THE REAL WAY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 118, 20 May 1932, Page 5

THE REAL WAY

HOW TO MAKE A FILM

LOVE INTEREST FIRST

■When a film of Himalayan mountaineering was offered recently to various film companies the producer was informed thatthe British publie'were not interested- in such .films, that it was a pity there was no iplot, and that the film would -have been improved by the addition, of loye interest. • Mr. Anthony Armstrong,has adopted this suggestion in an article published in the London "Morning Pos'ti'J.' '

Na'mirijf no "names, you must all have heard,a'certain' amount of talk recently about a certain film made by a cer- ■ tain, person ..dealkig with 'the climbing of a certain mountain, and shown to certain other persons in the trade,'who, .- however, wouldihaye nothing to do with it because.it, did not possess a certain love interest; writes Mr. Armstrong. The photography, it was admitted, was •wonderful; the record of (human endeavourVenthralling, the whole achievement laujable in.., the extreme, but —there was no Heart Throb. . And so out it went on its ear. ■■'.., Mind you,-I.don't blame those film magnates. • Poor slaves of the .Box Office, they were not :in the game to like films, but to know .what the filmgoing, public likes—though such knowledge, I. should say, can't be good for any man.- They were merely recognising the fact there are few things less passionate than a peak of the Himalayas 25,000 feet high, and that what really "goes over big" with the nine-penny;-seats is somebody bumping ,off: somebody else, All For Love of a dizzy -"blonde with a transatlantic accent. In oth'eri words, emotional appeal. ' : 'No, I fear it is the gentleman who , made the film who is really-at-fault. . Ho. should have foreseen that,, to the habitues of those mighty Neo-Spanish-Gothic-Oriental Palaces (complete".withthree .feoda-fountains and' an organ')j' ■ which/enrich our cities, one mountain is just'as good as.another mountain, and n\oi;. nearly ~as, good. ,' as . a Holly- ■• woodon. set with .ehiha-elay-and-miea; enow.i" .;..-;■', ''.-,'■':. '' .'. ~ i As pus Pinklestein, manager, of the; All-British trnion-J*acK' : Film Company, said to me the. other day, ."Nature by itself, boy, is too artificial! Wha tut ■wants is some , good : natural humanemotion .with .it." ~. ." '": -."'; '"■'■■-■ STILL TIME. - V ' Xow it is not too rlate to alter, .this : film' about a mountain; to reduce the; proportion of mere""'nature photography and make it ihto;c/s6merhing really' artistic by addition of a Human Love Interest. If the author of the film .will listen to me. we'll soon have something really worth while. There are two ways of introducing a Love Interest (slang for Sex)' into any film dealing with mere Nature. One is to let the people that are • goiiig around photographing this Nature find a platinum blonde half-way through the £lm; the other is to let them take a platinum blonde along with them. Either way you get the Platinum Blonde Interest—as we experts call it—into the story. c - ■ In the first method, you'should have Your/party of explorers get up to the .top of the. mountain and there discover a savage tribe ruled'over by a white girl in a permanent wave and such a strong jhysical constitution' that she 'can go about in hardly anything at all at 25,000 feet up. *By a strange coincidence she speaks p'erf eet and thereafter wanders round.with the explorers looking at,Natureg .(fThat's Asia, lad, that's iAsiaW) till she falls in love with the'hero. . The second method, however, is "far .letter, as it offers an opportunity for a Tense Drama Wherein Heart calls to Heart across Primitive Snows, and Man Strives with ,Man.for the Pure Love of a Girl,-entitled probably "Passions on the Peaks." Here, it is I The. girl's father, an aged explorer, has fitted put an expedition to climb a Himalaya and bring back real snow to Bell .to the Hollywood studios. ("There's snew on, them thar hills!'.') \ The girl wgoes along too, and the hero,"who has goined the expedition to work his way through college, and also the villain, a 'scientist, who is really in the,pay of a 'china-clay corporation''which.at the mo-ment-.supplies Los Angeles with its 'artificial snow. t , The girl is, of course, dressed in the latest Parisian Himalayan 'climbing costume—fur-edged, high-heeled shoes, - short fur-trimmed skirt, bare knees, aDd a decollette jersey! No hatjthe spectators have-paid to .see the sun through her hair. . . THE SNOWFIELDS. .•■.'■ Both young; men soon fall in love with her, and as the expedition profeeds (invariably in' silhouette along 'the snow ridges) the hero begins to suspect the villain of planning to make the expedition a failure. Comes the day when .they get to "the top of somewhere, and tije father, gazing out over the Himalayas, cries: "Look!. Snow!- Eeal snow! We are made for life!" The villain, however, ■ analyses a sample and pretends that there is a ■ flaw; it is very inferior, snow, and will melt if brought hack. ' He may, even say it isn't snow at all, only china-clay-and-miea got up .to look like it. . Failure'at once stares the expedition in the face; then the villain says he has discovered a mountain full of real snow, but will not tell where, unless . . . the girl. .-. . The father storms,' the hero threatens, but they can do nothing. They must have;snow —snow, which Makes Men Mad, which Turns Honesty into Grasping Greed and All That. ... "■ ■ v The" girl yields—as far as any*1 girl can yield in a film. She is about to be married to the villain by a wandering minister—Who in Those Wide Sweeps of Snowbound Nature Had Pound a .- Simplicity That Never in the Cities of Men ... when suddenly an enormous avalanche is seen approaching. Missing the hero and heroine by inches, it strikes the villain between the shoulders, wounding him mortally. He has just enough footage of film left him to analyse with his dying - "breath the avalanche that has killed him, to proclaim it as the best hundred-per-cent snow, and to ask the girl's , forgiveness. - • And.so Death's Snowy Fingers Wiped from His Soul the Stain at Sin,\ while In Two, Young Hearts Life Blossomed. "Untrammelled, or; some such guff. You can tell-just when he dies, because the father takes his hat off. and the girl pulls a simple corner of snow over his face, while the hero says: .'.'Say, he was real white underneath!'? ' . .'

. Then tHe minister can; marry- her to the--right man, and, if another avalanohe does riot ivipe the lot out (which would be O.K. by me) you have your story. Indeed, it is such a good one it seems a pity to spoil it with a lot of photography of.. Himalayas and such bunk. Make it a gold-mine, set it in Arizona, and I'll bet the .trade laps it up. . "