"REMOTE FROM THE WORLD"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21314, 15 October 1932, Page 11 (Supplement)

"REMOTE FROM THE WORLD"

R. C. SHERRIFF ON HOLLYWOOD WILD PARTIES A MYTH I am richly indebted to Mr. R. C. Sherriff, author of " Journey's End," who has just returned to London from Hollywood after completing his film adaptation of Remarque's " The Road Back," remarks an English writer. I sat and talked with him in his home at Esher, and, seeing with his eyes, I think I pierced most of the cloud of gas—at once laughing and intoxicating—which is sedulously sprayed abroad by publicity men. Mr. Sherriff found Hollywood pathetic —not materially so, but intellectually and emotionally so. This was new to me. I began to take Hollywood seriously. He cannot say too much for the courtesy and the consideration that were shown him. But now lie has reached another Journey's End, and ho looks back on something of a tragedy. " Hollywood is tragically remote from the world," he said. " People go there simply to make money. They can't make homes. Beautiful houses, but just for living in. They don't seem able to enjoy them. You shed all your backgrounds, no matter whence you come. If you put the dialogue of a dinner party in Hollywood on the stage one would not believe you. But it's all in one run. Someone will say, ' Do you know Lobelia Jenks ?' And then ' Oh, yes, she's running round with that dark fellow who was in " Hell's Bells " for Metro-Goldwyn.' If you said, ' It's sad about the assassination of the French President, someone would say, ' Ah, but that wouldn't mako a good picture.' "No contact with (his world, with that nature up to whom it is surely tho first duty of drama to hold the mi-ror. It's artificial. No break in the earth. Thin air. No rain. A charming, happy go-lucky people, with a queer sensation of instability at the bottom of their minds. No faith in justice. Wild parties? 1 never saw one, neither did ray friends. Of course, there are some hangers-on who seek publicity in immorality."