TOO MANY PICTURES

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 6

TOO MANY PICTURES

PRODUCER'S COMMENTS Irving Thalberg, the thirty-year-old producer who ruled Metro-Goldwyn* Slayer until recently, and is now work* ing for that company with a self-con- , tamed organisation of his own, recently! » wrote an article entitled ‘ Why Pictures Cost So Much,’ which is one of the simplest, yet most vigorous expositions of the facts of the film industry, ever written. Thalberg thinks (with Sam Goldwyn) that there are far too many films made—that that is the real extravagance of the business. “ Hollywood is not extravagant when it spends an| extra 100,000 dollars to make a good picture better,” he says. “ But Holly* wood is extravagant, whether it spends 100,000 dollars or only 100 cents, whenever it makes an ill-conceived, silly, inconsequential picture.” Thalberg does not spare ms fellowproducers in what follows '■ . “ Any theatrical year that can boast of ten good plays and ten or fifteen more fairly good plays is a most unusual and successful season. “ To achieve a total of 500 to /00 pictures, the studios must use, net these twenty-five good __ plays, nut almost every bad play produced. “ Of the ten good novels a year all must be used, and many of the bad novels. ‘ ‘ Under such a system the accumulation of centuries of great literatura is hurriedly thrown together by .armies of writers, players, and directors, .until every great piece of work has been done —for the most part badly—at least once, and very often two or three times. ■ “At present,” he says, we are destroying talent and using up material' faster than it can be produced. “ The men and women engaged ml the motion picture business include some of the greatest actors_ and actresses, writers, and directors in the world. ; “ If it were not for the unreasonable pressure of time that is put on' them, and the ridiculous attempts made to have them work on silly stories and play silly parts and direct halffinished continuities, they Would soon' prove their worth.”