SHAW AND THE MOVIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 October 1924, Page 2

SHAW AND THE MOVIES.

AMERICAN FILMS ATTACKED. A VITRIOLIC OUTBURST. . George Bernard Shaw has been giving vent to his feelings about the American movies. The abusive jeremiad appears m the Fortnightly Review. Conceit, he declares, in a spirit characteristic throughout the article ls rampant among your film makers and good sense about non-existent. We shall soon have to sit 10 minutes at the beginning of every reel to be told wjo developed it, who fixed it, who wh V s * + T ho Prided the celluloid, who sold the chemicals, and who cut the author’s hair. Your film people simply do not know how to behave themselves. Every American aspirant to film work should be sent to Denmark or Sweden for five years to civilise him before being allowed to enter a Los Angeles studio.” Here is bis catalogue of American him sms:

“Overdone and foolishly repeated strokes of expression; hideous makeup; close-ups that an angel’s face could not bear; hundreds of thousands o± dollars spent spoiling effects that I or any competent producer could' secure quickly and easily for 10 cents impertinent lists of everybody emploved in the film, from the star actresses to the press agents and office boys.” 1' ilmmg of dramas results in audiences refusing to see them •on the legitimate stage, Shaw declared, hence he will never be filmed. Not that bhaw would not write scenarios. • sa ys, “is a new art. ' I id tempted to try my hand at it. But after all, if one has the gift of language, asking one to write a dumb show is rather like asking a Titian to portraits in black and white, btill there is one sort of dumb show that is something more than a play with the words left out, and that 'is a dieam. If I ever do a movie show, it will have the quality of a dream. Movie plays should he invented expressly for the screen by original, imaginative visualisers.” Regarding the suhiect matter of American films, he says: “The movie play has supplanted the old-fashioned tract and Sunday school prizes. It is reeking with morality, hut does not dare touch virtue. And virtue, which is defiant and contemptuous of moraleven when it has no practical quarrel with it, is the life blood of high drama.” \ :