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1200 lines
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 87 -- March 2000 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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Contemporary Editorials Discussing the Taylor Case
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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The two-hour special documentary on the Taylor case produced by A&E cable TV
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is scheduled to be broadcast on the evening of March 19, 2000. Check local
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program listing for the exact time.
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Contemporary Editorials Discussing the Taylor Case
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The following is a selection of contemporary newspaper editorials commenting
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on the William Desmond Taylor murder case.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 4, 1922
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OMAHA BEE
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A Tragedy of the Movies
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The latest "release" from Los Angeles cinema colony is that of a
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thriller that promises to run through more than one reel. It is the tale of
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a murder, sordid, perhaps, in its intimate details, yet possessed of the one
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attribute dear to the producer's heart, that of mystery. How or in what
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manner it will end is just now beside the case. That wonderful community of
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abnormal personalities will continue to hold a fair place on the front page
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for some time yet because of this unpretty contribution to the record its
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habitues have made. Will H. Hays will find in it at least one of the minor
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problems he will have to deal with, although it is conceivable that the
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regulation of the private lives of the actors who disport before the camera
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is not included in the business management of the great industry.
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Unfortunate though it be, the assembling in more or less forced intimacy of
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considerable numbers of persons of both sexes whose code of personal behavior
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is not the rigid sort that pervades the general walk of life, is likely to
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produce results that shock the world by their nature. Nothing shown on the
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screen has so far exceeded in weirdness the things actually done by the movie
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players. Men and women in other walks of life have suffered by similar
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tragedies, but it is the movie stars' misfortune in such cases that millions
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of people had interest in them. Their every act almost, even those of
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personal conduct, are on a public stage.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 4, 1922
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WICHITA EAGLE
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Another Movie Scandal?
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Another typical California murder has been staged in the movie colony.
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William Desmond Taylor, wealthy movie director, ex-husband of two [sic] women
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and alleged prospective husband of at least as many more, is dead of gunshot
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wounds, and police are questioning men and women known to have been on
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intimate terms with the director.
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Several million-dollar names are being bandied about, and the stage
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seems to be all set for the interesting unraveling of another movie scandal.
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Under the shadow of this tragedy, Fatty Arbuckle ought to be able to
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sneak away and become insignificant enough to escape further public notice.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 4, 1922
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CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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"How Different from the Home Life of our Dear Queen"
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David W. Griffith, the moving picture producer, in expressing his regret
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that some one had shot William Desmond Taylor, also a producer, in his Los
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Angeles home, said that he hoped people would not be led to false ideas of
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moving picture domestic life and social ideals and would not unjustly
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criticize the moving picture colony in Los Angeles. He would be grieved if
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through false impressions anything discreditable to the screen profession
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prevailed to its injury in the public mind.
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We believe that he need fear no such misfortune. The moving picture
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industry, as the public gets glimpses of it from time to time, seems to
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possess some delectable isle where the charm of life is never withered and
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only occasionally marked by some romantic murder and subsequent murder trial.
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If sometimes the movies appear as unreal, it is only because we view
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them from the actualities of our own experience and do not know that they are
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interpretations of realities in the life of the moving picture artists. For
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them there are swans on the lake, Russian wolfhounds stand beside the
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automobile, and whenever there is an evening party the ladies and gentlemen
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have a frolic in the marble pool in the pink moonlight, while the ju-ju birds
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bill in the cypress trees.
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On this delectable island the law of cause and effect does not run.
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Prohibition is not a cause and abstinence is not an effect. Wherever the
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enchanted people go cocktails precede them and highballs follow them. Even
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death, when it enters, comes on velvet feet, with a Cecil De Mill composition
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and David Wark Griffith direction.
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This is the life, as Mr. Griffith's publicity matter describes the
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"Orphans of the Storm," "when people went dancing, singing, loving, and
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taking, as they pleased. The lawless--but not loveless--city in that
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cyclonic last act. From the storehouse they took gold and silver and
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precious stones, from the storehouse they took satins and silks to make
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alluring--" It is much too much. We cannot go on. But what a life!
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The director, having said good night to his faithful colored servitor,
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is alone in his beautiful house, reading Freud. Rare things of art and
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wealth surround him. A cocktail mixer stands at his elbow. Sunset glow. A
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dove in the red cedar calls to its mate in the willow. The Russian
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wolfhounds doze in their kennels. A beautiful lady in a beautiful car
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arrives, eating peanuts.
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Peanut shells are all over the beautiful car. The handsome chauffeur
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sweeps them out while the director reads Freud to the beautiful lady in the
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twilight beside the cocktail shaker. Mae Tinee says that some low down
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realist, finding his reason shaken by the combination of beautiful lady
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eating peanuts and fatherly man reading Freud to her, was driven to murder.
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Possibly, but he never went to the movies much, or it would not have jarred
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him.
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Nightfall and the brilliantly lighted house. Midnight and another
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beautiful lady casually stops for a good-night chat. The door bell rings,
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but otherwise it is a house of silence, because it is a house of death. One
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fatal shot has rung out in the night and shadowy mystery waves the curtains
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as the sun comes up.
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The Tribune sent Mr. Doherty to the Pacific coast to report the murders
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and other social advantages of that region, and he has been busy ever since.
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He was asked if he did not want to take a rest and come back home. He
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replied that he would resign first.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 5, 1922
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MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL
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Movie Crimes Becoming Real
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Surely is the city of pleasant make-believe in the luxuriant state of
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California coming to the attention of the nation through realities that are
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by no means pleasant. One crime seems to tread upon the heels of another in
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the great moving picture colony with each succeeding one more lurid and
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dispiriting than its predecessor. While one member of this community of
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luxury and license awaits his fate on a sordid charge of manslaughter another
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is mysteriously shot to death, and the details surrounding his murder seem to
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point to conditions even more ugly and sordid than the preceding one.
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Newspaper correspondents peeping behind the veil of mystery say that
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revelations in the newest tragedy will go beyond the drunkenness and sexual
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lubricity of the other one to the dismal depths of drug-crazed minds and
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bodies.
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It would seem at least on the face of things as if sins of sexual
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license and violent purpose even in the make-believe are two-edged swords
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that can do damage to the wielder as well as to those for whom they are
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wielded. We have become more or less acquainted with the evils that such
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portrayals may work upon those who witness them, but have not know so much
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about the reflex action upon the portrayers. Psychologists and psycho
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analysists may argue the point as to whether the moral laxity of some of the
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pictures is the cause or is the effect of the moral turpitude of some of the
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producers. But their argumentation will not alter the obvious fact that an
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unwholesome atmosphere seems to pervade this city of make-believe.
