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THE MICHIGAN DAILY

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SUNDAY, NOVEMarm z i , i g-)$


PG GHTH MCHGNDIYUNA ...NOVE > .8 r.+

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FOLLOW CODE & SYSTEM:
Dull Writers Cause of Film Weakness

By WILLIAM WIEGAND '
ness is ordinarily not the fault of scenarios. The film is essentially ing reminiscences are lunatic be-
NOW THAT the novelty of Ciner- the Greedy Producers. For some not a theatrical art, but a novelis- cause the film has a simpler way
ama, VistaVision and Cinema- reason, it is the writers themselves fir one. The governing factor in a of demonstrating a man's memo-
Scope is starting to wear off, some who are dull (even though they - . ries; the flashback. As in poetry,
motin pctur paronshav stat- ill seldom admnit it). Year by tag playeisp its unity f tiend you cannot really translate form
ed to wonder again what makes year, producers discover they can are focused on his limitations. He from one language to another.
Hollywood movies so tiresome. make money producing intelligent ose onhstions , He The director settled for an approx-
films; and still writers use the knos the conventions which will imalion. In the screen version of
Hollywood itself is aware that Code and the System as their whip- help him reach his objectives and the musical, "Brigadoon," a simi-
th iecenbo'is a tempo- CdendthuSstmesherthipm.ac hsThiectmis and
the widescreen boom ping boy. Good scripts are in de- he uses them, The film is OPPO lar thing happens. The movie
rary thing, and a few of the more and and yet the writer seem site: Its raison d'etre is expan- 'broods (le Shangri-la village in
sensitive men in the industry, like helpless to produce them. Why? sion. It breaks down the walls; it phony mist; underneath is ginger-
Dore Schary, MGM producer, and has a hundred points of view as bread. Everything that was half-
Leon Shamroy, cinematographer, Basically, I think there are two the stage has one; dialogue is its dream on the stage becomes a bru-
have recently urged that it is time reasons: one, the supply of good crutch as it is the stage's back- tal Technicolor reality. In Cinema-
to start thinking about sounder novels, which was sensibly enough bone. Scope, you get plaid all the way tp
scripts once more, or "story val- always a major source of film For these reasons and others, to the ceiling.
ues," as they put it in California. scenarios, is drying up, and two, adaptations of successful plays al-
Despite what you may think, this they have never been provided most inevitably seem constricted INTERESTINGLY enough, some
is not the first time it has occurred with sufficient training in writing or gratuitously inflated; they smell of the best adaptations of plays
to Hollywood that the writer is a original film scripts. I would like of entrances and exits, of useless e H s
very important man. Still, this to develop these points individual- stylization, of lavender and left he Heiress, Member of the
worry has not appreciably im- ly. overs. In "Death of a Salesman,, Wedding") have been of plays that
proved the quality of scenarios. Al- First of all, the three sources for example; on the stage, Willy were originally novels. But even
though there are many, many oth- for film scripts, with few excep- Loman was a man in shadow; on more impressive perhaps is the
er good reasons why American Lions, are plays, novels, and "or- the screen, he was the shadow of a number of fine films that have been
movies are childish or pretentious iginal ideas." The play, in spite of man. On the stage, the pathetic translated directly from novels. I
or just dull, the fact remains that a few reasonably good film adap- ease with which he stepped back
script weakness is one of the basic tations, has seldom proved esthet- into the past was highly expressive dobttt that Hollywood has produced
causes of bad films, and this weak- ically sound as a foundation for technique; on the screen, his rant- at any time since the inception of
causs _____ ___________________ sound a helter film than Remar-
.'. ,. ......,. :-:.: ...},":. .:.::. . .,.:...}. ^ . que s "All Quiet on the W estern
Front," Hammett's "The Maltese
Falcon," or "A Place in the Sun"
from Dreisser's "An American
Tragedy." All of these films cre-
ated their own world, expressed
both the tone and the dynamic
quality of the novel in film terms,
and they are, all three, master-
pieces. The variety and movement
of the novel, the social conscience,
the infinitesimal as well as the
mass effects are all within the ca-
pacify of the film meditm. Holly-
wood has, in fact, often done a bet-
- ter job with the sprawling novel
they were far easier undertakings,
than foreign companies have. While
compare, for example, the efff-
ciency and general loyalty of re-
cent versions of "All the King's
Men" and "From Here to Eterni-
ty" with France's broad-stroked
adaptation of "Crime and Punish-

