous.

There is more in the situation than this, however. Whether or not Hollywood has nothing to learn, it is apparently determined that the public shall have less and less chance of learning anything. However little of real independence the ‘independents’ may have, it is apparently too much for the producers. The rapid extension in the outright ownership of theatres both by acquisition and by building on the part of the producing concerns is a very significant development. It is part of the ‘trustification’ of the entire amusement business of America, which already covers radio, the vaudeville stage, and the concert platform. The ‘independent’ has been having a difficult time for years. Various types of discrimination have been practised against him. He finds himself now in a minority and is sometimes confronted with a deliberately destructive competition from the chain houses. To the extent that these now dominate the field, Hollywood has an automatic and exclusive outlet direct to the public. There is still keen competition between the Hollywood firms; but access to the public for any concern outside the empire of Mr. Will H. Hays is almost entirely barred.

III

And what of it? Does not a similar situation exist in a great many other American industries? What—if any — is the ground for complaint? The public gets a vast amount of entertainment at very low prices. And the existence of a minority of intellectuals who do not like it is surely what one would, and should, expect under any system.

The ground for complaint needs to be very carefully defined, for there is much confusion as to the real issue. Criticism must begin by accepting the fact that the business is primarily one of mass entertainment. It is planned and financed on that assumption. But that fact cuts both ways. The industry cannot escape a certain measure of responsibility arising from its very nature. The degree to which pure profit seeking is socially sanctioned depends on the demand that is being exploited. We do not bother much about it in the majority of cases; but we put a good many restrictions on things like milk, food, and transportation. Now here is a case where not physical but cultural values are being traded in — ethical and æsthetic values. In what way, if any, should we hold the tradesmen — pardon, Mr. Hays, the artists — to certain minimum standards? Censorship?

It is hardly necessary to argue that issue. If the Boy Scouts and the women’s clubs choose to press their views of what is good and proper by endorsing and recommending the films they like, more power to them — so long as all the rest of us are free to do likewise! But can anyone seriously imagine that in this chaotic America, with its utter lack of standards in vital matters, — of real, as opposed to verbal, standards, — any one group could be safely entrusted with power to impose its criteria on the rest of the community? Does anyone still suppose that a government which blunders so egregiously in the handling of tangible matters like crop marketing and war bonuses is a fit instrument to be trusted with final power over the intangibles of life and art? I would sooner have a board of censors comprising Mr. Earl Carroll, Miss Bow, and any half dozen of Hollywood’s publicity men than the best that the women’s clubs, Mr. Brookhart, and Mr. Hudson could assemble — because they would do less harm. What my convictions may be has nothing to do with it. Whoever I am, other people’s liberty matters more than my dogmas. Besides, the ethics of the movies are not so bad. They are childish, naïve, and as a rule quite unrealistic; but they are not perverse. It is the taste that is so frequently deplorable. Does anybody propose to endow some arbiter elegantiarum with the force of law in this matter also? If so, I can see myself the founder of a society in defense of the right to be vulgar!

No, what is wanted is more liberty, not less. And it is on this charge that the case against Hollywood really rests. Hollywood may have nothing to learn; but the public has a very great deal to learn — if only it could get the chance. At this moment there are probably not more than a couple of dozen theatres in the entire country where movie entertainment can be found that does not originate in Hollywood. The little-theatre movement in movies was doing fairly well until the coming of sound. That brought it face to face with heavy and unforeseen expenses; further, the supply of good silent film on which it has mostly relied is shrinking rapidly; and the American booking system prevents the free-lance theatre from fulfilling its proper function, and occasionally strengthening its cash balance, by the showing of hand-picked American items that have not already lost their box-office value.

The trouble with the Hollywood output is precisely the trouble with any other art that is allowed to fall into the complete control of profit seekers whose one objective is the mass mind. Much of it is passable entertainment, some of it excellent; but the possibility of advance as an art is reduced to a minimum. What æsthetic or technical innovations can Hollywood show, despite its resources, to compare with those of Ufa and Sovkino? How is it that such concerns, despite their smaller monetary rewards, can attract literary, artistic, and technical talent that leaves Hollywood nowhere? Why did Hollywood think it necessary to support an outrageous piece of heresy-hunting propaganda when it began to look as though Eisenstein might at last find something to do there? Was it afraid of being shown up?