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Time was, as is recorded in Holy Writ, when two cities of the
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Palestinian plains not so far from the Dead Sea so offended the Creator by
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their vices and concupiscences that He rained down fire and brimstone and
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destroyed them in their sins. Some modern cities, and among them this movie
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community of mimic life, dare also to tempt the wrath of the Supreme Being.
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They may have no such calamitous visitation as is recorded in Genesis, but
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they are at least bringing about the contempt of decent-minded people and by
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so doing are destroying the golden opportunity that is theirs. Besides, the
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guilty members of this colony, each and every one of them, are feasting
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themselves solely upon Dead Sea fruit.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 5, 1922
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IDAHO STATESMAN
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"Reel" Values
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The real tragedy of William D. Taylor may eclipse in sensation any of
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the reel ones he directed. It involves murder and mystery, assumed names,
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actors and actresses of wide reputation, luxurious environments; in fact, all
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the necessary ingredients of the movie thriller.
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There is an unfortunate side to it. We are likely again, as in the
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Arbuckle case, to have the private life of each of several prominent screen
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people uncovered and dissected. Many a man would blush, blameless as his
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past may actually have been, to have that past studied as Taylor's may be and
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as Arbuckle's was. Few people live to middle age without having been guilty
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of an indiscretion or two at which they are vexed in secret.
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This engineer-actor-director who has gone by the name of Taylor may have
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been something of a Don Juan and, in the course of his moving picture life,
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much engaged. It may even be that this is not the worst that can be said of
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him; but he is dead now and we would prefer to be charitable, though,
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charitable or not, we are, it seems, to have the facts thrust upon us.
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Perhaps they will leave us a little more disgusted with those who have
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contributed to our delight in the movies.
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Taylor was successful as a director; that does not mean he was
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successful as a man. Many an actress thrills us; until we find,
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unexpectedly, to our sorrow, that she failed to live as well as she acted. A
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few more of these disillusionments and we may lose our respect for these
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hired entertainers who dance and mimic for our amusement. We have idolized
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them too much, heaped favors too high upon them, given them too high a status
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in our modern life. It may be about time to readjust ourselves and give
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them, in our minds, their proper and lower place.
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The girl with the wind-blown hair and glowing cheeks one meets at the
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corner grocery, buying a yeast cake for her mother, may be better in soul and
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of more real use to the world than any of these actresses. The genial lad
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who wraps up our collars at the store may be as interesting, as likeable, as
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morally sound and as successful in the end as any director who, megaphone to
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mouth, has bellowed, "Action! Camera!"
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 6, 1922
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CHARLESTON GAZETTE
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Crime and the News
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A tragedy in the moving picture colony in Los Angeles, coming in the
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wake of the tragedy in a San Francisco hotel, in which performers were
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involved, again turns the searchlight on the industry and has a tendency to
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cast odium on the performers as a class and Hollywood as a place of their
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abode.
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One has only to visit southern California and Hollywood to see the lure
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of the place. The climate is wonderful, it is not tropical, yet all the
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exotic things to be found in the tropics are found in this comparatively
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temperate zone. But, a few days at the place will prove an eternal verity so
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that the atmosphere will get one as some lotus blossom deprives one of
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rational ideas and wafts them on the wave of emotions to pleasant dreams.
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The "movie" colony is also one recruited from the ends of the world.
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The world's butterflies have assembled there, but, in addition, practical
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business men and legitimate performers of all kinds have loaned or sold their
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arts and energies to the making of pictures which has got such a hold on the
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public that the industry is said to be the fourth largest in the United
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States in volume of money spent on their making and showing.
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It would be unfair to say that there is more immorality in the moving
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picture colonies that anywhere else in the country, although the setting
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would be perfect for excesses of all kinds. At times there are as many as
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40,000 persons engaged in one way or another in the industry in Los Angeles
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and environs.
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A few days ago a player and director was murdered. It was the first
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crime of a similar nature in the colony for years. The identity of the
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murdered man, his importance to the industry, and the fact that there is some
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mystery as to the identity of his slayer, have all the elements which would
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appeal to the scenario writers engaged in the industry. But the incident has
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again startled the critics, and, while there is no necessity, it seems to
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offer a brief for the industry, there are some facts that might be cited.
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In the city of Charleston homicides are not unusual. The court records
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would show an astonishing number. A murder here is news which is relegated
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generally to a place of secondary importance, but California has a way of
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advertising itself which sometimes assumes the form of exploiting notoriety.
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In the present instance, as in the Arbuckle case, the industry of making
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pictures gets more notoriety than is deserved. It is very natural that there
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should occasionally be a scandal in a community as large as Hollywood, and it
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is just as natural that occasionally some hatred should find expression in
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one individual slaying another. We do not know the statistics relative to
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homicides in Los Angeles, and it is not our intention to magnify the number
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in Kanawha county, but it would be interesting to print the facts. We are
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certain that there are less in Los Angeles than there are in Kanawha county
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although Los Angeles has half a million inhabitants.
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The facts seem to be, however, that the public and the press give much
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importance to news items such as the killing of Taylor. But there is a
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defense for the tendency to print in detail the stories of such crimes. One
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is the public demand for the details. The press, purveyor of news, must have
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it to sell. One of the reasons why the newspapers of America today are the
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greatest mediums of advertising is because they are the most widely read
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mediums. If they ignored the news they would not be read. Pulitzer said
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that "crime was news," and a poll of all the people would probably prove that
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at this time the latest murder mystery of Los Angeles was discussed in more
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homes yesterday than was the morning sermon in the churches.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 6, 1922
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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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Moviedom's Garbage
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William Desmond Taylor's murder has lifted the lid of moviedom's garbage
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can. The odor arising is not sweet. A filthy mess is being revealed as the
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police delve into the crime.
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The murder is the climax of a series of revolting divorce cases, dope
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parties and other nasty affairs.
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From Hollywood, center of the motion picture business, come many stories
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of orgies. Too many stars of the screen have been paraded before the public
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in a mantle of vice.
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In a general way folk on "the inside" have known of these things. It
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has taken the Arbuckle case, the Valentino-Acker divorce suit and the Taylor
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mystery to lift the lid for the public gaze.
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A portion of filmdom, at least, seems to need a good cleaning. The
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capable and energetic Mr. Will Hays is the gentleman to administer it.
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The movie business has been hurt as a result of the escapades of some
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stars. Cow-eyed "heroes" and star-eyed "heroines" have not lured crowds to
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the box offices as of yore. There are good reasons.
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Movie stars have given us many of our pet illusions. But illusions fade
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when one reads of shining lights of filmdom being dragged through scandalous
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muck.
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It is only fair to a large number of actors, producers and directors to
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point out that the individuals involved in the scandals are the minority.
