Читать книгу Over Here: Impressions of America by a British officer - Hector MacQuarrie - Страница 14

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Bethlehem, December 20, 1917.

I am steadily becoming a movie "fan," which means that when Douglas Fairbanks, or Charlie Chaplin, or other cheerful people appear on the screen at the Lorenz theatre at Bethlehem I appear sitting quite close up and enjoying myself. It is all very interesting. One sort of gets to know the people, and indeed to like them. The movies have taken up quite a large part of our lives in this burgh. One has got to do something, and if one is a lone bachelor, sitting at home presents but few attractions. The people in film land are all interesting.

There is the social leader. I always love her. Her magnificent and haughty mien thrills me always, as with snowy hair, decent jewels and what not, she proceeds to impress the others in film land. I am not going to talk about the vampire.

Film stories can be divided into three classes—the wild and woolly, the crazy ones, as we call them here, and the society dramas with a human interest; and, I forgot, the crook stories.

The wild and woolly ones are delightful. John Devereaux, bored with his New York home, and his gentle and elegant mother, decides to visit a friend out west. He arrives in a strange cart which looks like a spider on wheels driven by a white haired person wearing a broad brimmed hat and decorated with several pistols or even only one. He seems to find himself almost at once in a dancing hall, where wicked-looking though charming young ladies are dancing with fine handsome young fellows, all armed to the teeth, and with their hair nicely parted. In the corner of the room is the boss, sinister and evil looking, talking to as nice looking a young person as one could possibly meet. The dancing seems to stop, and then follows a "close up" of the nice looking young person. (A little disappointing this "close up." A little too much paint mademoiselle, n'est ce pas, on the lips and under the eyes?) Then a "close up" of the boss. This is very thrilling and the widest possibilities of terrible things shortly to happen are presented to us fans, as we see him chew his cigar and move it from one side of his mouth to the other. They both discuss John Devereaux and then follows a "close up" of our hero. He is certainly good looking, and his fine well-made sporting suit fits him well and shows off his strong figure.

But wait till you see him on a horse which has not a good figure, but an extremely useful mouth that can be tugged to pieces by John Devereaux as he wheels him around. I am going to start a mission to movie actors in horse management, and I am going to dare to tell them that to make a horse come round quickly and still be able to use him for many years, it is not necessary to jag his dear old mouth to bits. I am also going to teach them how to feed a horse so that his bones don't stick out in parts even if he is a wicked looking pie-bald. I am also going to teach them that if you have twelve miles to ride it is an awful thing to jag your spurs into his flanks and make him go like hell. I suppose they will enjoy my mission, and it will have the same success that all missions have—but this by the way.

John Devereaux is a very handsome chap, and I like him from the start, and I am greatly comforted when I know that the charming young person will throw her fan in the face of the boss, pinch all his money and live for a few sad days in extremely old-fashioned but becoming clothes (generally a striped waist) with another worthy but poor friend, and then marry our hero. I come away greatly comforted and retire, feeling that the world without romance would be a dull place.

I love the crazy ones, I love to see fat old ladies taking headers into deep ponds. I love to see innocent fruit sellers getting run into by Henry Ford motors. I love to see dozens of policemen massing and then suddenly leaving their office and rushing like fury along the road after—Charlie Chaplin. Give me crazy movies. They are all brimming over with the most innocent fun and merriment. It is a pity that they are generally so short, but I suppose the actors get tired after a time.

The society pictures must impress greatly the tired working woman; a little pathetic this, really. Perhaps I am ignorant of the doings of the four hundred, but if they live as the movie people live it must be strangely diverting to be a noble American. The decorations in their houses must supply endless hours of exploration, and the wonderful statuary must help one to attain Nirvana. I've heard of ne'er-do-well sons, but I did not know they had such amusing times.

In the society drama, the son leaves his beautiful southern home with white pillars and his innocent playmate, very pretty and hopeful and nicely gowned, and finds himself at Yale or Harvard. I wish Cambridge and Oxford presented the same number of possibilities. Here he meets the vampire, horrid and beastly, and falls for her and never thinks of his innocent father and mother solemnly opening the family Bible and saying a few choice prayers, while the playmate worries in the background, praying fervently. It is all very sad and becomes heart-rending when the pretty playmate retires to her room, puts on the most lovely sort of garment all lace and things, and after praying and looking earnestly at a crucifix, hops into bed, never forgetting to remove her slippers. Then the scene stops and she probably curses the fellow working the lights if he has not got a good shine on her gorgeous hair while she prays. But don't worry, she marries the son all right. The vamp dies, probably punctured by a bullet from an old "rough neck" accomplice, or a married man.

The court scenes present wonderful possibilities for the services of some dear old chap as judge. He is an awful nice old fellow.

They are all the same and bore me stiff unless a rather decent sort of chap called Ray appears in them and he has a cleansing influence. There is also a lady called Marsh whom I rather like. Besides being good looking she can act wonderfully and is always natural. I can stand any sort of society drama with her in it. Sometimes the heroes are peculiarly horrible with nasty sloppy long hair, and not nearly as good looking as the leading man in the best male chorus in New York.

The crook stories are fine. They take place mostly in underground cellars. I love the wicked looking old women and fat gentlemen who drink a great deal. However, there are hair-breadth escapes which thrill one, and plenty of policemen and clever looking inspectors and so on.

Seriously, the movies have revolutionized society in many ways. People like Douglas Fairbanks are a great joy to us all. The people who write his plays have learnt that it is the touch of nature that counts most in all things with every one. And so he laughs his way along the screen journey, and we all enter into movie land, where the sun is shining very brightly and the trees are very green, and we all live in nice houses, and meet only nice people with just a few villains thrown in, whom we can turn into nice people by smiling at them. He changes things for us sometimes. Rhoda sitting next to Trevor sees him through different eyes and she gives his hand a good hard squeeze. He is a sort of Peter Pan, really.

Mothers in movie land are always jolly and nice. Fathers are often a little hard, but they come round all right or get killed in an exciting accident. Generally they come round. The parsons worry me a little. Being a zealous member of the Church of England, I object strongly to the sanctimonious air and beautiful silvery hair displayed by ministers in movie land. They marry people off in no time, too, and a little promiscuously, I think.

Except at the Scala, where the pictures used to be good and dull, most of the movie theatres are a little impossible in Blighty. I wonder why. In New Zealand there are fine picture theatres and in Australia they are even better, but if you venture into one in London you want to get out quick. Here in America they are ventilated, and there is generally a pipe organ to help one to wallow in sentiment. Often it seems well played, too, and, at any rate, the darkness and the music blend well together and one can get into "Never Never Land" quite easily and comfortably.