"LOVE" IN FILMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 38 (Supplement)

"LOVE" IN FILMS

STEREOTYPED CONCEPTIONS A .WOMAN'S CRITICISM "It seems high time someone reflefined —or < rather, amplified that much abused word 'love' for the benefit of directors, producers, scenario- • writers and those film pundits generally who aire too busy to hpther about it themselves," says an English woman writer. "Considering the progress made by films lately, in taste and intelligence, it is not a little surprising, to say the least, that producers should display 6uch a decided reluctance to explore the possibilities and realities of love beyond the vicious inner circle of sex and 'sobstuff,' passion and pathos. "For all their ingenious variation of Betting and dramatis perSonae, the men who provide us with. the larger slice of our entertainment appear to have but two conceptions of love: — (a) Love, meaning physical passion between members of the opposite sex. (b) A rather sickeningly over-exploited parental and filial devotion —that neverfailing 'sob-stuff' which makes mothers commit ludicrous crimes for the sake of their sons and daughters, and turns young men and maidens from splendid careers, or the sweethearts of their choice, out of a mistaken sense of 'duty which no right-minded parent .would ever claim. "Love, however, is a good deal more than that," she says. "It would take too long to expatiate on half the definitions which have been given, but one quite representative dictionary describes it, briefly' but broadly, as " affection, regard, esteem." "The average producer or director will telJ you emphatically that, with few exceptions, the film which is to achieve popular appeal must have a strong love interest. In this, I heartily concur. We differ, however, in that whereas the producer or director means a strong sex

interest, I mean a strong love interest in the sense that the film must portray for, or promote in, its audience a love (affection, regard, esteem) for something or someone (whichever is the mainstay of the plot) sufficiently gripping in itself. • . ' "It may be love for a human being, one's native country, a good cause; love of adventure, affection for a place, old houses, antiques, or what you will. Not until the main themes of good stories are allowed to stand on their own feet will the various types of film —epic, costume, drama, thriller and comedy-—be really ' different,' and not just thinly disguised ghosts of the romantie novel. "Kow gratefully one remembers such films as 'Badger's Green,' 'Loyalties,' 'The Good Companions" 'Lives of a Bengal Lancer' and 'David Copperfield' where sex was incidental, not fundamental. Let us," she adds, "by all means have a quota of 'love films' as now popularly known, but let them be kept in their place, which should be a comparatively minor one."