Communications
COMMUNICATIONS HOLLYWOOD New York, N. Y. TPO the Editor:—It is a perilous proceeding to attempt to ¦*- defend Hollywood, especially against the attack of such a loyal Californian and zealous...
...In order to understand its psychological significance, such information as Mr...
...Sheean, the Editor of The Commonweal, and the habitues of Times Square —will never solve the mystery of Hollywood...
...Just denouncing the movie stars, and whitewashing everybody else—except Mr...
...There are many others equally exemplary...
...Also to protest against the sideswipe she takes in passing, at Times Square, which is my professional habitat...
...Twenty-five years ago, Californians believed all the wicked people lived in New York City, and from there "poison flowed all over the continent" (the quotation is Miss Richard's...
...Local matters he was afraid to touch on...
...Just making cigarettes does not make a manufacturer wealthy...
...The New York Sun, Times, World and the Daily News with a combined circulation of over half a million in New Jersey were out for Morrow...
...The publicity that Morrow received through being the father-in-law of Colonel Lindbergh was not lost by any means...
...If all the wicked people in the country would turn green over night, there might be any number of places in the United States where emerald-hued individuals would be as thick as in Hollywood...
...Not that I have any special brief to offer for Hollywood, nor am I moved to champion the cause of Vincent Sheean, whom I happen to know is very well able to wield a shilleleh in his own defense...
...He avoided all mention of the League of Nations though he favors it...
...Much the same can be said of the antiprohibition press which attributed the large vote given the Ambassador to Mexico to his bold stand on prohibition and his plea for states rights...
...Sheean's analytic study of the cinema city contained much food for thought, to which readers of The Commonweal were certainly entitled...
...But they are by no means the wickedest...
...She says "bath tubs and bedroom scenes raise nonentities to publicity and fortune...
...Whether the American public is making Hollywood wicked or whether Hollywood is making the people wicked is an interesting question, and Mr...
...Miss Richard ventures another inaccuracy...
...Morrow also had the support of two or three machines, the Baird of Camden and South Jersey, the Bergen County and the Paterson McCutcheon machines...
...Thompson or plain Bill Jones been the candidate instead of Dwight Morrow, he would have gained a majority over both Frelinghuysen and Fort, had he got the same publicity from the papers circulating in New Jersey...
...The national sink of iniquity was then in Manhattan...
...It was natural for the papers bent on glorifying Morrow to say it was a Morrow victory...
...The New York Sun made a special plea to the commuters to hurry home and vote...
...As a matter of fact these nonentities acquire fame and fortune because the American public likes that kind of thing well enough to pay good money for it...
...It is much easier to abuse a thing and so dispose of it than to analyze it and philosophize about it...
...You are shouting too soon and for nothing...
...The Philadelphia Public Ledger did a similar service for the Ambassador in South Jersey...
...He also had the support of several of the leading papers in the state...
...He announced Germany did not start the war...
...The Hollywood colony is made up of the richest, the least cultured and the hardest worked group of rich people in the world...
...As for the wet and dry issue, that is a joke, for the state is wide open and one can drink any brand, kind or quantity of hard, soft or intermediate liquor he may have a mind to...
...In fact the public is requiring so much sex appeal from talkie stars now that they are too exhausted trying to live up to the insatiable demands of audiences to be as wicked as they are supposed to be...
...Sheean's accurate article furnished the readers of The Commonweal with valuable data as to their reaction on each other...
...No actress, however ravishing, would get rich or famous just sitting in a bath tub or careening around a bedroom, if hundreds of thousands of customers were not clamoring for the excitement of looking at her...
...I hold that Morrow, outside of the few prohibition speeches he delivered after careful preparation, made a poor campaign...
...It is quite true as Miss Richard says that Ramon Navarro and Greta Garbo lead decent lives, but she is wrong in supposing that they are practically alone in their virtue...
...Just saying, as she does, that Hollywood is a "cesspool where gentlemen with large fortunes contribute to the glorification of debauchees and divorcees" is too sweeping a statement to go unchallenged...
...Many other newspapermen made mistakes along the same line...
...Millions of people have to smoke them...
...Mother Jones and Billy Sunday raved about it...
...COMMUNICATIONS HOLLYWOOD New York, N. Y. TPO the Editor:—It is a perilous proceeding to attempt to ¦*- defend Hollywood, especially against the attack of such a loyal Californian and zealous Catholic as Margaret Richard...
...Sheean's article contained is essential...
...But Hollywood as one of the most amazing manifestations of modern times warrants no such hasty sweep into the discard...
...My own opinion is that had Mr...
...Morrow is greatly overrated...
...Bear in mind that one "Wet" named Morrow succeeded another "Wet" named Edge and both happen to be ambassadors and conservatives...
...There are thousands of wicked citizens to one wicked movie star on that count alone...
...Miss Richard intimates that because these readers are Catholics they should have been spared the knowledge all intelligent people are seeking—about Hollywood...
...It is rather difficult to fix the geographical centre of wickedness...
...Well it took him a long time to find that out...
...WHAT NEW JERSEY MEANS Paterson, N. J. TO the Editor:—Interesting as Charles Willis Thompson is, I think he is almost totally wrong in his interpretation of the Morrow victory in New Jersey...
...Sheean's philosophic article that I am writing...
...And if this were true and nothing more, Hollywood would have no more significance as a psychological problem than any large city in the country...
...If that is a sample of his capacity and courage then Mr...
...But what they said about New York's rich smart set at that time was quite as irrational as the sweeping statements made by Miss Richard about Hollywood's colonists...
...Patrick L. Quinlan...
...It is to find fault with Miss Richard's intemperate attitude in saying that the Editor of The Commonweal should have deprived his readers of the opportunity of reading Mr...
...But both Navarro and Garbo are tremendous box-office successes, not because they are well behaved but because they are fine actors and dripping with personality...
...They did, for the first time in the history of special elections in this state, and they voted for Morrow...
...With all the pomp and noise and boosting of Morrow and his alleged victory at the New Jersey primaries there really was no decision on a new principle...
...Miss Richard has taken the easier way...
...Marie L. Darrach...
Vol. 12 • July 1930 • No. 13