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Frequently they are of the class exploited into stardom because of
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favoritism, not because of ability to act. These persons believe what their
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press agents write about them. Inflated heads and disaster follow.
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They have been the ones who have hurt the picture business. Parents
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don't care to see or to take their children to see on the screen in heroic
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roles men and women who have been involved in sordid cases.
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Motion picture stars are public characters. They cannot afford to have
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private lives. They live in glass houses, constantly on exhibit. They are
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idols.
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Some of these idols are proving to be clay. In picking these
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individuals out of the industry lies one of Mr. Hays's big opportunities. It
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is safe to predict Mr. Hays is broad visioned enough to realize this fact and
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to administer a spring cleaning.
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The garbage of moviedom--even if it has been perfumed in the past--must
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be dumped overboard for the good of an industry that is needed to entertain
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millions.
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February 6, 1922
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INDIANAPOLIS NEWS
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Hollywood Happenings
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The murder last week of a movie director, and the facts brought to light
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by the police inquiry, throw a light on the Hollywood colony that must be
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painfully unwelcome, especially at this juncture, to the colonists. There is
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no reason in the nature of things why there should be immorality in movie
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circles. In the film itself there is nothing wicked--unless indeed it is an
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evil film--nor need any wickedness mark its production. It would be most
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unfair to class all together, and to assume that all those connected with the
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business are pariahs.
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The trouble seems to come from a combination of a low order of mentality
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and big salaries--as in the Arbuckle case. Few things are more dangerous
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than money in the hands of those who have no idea of its value, and not the
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slightest sense of the responsibility which its possession imposes.
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Undoubtedly there are many of these people who are not rich, but probably all
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expect to be, and also the pace is set by those who are rich. There do not
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seem to be any moral standards--hardly indeed a suspicion that such things
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exist.
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When such influences operate in a restricted community composed wholly
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of movie people who know nothing except their trade, think of nothing else,
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and have no idea of any public opinion except that of the little community in
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which they live and work (and "play")--under such conditions shocking things
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are bound to occur. To an over-supply of money and an under-supply of brains
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one must look for an explanation of the happenings at Hollywood. There are
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rumors of the existence of a circle of so-called "esthetes" which would only
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make the situation worse. The murdered man in the latest case was, it is
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said, a student of Freud, while the studies of another member of the
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community seem to have been divided between Freud and the Police Gazette. Of
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course moral depravity is by no means unrepresented in the Hollywood colony.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 7, 1922
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SACRAMENTO BEE
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Clean-Up from Inside
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Should be Movie Program
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The murder of William Desmond Taylor, the film director in Los Angeles,
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has disclosed a story as unsavory as the details of the Roscoe Arbuckle case
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and rivaling that of the Thaw case of former years.
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Even more prominent figures in filmdom, however, have been drawn into
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the mess, and the impression left with the general public is that the moral
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tone of life among the men and women of the screen resembles too closely that
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of decadent Rome.
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Unless some drastic changes are made, the results are likely to be
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disastrous to the industry. A few more such malodorous incidents will result
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in such a wave of public indignation as may be ruinous to the business.
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Wise producers have scented the danger, but, for the most part, the
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energy thus far disclosed, has been of a hunt for cover order, rather than an
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honest confession that some things were wrong and a cleaning up is needed.
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Just lie low until the storm blows over, and then everything will resume
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its normal order, was the attitude of too many of the filmmakers after the
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arrest of Arbuckle.
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This attitude becomes increasingly difficult of maintenance as the
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result of this new scandal.
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If it is true that a vast majority of the people connected with the
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photoplay making are decent and respectable, now is surely the time for them
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to assert themselves.
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One suggestion offered is that the Hollywood colony be closed, and that
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a new start be made at Long Island, New York, where no orgies have occurred,
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and where a church would be erected to give notice to the world that in this
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spot Arcadia would be reborn.
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This sounds too much like a real estate scheme, and it does not in any
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way touch the heart of the situation.
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It is people which make or mar the character of any spot, and if the
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Arbuckles and the Taylors are permitted to set the pace no little church
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spire or change of location is going to help matters.
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Proponents of this scheme should remember what Lincoln said about
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fooling the people.
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Most of the trouble can be traced to the large sums of easy money which
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the motion picture industry has brought to individuals to whom wealth means
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license, and who can find only in abnormal or degrading sensations a real
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"kick" in life.
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To put a restraint on them is the only way of safety for the moving
|
|
picture industry.
|
|
If the restraint comes from the inside, so much the better.
|
|
But one way or another, it is going to be done. That cannot be doubted.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 7, 1922
|
|
NEW YORK EVENING MAIL
|
|
Movies and Morals
|
|
|
|
It is not fair to indict a whole profession for the sins or crimes of a
|
|
few of its members. But that is precisely what public opinion is now doing
|
|
in the case of the moving picture actors and actresses. The recurrence of
|
|
scandals in which highly priced stars and directors figure has bitterly
|
|
incensed clean-minded people throughout the country. There is something more
|
|
than moral indignation in that attitude, too. The average patron of the
|
|
pictures comes to look with something like affection on his or her favorite
|
|
players. When these players prove unworthy of admiration in their private
|
|
lives, the public has a sense of betrayal.
|
|
It is quite possible that there are no more instances of marital
|
|
infidelity or general immorality among these personages of the screen than
|
|
there are among stevedores or scrubwomen. But that is beside the issue.
|
|
Those who are in the public eye owe public morality a greater debt than those
|
|
who are not, because their example can do so much harm.
|
|
We do not suppose that the men at the head of the moving picture
|
|
industry can secure nothing but Galahads and their feminine counterparts for
|
|
the pictures they make. But it is quite possible that there are conditions
|
|
in the industry that could be easily reformed. One of the most prominent men
|
|
in it, for instance, thinks the Hollywood colony life is bad for the
|
|
character of those taking part in it. They live and talk nothing but
|
|
pictures, he says, and their standards of conduct are apt to be self-
|
|
determined. This seems very like commonsense, and it suggests the abolition
|
|
of the colony.
|
|
A higher ideal of their profession's power would also help the weak
|
|
sisters and brothers in it. Probably nothing in the world will help the
|
|
really vicious ones. but they without doubt are comparatively few. There is
|
|
an old saw, "Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its
|
|
laws." If the picture people could be brought to realize how far that half-
|
|
truth could be said of their own profession, they might measure up better to
|
|
their opportunities.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 7, 1922
|
|
KANSAS CITY STAR
|
|
The Defendant in the Case
|
|
|
|
It may be that the man who committed the Hollywood murder will escape,
|
|
but Hollywood can't. Hollywood as a community, as a social condition, as a
|
|
moral delinquency, stands indicted.