la docu-melodrama, as in the cur.
rent "On the Waterfront."
But nobody dares to draft in
terms like Dreiser, or Remarque,
or even Hammett did. Yet what
they drafted made great us.',vies.
Least of all, does any fili'. write-
approach his task an' longes w
the effortless, but i.tentio
precision of the late Cart s r~
scenarist of many oatandfs iu f
man films, Thss a the s~ M ay
wrote;
TITLE:
Summer-vacation time
Quick fade in
INT. R.R. STATION
Vacation trains
Just leave.
Overcrowded with perspiring,
traveling public.
Waving through windows.
Then: The trains have left.
One sees through tall, glass
arches
The city plaza in front of the 1
railroad station,
With highest houses,
Shops, automobiles, street cars,
Autobuises, elevated structure,
people,
In hot asphalt vapor.
And in another scene:
Camera somehow shooting down
upon the ground:
The place where they fought.
(Where they were lying in the
morass.)
But no one there now?
Only trodden-down reeds.
Traces left of the wrestling in
the mire .
Review DIscs
of Mozart
To Piston
(Contiinued from Pase 3)

listic monotony felt, and the fresh.

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F, HOWEVER, the novel has ness of this wonderful music re-
proved Hollywood's salvation, mains after many hearings.
it also seems to have imprisoned The Second Concerto, written
her. The novel, virtually alone, in 1930-31, has elem ents of the
has supplied the American film Baroque concerto grosso, of the
with its "ideas;" Hollywood her- virtuosic solo work, of the almost
self has supplied only gimmicks. aae folk dance, amd of the
"night music" reminiscent of Bar-.
This is true to such a degree, in tok's Fourth Quartet, Out of Doors
fact, that the most talented writ- Suite for piano, and other works.
ers in the business seem unable to The Third Concerto presents its
move on their own. John Huston, materials in remarkable straight-
for example, who has done bril- forward fashion, but there is some-
liantly adapting such novels as thing strange and elusive about
The Maltese Falcon," "The As- this short, clear-cut work. It has
phalt Jungle " "Treasure of the Si- a peculiar esthetic qualify that is
erra Madre," and "The Red Badge not quite like any other music by
of Courage," becomes a cynical Bartok,
clown, a gimmick-artist himself If you stay long enough with this
when liberated from the dominion concerto, you may come to feel, as
of the sound novel: witness the re- does your reviewer, that it is one
cent "Beat the Devil." He is a re- of the masterpieces of the half
maikabte interpreter, a poetic c e atTepecesmaofthe hl
renturyThe erfomanc""*th
,translator, butt, so far, not much worka is supemb,
more.
Tod'ay, tie samd fact is that the__ .
classic novels have been remadePredictions ,
so often, they are nearly exhausted
althoug Huston himself mashaving
oanother whirl currently with "Moby 3 Y a s O d
Dick.") The supply of good new
9 novels, meanwhile, is very low A
||ora res'on it is not nsy province Litl uft
here to investigate. In any case,
Hollywood is fresh out of ideas and Cont inued from Page )
does not know where to shop for - -----
them. Slated to be first-string center
This brings Lis back to their fail- at the opening of fall practice his
- ure to develop any writers of sub- junior year, a bad head injury put
stance in their own backyard. The an end to a fine football career.
art of the original screenplay is Leo Schlict was rated along with
virtually dead. With few excep- Veselenak as a capable end, but
tions, film plots that originate in the 6'4" flanker didn't come out
Hollywood are "trick" comedies or for football this year after seeing
skeleton melodramas that will bor- little action for two seasons.-
row the framework of scripts from . None of the other linemen that
other sources, but contain no sem- Robinson mentioned those three
blance of the raw material that long years ago, including Bob Mil.
holds the original together. The ex- ligan, Carl Dubac, Cass Chomicz,
ceptions have come from men like Jim Wagner, John Treadway, Carl
Joseph Manckiewicz who has net- Lowrey, and Fred Caffrey, are
worked a warp of low-pressure so- around any more.
phistication with a woof of slick The other eight seniors who
r character sense to produce nice so- weren't deemed worthy of mention
Mial tapestries like "All About as freshmen, but who are cur.
Eve" and "Letter to Three Wives." rently holding down varsity spots,
Occasionally, there also arises a are Jim Bowman, Don Drake, Peri
good lyric or ballad script like Gagalis, Carl Kanhout, Ray Ke-
"High Noon," or there occurs a nega, Stan Knickerbocker, Joe
creditable effort to lyricize a forut- Krahl and Chuck Ritter.

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