Let us pause here to remember some of the good things Hollywood has done. Let us not speak of Chaplin, who, like Grock, is a piece of sheer good fortune for mankind. Let us recall Vidor’s ‘The Crowd,’ of which some scenes can stand beside any movie in existence. (What has happened to you, Mr. Vidor, that you cannot recapture the vision of life you gave us in the Coney Island, the subway, the Niagara episodes?) Let us recall ‘The Thief of Bagdad.’ (What has happened to you, Mr. Fairbanks, that you abandoned your idea of breaking new ground in America as artist and playboy? Did you really need more money?) Let us remember ‘Holiday,’ ‘The Boudoir Diplomat,’ and many more stories, which, if they were only photography, were excellent in their limited kind. Let us remember ‘All Quiet,’ and give all the praise to Hollywood and none to Russia. Let us remember ‘Disraeli’ and ’Old Ironsides,’ pictures costing from five to ten times as much as a Clara Bow feature, and both of them box-office failures. Let us remember many a pleasant hour of relaxation that has left no permanent impression on the memory, one way or the other, save that of time agreeably wasted. Let us remember, above all, that in an industry of this sort, unless we are prepared to sacrifice the principle of liberty, there must and will always be that which offends even very moderate standards of taste and decency; and that we must accept that fact as a permanent element in the situation.

It is the good things of Hollywood rather than the bad that make the matter worth discussing. Take the simple fact, well known to every chain exhibitor, that communities vary very much, not only as to what they will ‘stand,’ but as to what they will support. Under the present system the more sophisticated communities are starved of their proper share of entertainment and deprived of the encouragement they might render to the advancement of the movie as art. Why cannot the producers, at least occasionally, drop their conception of the mass public, attempt something that is frankly selective in its appeal, and let it go to whoever will take it independently of the block system altogether?

The answer is that the experiment would not pay, that hardly any exhibitors would take it. Look at the small number of independents who will take the risk of showing Sovkino or Ufa productions, easy and relatively cheap as they are to obtain! True enough. The exhibitor is all too frequently the stumblingblock; but he is the one and only lever in the system that is immediately accessible to the public. But the public, the sophisticated public, is inert and ill-informed, and the sort of publicity that would be needed does not as yet exist! True again. There is need, and probably opportunity, for a journal devoted to the art of the movie that might compare with what Theatre Arts Monthly is to the stage. But experiment and publicity would have to go together; no use to run such a venture unless some considerable section of the public had a chance to see the things it was talking about. Even at best, such ventures could hardly pay!

Well, let us admit it. Not every book a publisher puts out will pay, or is even expected to pay. Our hypothetical experiment, however, need not be prorated with as high a selling cost as the average movie now is. It might be offered at terms that hardly covered expenses, in order to encourage the exhibitor. And above all, it need not be an expensive production. One of the things Hollywood has indubitably to learn, if it ever considers this field, is that expenditure is no substitute for brains. More courage, more brains — and less money: that is the prescription !

But after all, why bother? Are not things going well enough already?

No, things are not going well enough. As Miss Marie Dressler recently put it in Screenland: ‘The picture producers used to sit in their swivel chairs and think they had the world by the tail; then the talkies came and the tail broke off. Now they ’re running around with the tail in their hands trying to catch the animal.’ But perhaps — if we may take liberties with Miss Dressler’s figure — the public is no longer just one animal, but a whole herd of animals; and perhaps, even from a financial point of view, the kind of animal I am talking about might prove to be worth catching. After all, he is by this time quite a sizable beast!

There is another reason. I believe it to be of far more importance to the life of a people that its artists should have freedom than that its moralists should have authority. It is through its art forms that a people comes to self-knowledge, to self-possession; and the movie is above all others the means by which American life might be so brought into critical consciousness of itself. Might be — but is not. How false a portrayal of it Hollywood has so far achieved the whole world is bearing witness. The reality has been scarcely touched. I believe there are directors in Hollywood who would agree with me in these matters; who would like to experiment, if they dared, without regard to the limitations of mass finance and mass mentality. I believe I could list four or five of them. And I should include Mr. Joseph von Sternberg!