|
|
The conquest of easy fortune has much to answer for. Men and women
|
|
intoxicated by money, the uses of which they never had learned through the
|
|
process of earning it, came to believe that the finery they wore before the
|
|
camera really had translated them into persons of condition and privilege.
|
|
They made themselves into a class, a species of order, and set up a new code
|
|
for themselves which repudiated all the obligations recognized and observed
|
|
by society. To have more money than your abilities or service entitle you
|
|
to, to spend it in wild excesses, to reject the restraints of decency and
|
|
outrage all public sensibilities, was to be approved a member of this order.
|
|
If you passed all these tests, you might, as a mark of special favor, be
|
|
permitted, if it suited your taste and convenience, to live under your own
|
|
name.
|
|
This is the class that has branded the motion picture industry in
|
|
Hollywood. It is without principle, character or morals, and but for the
|
|
Midas touch of the films would be washing dishes and peeling potatoes. It
|
|
isn't intelligent, it isn't capable, it isn't profitable to the industry to
|
|
which it has attached itself. But it has been lavishly overpaid in the
|
|
past--a condition now fortunately drawing to an end--and with this
|
|
unaccustomed wealth it has ruined itself and half ruined the screen drama.
|
|
What else could have been expected? Shallow girls and uneducated men,
|
|
raised suddenly from poverty to riches, without the balance of character,
|
|
without culture, moral background or social responsibility, will make a swift
|
|
and sure descent to the level from which they came. You can't make an eagle
|
|
of a crow by sticking an eagle's feathers on him.
|
|
The real defendant in the Hollywood murder is the motion picture
|
|
industry. The producers will have to recognize that it is their business to
|
|
maintain certain standards or to suffer the inevitable consequences in the
|
|
loss of public patronage.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 8, 1922
|
|
LOUISVILLE TIMES
|
|
The Visible Kiss
|
|
|
|
The transmission of kisses by symbols is one of the oldest practices
|
|
known to the human race. When two lovers were separated by some cruel fate
|
|
which forbade the pressing of lips to lips they have always devised an
|
|
artifice by which osculation might be typified. If they eyed each other
|
|
throw a chink in the wall, like Pyramus and Thisbe they kissed the stones
|
|
which separated them in token of what might happen if fortune were more kind.
|
|
If the cave man wanted to send his inamorata a sign to the effect that he was
|
|
kissing her in spirit, he scratched an "x" on a slab of stone and pitched it
|
|
into the cavern where her stern father held her in captivity. When a Kaffir
|
|
chieftain wished to thrill the heart of a dusky princess with the sentiment
|
|
of kisses by "hopeless fancy feigned," he sent her the head of one of his
|
|
retinue with a thorn piercing the lips.
|
|
With the advance of civilization, the symbols became more refined. We
|
|
outgrew Salome's idea of kissing the head of John the Baptist instead of
|
|
kissing his lips while they were yet warm. Then we began kissing the finger
|
|
tips from afar, and, later with the dawn of commercialized sentiment, we
|
|
resorted to the distich which used to be wrapped around the "candy kiss."
|
|
Then came the blotch at the end of a perfumed note, labeled "a kiss," and
|
|
finally the "x," which reverted back to the cave man.
|
|
The algebraic symbol, "x," stands for the "unknown quantity"; but, in
|
|
modern love letters it has no hidden meaning. Indeed, it is highly obvious,
|
|
as witness the chain of "x's" which Mary Miles Minter, the movie actress,
|
|
strung across the bottom of a note which she wrote to William Desmond Taylor.
|
|
Having piteously denied that she was enamored of the slain motion-picture
|
|
director, she confessed all when confronted by her symboled kisses.
|
|
Love is akin to murder in the sense that it "will out," and one of the
|
|
surest indications of its existence is the penchant of lovers to symbolize
|
|
their kisses on paper. The "x" is the usual form employed, and is more
|
|
definite and unmistakable than the "o's" which some of the lovelorn use. All
|
|
hieroglyphics, however, are resorted to, and, in this wise detectives gain
|
|
many a clew which might otherwise remain undiscovered. Love, like nature,
|
|
"speakes a varied language," but there is an element of rashness in some of
|
|
Cupid's epistolary records which frequently leads ardent writers into court.
|
|
Kisses are best placed as nature intended them to be. On paper they often
|
|
leave an unsavory mark; to the lips they can only leave their imprint on the
|
|
heart.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
ST. PAUL PIONEER-PRESS
|
|
That Jazz Funeral
|
|
|
|
Is everything connected with the motion picture industry so light and
|
|
frivolous that even the funeral service for William D. Taylor in a church was
|
|
looked upon as an entertainment? Nothing more scandalous could be imagined
|
|
than the state of mind of the throng that milled about the house of worship,
|
|
heedless of interrupting the reverential ceremony with shouting and laughing,
|
|
pushing and shoving for a chance to get a better view.
|
|
Even the presence of death could not take away the levity with which
|
|
that great amusement business is associated because of the Arbuckle case, the
|
|
Pickford and Chaplin divorces and other revelations of life in the movie
|
|
colonies. The movie people have brought that contempt upon themselves.
|
|
The usefulness of many members of that industry and the prosperity of
|
|
the industry itself will be ruined, if the public gets the idea that
|
|
conditions behind the scenes are as bad as they are painted and are growing
|
|
worse. The movie magnates cannot afford to forget that most of their patrons
|
|
are decent and respectable men, women and children.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
HONOLULU ADVERTISER
|
|
The Latest Movie Scandal
|
|
|
|
When the Arbuckle scandal with all its sickening details was given front
|
|
page position for several weeks, the movie world, it was then believed, was
|
|
in for a thorough cleansing.
|
|
People prominent in the motion picture industry were loud in their
|
|
denunciation, not only of what Arbuckle was alleged to have done, but of the
|
|
whole kit and caboodle of screen people whose idea of life seems to be
|
|
predicated upon having what is more commonly known as "a good time" and not
|
|
caring a whoop in hades how far they go in their efforts to obtain it.
|
|
The press of the whole country recounted incident after incident to show
|
|
that such occurrences as the one that made Arbuckle the defendant on a
|
|
manslaughter charge, had taken place in the movie colonies time and again,
|
|
and that certain New York hotels had reeked with such performances put on by
|
|
motion picture actors and actresses.
|
|
And now comes another scandal in the movie world. William D. Taylor,
|
|
one of the most prominent men connected with America's fourth greatest
|
|
industry, is found dead, and when the police investigation begins to show
|
|
that the man's death might have been the result of certain unsavory matters,
|
|
powerful interests of the motion picture world endeavor to direct the inquiry
|
|
into certain lines to prevent an extension of the investigation in other
|
|
directions.
|
|
The motion picture world is just as badly in need of cleansing as it was
|
|
when the Arbuckle scandal broke. There is something rotten that must be cut
|
|
out of the industry, or the business is going to get into worse repute than
|
|
it is now.
|
|
Maybe Will Hays' connection with the industry will have some effect on
|
|
it. Hays cannot--and will not--allow his name to be identified with an
|
|
industry that is so honeycombed with filth as the motion picture business has
|
|
been shown to be.
|
|
The public is not going to continue to patronize the movies if it has to
|
|
be made to look upon the faces and the antics of men and women whose private
|
|
lives are known to be what revelations of the last several months have shown.
|
|
It is all well enough for the public to cry out against the lurid
|
|
"serials" which are said by some to be the cause of youthful depravity. But
|
|
how about the big "feature" films in which appear screen people whose names
|
|
carry odium?
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 9, 1922
|
|
ALBANY HERALD
|
|
A Movie Housecleaning Needed
|
|
|
|
The motion picture industry must have a thorough housecleaning, started
|
|
from within, if it is to save itself from the destructive effect of added
|
|
scandal such as the Arbuckle and Taylor cases. A few more such nasty messes
|
|
served up to the public will disgust decent-minded people to the extent that
|
|
the producers and exhibitors will feel it where it will hurt them the most--
|
|
in the pocketbook.
|
|
The trouble seems to be that there is, at the very source of motion-
|
|
picture supply, a distorted and twisted moral sense that weaves its sinuous,
|
|
sensual way throughout almost the entire industry. We do see some clean,
|
|
moral pictures, it is true, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
|
|
Some time ago it was announced with a great fanfare of trumpets that the
|
|
motion picture magnates, or at least a controlling element among them, had
|
|
come to the decision to eliminate the "sex stuff" from the motion picture
|
|
world, realizing that it was in a fair way to tear down the industry. The
|
|
announcement was hailed with delight by clean-minded movie fans. But little
|
|
difference has been seen in the average run of pictures since that momentous
|
|
"decision" was made.
|
|
There has been much lament among women's club organizations, church
|
|
bodies and similar circles, because of the lowered moral tone of the present
|
|
generation. Immodesty in dress, cigarette-smoking and whiskey-drinking among
|
|
women, loose actions and looser talk among the younger people of both sexes--
|
|
in fact, the entire trend of life among so-called "smart society," as well as
|
|
its imitators, are some of the signs of the times. There is no doubt that
|
|
the motion picture has had much to do with this lowered moral tone. It is
|
|
impossible for young men and women, boys and girls of the impressionable age,
|
|
to go night after night to the movies and see these things enacted on the
|
|
screen, without having their moral sense perverted. Immodest, free-and-easy,
|
|
devil-may-care, actually immoral scenes are shown in such matter-of-fact
|
|
manner that youth of the adolescent age cannot fail to take away a
|
|
corresponding outlook on life.
|
|
And as to the effect on the actors themselves, who daily have to act
|
|
these scenes, is it surprising that they, too, showed have a lowered moral
|
|
standard? As long as motion picture actors and actresses have to play up the
|
|
animal passions and the immoral lives that are so often featured on the
|
|
screen, there should be no surprise when the Arbuckle and Taylor scandals
|
|
arise to cast a damning shadow on the entire industry.
|
|
If the motion picture world wants to save itself from disaster, it must
|
|
have a housecleaning, beginning at the center and extending to the
|
|
circumference--a housecleaning that will take in the cellar and garret, and
|
|
all floors between.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 10, 1922
|
|
CLEVELAND PRESS
|
|
Hush
|
|
|
|
Motion picture interests are much aroused over the Taylor murder. Those
|
|
who have money invested see in this latest Hollywood scandal the prospect of
|
|
losing large sums. New York is therefore heard from, and we suddenly swerve
|
|
from talk of a million-dollar reward to the soft-pedal, the hush-hush.
|
|
What's a small thing like a murder when a lot of money is involved?
|
|
As a matter of fact--looking at it from a purely cold-blooded business
|
|
point of view--what should be done is first to exert every power possible
|
|
toward clearing up the mystery, and then to conduct a wholesale firing of
|
|
everyone in Hollywood whose personal life can't bear up under the test of
|
|
common decency.
|
|
The theory that the industry depends on the star is bunk. With every
|
|
actress and actor of easy virtue canned, with a moral standard set up and
|
|
inexorably enforced, there would within a year be produced an entirely new
|
|
set of players who through proper training could quickly win their way to the
|
|
hearts of the movie fan.
|
|
The season of the pink nightie and the shot-in-the-arm has passed.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
CHATTANOGA NEWS
|
|
A Number of Things
|
|
|
|
The scandals of Hollywood have been renewed. It seems such a pity that
|
|
the moving picture, which has within its powers the most graphic reproduction
|
|
of life in the calendar of the arts, must be smirched with loose lives and
|
|
low morals. The occurrences in which "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Mary
|
|
Miles Minter and other stars have been involved, seem to us a very definite
|
|
reflection of loose-moraled films, which gloss over vice for the
|
|
gratification of the lower instincts. The concomitant of the seductive sex
|
|
picture is an inevitable reaction on the character of the people engaged in
|
|
their making.
|
|
Will Hays has a big job on his hands. If he really wishes to purify the
|
|
movies, he has plenty to do. Let him change the character of films--remove
|
|
sex for sex' sake. The finest stories in the world are clean and intensely
|
|
interesting. We had rather read Charles Dickens or Alfred Tennyson than Guy
|
|
de Maupassant or Boccacio. Life in Hollywood fits Macbeth's description of
|
|
his own career, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying
|
|
nothing."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
SALT LAKE TELEGRAM
|
|
Pot Calling Kettle Black
|
|
|
|
With each succeeding day producing new gossip concerning life in
|
|
California's film colony, it is to be hoped that the Taylor murder mystery,
|
|
which has baffled the coast police for a week, will soon be solved. The
|
|
speculation and gossip which goes with the effort to solve the mystery is bad
|
|
for California and the motion picture industry for the reason that it is
|
|
general and not confined to the specific issues of the case.
|
|
A solution of the mystery is necessary to clear the air and to separate
|
|
the true from the false. Unfortunately the whole motion picture colony is
|
|
under investigation for something which concerns only a few members of the
|
|
profession. The East has raised its voice in shocked tones in an effort to
|
|
move the industry from California to New York, as if a mere shifting of
|
|
location could change the prevailing morals.
|
|
And when it comes to morals are we to judge the entire profession by the
|
|
individual acts of the few? We know that the industry includes big men and
|
|
pure women and we do not think we are far wrong when we say that the greater
|
|
part of the colony is comprised of these people. Even if they were not, we
|
|
could hardly change the morals by moving the industry eastward. Moral
|
|
cleansings must come from within and a complete change would necessitate
|
|
beginning all over again.
|
|
Still we do not admit that the morals of the film people are worse than
|
|
those in other walks of life. In the case at issue we have heard brokers and
|
|
business men mentioned, but no long haired reformer has risen to cry out for
|
|
a moral cleansing of the business world. The fact of the matter is that
|
|
questionable morals creep into every walk of life. They seldom prevail, as a
|
|
general rule, but isolated cases of immorality may be attached to every art
|
|
and every profession known to our people
|
|
Film stars are essentially public idols. They are constantly before the
|
|
gaze of the people. They are known by name and face to more people than any
|
|
other class. For this reason their actions are subject to closer scrutiny
|
|
than those of people who are not so widely known. No doubt this is the
|
|
reason why the occasional sins of members of the profession claim nationwide
|
|
attention, when the same deeds would go practically unnoticed in another walk
|
|
of life. Judgment of the film colony should not be based on what any
|
|
individual member of it has done. A solution of the Taylor mystery will help
|
|
to remove many of the libels which have been attached to the profession by
|
|
gossip and speculation, and before we move the industry to New York, let us
|
|
have some assurance that the metropolis is free of the things it condemns in
|
|
California.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
SANTA BARBARA PRESS
|
|
Be Fair to Movie Folks
|
|
|
|
Of hundreds of thousands of men and women engaged in the moving picture
|
|
industry some are characterless, immoral, and unspeakably bad. Because
|
|
success in their business depends in large measure on the popularity of
|
|
producers, directors and actors, unusual efforts have been made to bring and
|
|
keep their names before the public. Keenest publicity men, who know and
|
|
practice every trick of the trade, make the most of any incident the
|
|
publication of which may add luster to the particular star in whose interest
|
|
they are employed. Amongst no other class is there so much personal
|
|
advertising. Everybody knows the leaders and there is a peculiar interest in
|
|
all persons associated with the movies. Whatever they do, everything that
|
|
befalls them, because the movie folks have been so much advertised and are so
|
|
well known, has a "news value" entirely out of proportion with the real
|
|
significance of the incident. Whether what they have done is good or bad--
|
|
and particularly if bad--a public interest or curiosity is aroused which the
|
|
newspapers feel bound to recognize. What might happen in another circle and
|
|
arouse nothing more than a morning's gossip over neighborhood back fences, if
|
|
the principals happen to be of the movies receives front page space in the
|
|
newspapers of two or three continents. It becomes a subject of world
|
|
interest. Therefore so much scandal from Hollywood, the world's movie
|
|
capital. Almost daily we read about some movie queen or film hero having
|
|
done something which ought not have been done, until we begin to believe the
|
|
life of all of them consists in such acts. And we condemn the entire
|
|
hundreds of thousands because of the deeds of the few. There are bad ones
|
|
amongst the movie folks. But there are many who are not bad--and surely some
|
|
who are good.
|
|
It is futile to condemn a class or sect or nationality or race. Many
|
|
families have their black sheep. Churches often are forced to deal with
|
|
hypocrites. But we do not condemn the whole because of the faults of one or
|
|
a few. Let us be as fair with the movie folks. "Fatty" Arbuckle is no more
|
|
representative of the morals of the movie profession than Arthur Burch is of
|
|
real estate dealers. William Desmond Taylor was not the first man whose
|
|
death revealed the secret of a double life. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
|
|
Pickford were not the first couple whose marriage might not have been legally
|
|
solemnized but for Nevada divorce courts.
|
|
Let us think of the thousands working in the movies whose lives are
|
|
possibly all that we would wish our own to be--innocent and wholesomely
|
|
honest--and have consideration for them. And a little charity to the others
|
|
may win reward as a Christian virtue.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 12, 1922
|
|
MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL
|
|
Hollywood and Modern Paganism
|
|
|
|
Two tragedies in the moving picture world during the past few months
|
|
have brought about a revelation of moral conditions of paleolithic
|
|
primitiveness in that habitat of mimicry and misapplied mirth. Workaday
|
|
people have stood aghast at the stories of Sybaritic indulgence and Paphian
|
|
license in the lives of some of these heroes and heroines of the screen.
|
|
What has been told in the daily press is all the more shocking because it
|
|
concerns the persons of those who have been the idols of millions of their
|
|
countrymen. The disillusionment thus brought about has been almost as
|
|
depressing as has been the shock to moral sensibilities. From many mouths
|
|
that once came paeans of praise and admiration now come bitter and
|
|
contemptuous execrations.
|
|
Right now almost everybody who is anybody, and some who are not are
|
|
giving voice to theories as to why conditions should be as they are in this
|
|
moving picture colony, and nearly as many are suggesting remedies both
|
|
drastic and merciful. Unaccustomed wealth and the opportunity it offers for
|
|
self-indulgence, coupled with lack of knowledge in some of its new found
|
|
possessors as to the better things it could procure, have made it a curse
|
|
rather than a benefit. Creating sensations in crimes of sex and violence,
|
|
some of the screen stars have sought sensations of the same sort. Evil feeds
|
|
upon evil until the appetite for normal pleasure and happiness becomes
|
|
vitiated and tasteless.
|
|
Decensus averni facilis. Yea, verily, is this the tragedy of bad
|
|
beginnings. But bad beginnings are a thing for which blame may be placed on
|
|
others than the victims, and we say this in no sense of extenuation.
|
|
Defenders of this modern Paphos of the Pacific Coast insist that life
|
|
there is no worse than it is in other communities of inordinate wealth and
|
|
idle luxury, and they are to a certain extent right. But even so, they offer
|
|
in this apology neither justification nor mitigating circumstance. It is
|
|
true that among too many of the newly rich whose minds have not been seasoned
|
|
by acquaintance with the best thoughts, or whose mental processes have not
|
|
been fortified by the logic of the highest philosophy, there have grown up
|
|
cults and coteries of new thought and ultra modern sentiment. With wealth
|
|
has come a desire for seeming refinement, and the short cuts that have been
|
|
taken towards a specious culture have led to the abodes of dilettante
|
|
poetasters and parlor philosophasters. There novelty has been enshrined over
|
|
truth, and the quest for what is new by the strange paradox of ignorance is
|
|
leading back to most primitive and barbaric thought.
|
|
The great trouble with certain mercenary motion picture producers is
|
|
that they either have been poisoned with this supposedly new thought or else
|
|
have been capitalizing it for their financial profit. They have gotten
|
|
together companies of actors, some of whom have had no higher view of life
|
|
than could be obtained by associations between the midnight and the dawn.
|
|
They, too, in the belief that familiarity with this modern rot meant culture,
|
|
have made fetiches of individual assertiveness and sexual predominance. And
|
|
in this connection we are much impressed with the fact that the book brought
|
|
back to the slain picture director by the young woman actress, whose name has
|
|
been mentioned in the case, was a volume of Freud. Right now this German
|
|
exponent of subconscious and unconscious thought and sexual omnipotence is
|
|
the fad of all modern novelty seekers, and we are not in the least surprised
|
|
at his currency in Hollywood.
|
|
But Freud should not carry the whole blame for all the faddist cults of
|
|
pale minds and prurient desires. With his psycho analysis resting heavily
|
|
upon sex stimulation this new high priest of the psychic world came at a time
|
|
when appetites for pornographic nourishment had become dull and jaded. A
|
|
long line of caterers to such vicious tastes had preceded him, and he merely
|
|
gave a new stimulation to a tired sense. French novelists before and after
|
|
Gautier had made of sex and end and aim of existence, and they had done so in
|
|
ways that were insidiously fascinating and attractive. The same purpose
|
|
inspired the school of blatant new thought in Germany and Scandinavia,
|
|
although its leaders were much more direct and much more brutally frank.
|
|
Haputmann and Sudermann looked into the dark and decaying corners of the
|
|
world with distinctive Teutonic eyes and they set their followers to thinking
|
|
in terms of social unrest and revolt. Ibsen came as the liberator for those
|
|
who idly regarded the most sacred obligations of marriage, home and social
|
|
duties. For a time this Norwegian dramatist was on the lips of all the
|
|
faddists and dilettante philosophers. He brought a message of hope to those
|
|
who could conceive nothing higher in life than their own conveniences and the
|
|
gratification of their own pleasure. In Russia, Tolstoi, for all of his
|
|
wonderful talents; Dostoievsky, in a less potent way, became voices of
|
|
protest against conventions and usages that, even considering their errors
|
|
and imperfections, had made for the moral progress of the world.
|
|
In our own country Walt Whitman and, to a lesser extent because less
|
|
known, some of our novelists and playwrights have sought to throw off
|
|
restraint and assert their view of individual omnipotence. And over in
|
|
England George Bernard Shaw with a facile and ready pen has been inveighing
|
|
against almost everything that is merely because it is and appealing for all
|
|
this is not merely because it is not. For the majority of these social
|
|
revolutionists and moral anarchists the impelling thought has seemed to be to
|
|
shock their way into recognition. They have gained audiences and a following
|
|
chiefly because it has been thought that it was smart to be identified with
|
|
some ism or some movement to rearrange the world in any manner so that it
|
|
differed from the prevailing mode.
|
|
And it has been to audiences of this sort rather than to sound and
|
|
healthy minded people that the picture purveyors have mostly catered. In the
|
|
matter of sex the modern love cults and free thought exponents have turned
|
|
their faces back to pagan days, when phallic worship was enshrined. Hired at
|
|
enormous salaries both to minister to and to live in this pagan spirit what
|
|
wonder then that many of these motion picture actors and actresses, some of
|
|
whom are but half literate, have shocked the moral sensibilities of the
|
|
nation? Would it not have been a miracle had it been otherwise?
|
|
So that, while pouring hot words of wrath or sneering expressions of
|
|
scorn upon these unfortunate victims of an ill good fortune, let us ask
|
|
ourselves if the nation itself, or, at least, a part of it, does not bear
|
|
some responsibility for what is now being revealed. We seek not to exonerate
|
|
nor even to extenuate Hollywood by saying that it is the terrible but logical
|
|
result of all the so called new thought that has poisoned the minds of too
|
|
many others outside of its precincts. Who can deny that Hollywood is an
|
|
effect rather than a cause of the modern paganism that thinks of itself as
|
|
being a new morality?
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
MEMPHIS NEWS-SCIMITAR
|
|
The Intimate Image
|
|
|
|
The public will have but slight sympathy for the film stars implicated
|
|
in California's recent scandal in the metropolis of the motion picture world.
|
|
They are not entitled to sympathy. It is amazing that persons who have
|
|
spent years in bringing themselves prominently before the public, making
|
|
their names and faces household words wherever the motion picture is
|
|
patronized, should feel so slight a responsibility to the patrons who have
|
|
made their success possible.
|
|
It is amazing that they should feel so slight a responsibility to their
|
|
co-workers in the industry--those who have sought to preserve their
|
|
reputations clean and their names above reproach.
|
|
The frequency with which such episodes occur is convincing evidence that
|
|
there must be a reformation in the motion picture industry. The public does
|
|
not fail to associate the reputation of the actor with the character that the
|
|
actor portrays.
|
|
Since it is the business of the actors to secure as much publicity as
|
|
possible, it is not only necessary but imperative that their lives and daily
|
|
conduct shall be in accord with the life one finds in the average American
|
|
home.
|
|
The motion picture is a very intimate thing. It has been developed to
|
|
such an extent that the audience is made to feel the physical presence of the
|
|
actors on the screen. This feeling has been made possible by the development
|
|
of the mechanics of the business, and the lesson that the actor must learn is
|
|
that people will not patronize the image if the individual in reality is one
|
|
whom they would not desire to associate with in actual life.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
SANTA ANA REGISTER
|
|
Should Order a Clean-Up
|
|
|
|
The moving picture people are again on the defensive. Again? No--yet.
|
|
For it has been months since they have been in a position to feel at
|
|
ease concerning the public's attitude toward them.
|
|
One need not recount the various scandals that have kept the moving
|
|
picture people on the defensive. For years much of the public's criticism
|
|
was launched at the character of films produced; not it is launched at the
|
|
character of moving picture actors.
|
|
And the public has a right to demand that the lives of moving picture
|
|
stars be clean. Of course, the same demand is a legitimate demand upon the
|
|
personnel of any group of people in the public eye. But particularly is it
|
|
true that moving picture producers and all of those whose names become by-
|
|
words in the families of the country should be men and women of good moral
|
|
character. It is important to the movie industry for the reason that
|
|
children, as well as others, idealize the stars of the screen. Let the star
|
|
fall, and the ideal is shattered, and no man or woman can estimate the damage
|
|
that can be done in such a crash.
|
|
If we may judge the temper of the American people today, those who
|
|
invest large sums of money in movie production stand a risk of loss unless in
|
|
making their contracts the producers take into consideration the moral
|
|
standing of the stars.
|
|
In the period through which the screen industry is going at this time,
|
|
the men and women who are engaged in it and whose manner of living may be
|
|
above reproach, have to suffer. There is nothing unusual about that; in this
|
|
life it is the common thing that the innocent suffer with the guilty. In
|
|
this instance, the duty of the innocent is to show no mercy for the guilty.
|
|
Public officials in Los Angeles are hinting that powerful interests in the
|
|
movie world have ordered that mouths be closed lest the disclosures in the
|
|
investigations into the murder of William Desmond Taylor bring additional
|
|
discredit upon the movie industry. The order should be for a complete clean-
|
|
up, and until there is a complete clean-up, until the heads of the industry
|
|
set adrift all moral derelicts who may be connected with the industry, the
|
|
movie colonies can expect to be looked upon with suspicion and without
|
|
sympathy.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 14, 1922
|
|
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
|
Persecuting the Movies
|
|
|
|
Lacking real clews to explain the mystery of the murder of William
|
|
Desmond Taylor, the motion-picture director, public curiosity has turned
|
|
ravenously upon the private affairs of the movie actors.
|
|
Not only have the innermost facts of the life of the murdered man been
|
|
thrown to the winds, but every young girl who knew Taylor by sight seems to
|
|
be considered legitimate prey. Private papers found in the apartments of the
|
|
murdered man have been shouted from the housetops. With a bloodhound
|
|
ferocity the pack-and-cry is in full pursuit of every stain in the life of
|
|
everyone connected with the motion-picture industry.
|
|
It seems cruel and unnecessary that the letters of young girls should be
|
|
ruthlessly flung to the world to read for no other reason than the slim
|
|
excuse that they were found in the house of the murdered man. There is no
|
|
pretense on the part of anyone that these missives have any possible bearing
|
|
upon the murder mystery.
|
|
That some very young girl in the glow of a romance should write, "I love
|
|
you; I love you; I love you," to a man old enough to be her father is no very
|
|
terrible indictment. In any event, there is no reason why she should be
|
|
exposed to scorn, ridicule and disgrace--just because the man to whom they
|
|
were addressed happened to fall a victim to an assassin's bullet.
|
|
Not only have these letters been pitilessly and mercilessly displayed to
|
|
the public; but some of them have been printed in such a way as to leave the
|
|
most vicious possible inferences. Against these nasty inferences the young
|
|
girls in question have no defense. It is, for them, a case of "Be damned if
|
|
you do; be damned if you don't." The only possible explanation they could
|
|
make would be to lay still barer their innermost private secrets.
|
|
In the opinion of The Times the public has no right to any papers or
|
|
letters in this or any other case that does not have a direct and official
|
|
connection with the untanglement of this mystery; unless they would, for
|
|
instance, be considered proper evidence in a murder case on trial.
|
|
The doctrine that every private letter and every secret of every kind
|
|
found in a house where a crime has been committed should be published is a
|
|
dangerous one. There are few who have not written letters, who have not, in
|
|
fact, had experiences that they would shrink from seeing on the public
|
|
billboards.
|
|
The fact that the girl writers of the letters happen, in this case, to
|
|
have been young, beautiful and world-famous does not take away their rights.
|
|
Their fault was to fail to recognize that persons in the public eye must
|
|
suffer from restrictions as to their conduct in private life which are not
|
|
imposed upon individuals "to fame and fortune unknown."
|
|
The Times is not impelled to protest against the procedure in this
|
|
instance because those concerned happen to be connected with one of our most
|
|
important industries. It is not a question of economics or business, but one
|
|
of common justice.
|
|
The Times has always refused to suppress news. The public is entitled
|
|
to know the legitimate and relevant facts about this and all other matters of
|
|
genuine public interest, even though these facts cause discomfort.
|
|
But The Times does contend that to drag the bottom of the sea for every
|
|
shred and putrid remnant of gossip and scandal affecting every person who had
|
|
a speaking acquaintance with a murdered man is unjust, outrageous, unsafe,
|
|
unethical, ungenerous--and mighty bad business.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 15, 1922
|
|
CHARLESTON NEWS AND COURIER
|
|
Hollywood and Mr. Bryan
|
|
|
|
What will be the effect upon the movie industry of recent events in the
|
|
movie world continues to be an interesting subject for speculation. Various
|
|
opinions are being expressed, but the general idea seems to be that the
|
|
public will continue to worship its screen idols just as fervently as before
|
|
and perhaps a little more fervently, if that be possible.
|
|
Nevertheless, we note that in New York the other day mention of Mary
|
|
Pickford's name brought a volley of hisses. Hence it appears that there are
|
|
some people who are not as kindly disposed towards Miss Pickford as they were
|
|
some time ago. It is rather interesting, too, to observe that a big
|
|
newspaper, which used to issue every Sunday a movie magazine devoted mainly
|
|
to pictures of movie stars, has now abandoned this supplement and is being
|
|
commended by man of its readers for its action.
|
|
To jump from discussion of these matters to Mr. William Jennings Bryan
|
|
may seem queer and illogical, but it isn't. The things that are now coming
|
|
out about the movies contribute to a movement which is surely taking form in
|
|
this country and in which Mr. Bryan is certainly interested because he is its
|
|
natural and logical head--a great reform movement aimed against the looseness
|
|
of these times, against jazz, modern dances, liquor, lack of Sunday
|
|
observance, Hollywood, scantily clad chorus girls, cabarets, sex plays,
|
|
agnosticism, Stillman cases, etc., etc.
|
|
Some may think it almost incredible that in this sort of thing there is
|
|
the making of a first class political issue, but stranger things have
|
|
happened. There were not many people a decade ago who were ready to believe
|
|
that national prohibition was just around the corner.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 15, 1922
|
|
FRESNO REPUBLICAN
|
|
Feminism or Logic?
|
|
|
|
Another example of confused logic in dealing with public affairs is that
|
|
in an Eastern women's gathering reported yesterday. Club women refused to
|
|
support a resolution to censor motion pictures that contain the photographs
|
|
of Mabel Normand or Mary Miles Minter. This line of attack on the pictures
|
|
might have carried had it not been for the brand of feminism that was
|
|
injected into the discussion. The resolution was defeated because, it was
|
|
declared, not Miss Normand or Miss Minter were responsible for the character
|
|
of the pictures nor of the movie colony life now under discussion, but the
|
|
managers and directors of the pictures.
|
|
Possibly true, and yet what of it?
|
|
If the medium through which we know of the bad movie life and the medium
|
|
through which we are shown objectionable photo drama are the pictures of
|
|
women whose lives have been involved in notorious incidents, are not the
|
|
treatment of these pictures of these women the proper and the sole means of
|
|
dealing with these unknown directors and managers?
|
|
What are the face and form of Mabel Normand but a lay figure upon which
|
|
the work of the director is hung?
|
|
If Mary Miles Minter is a responsible part of a photodrama, then boycott
|
|
of the picture may properly punish her. If she is an irresponsible part of
|
|
the picture, will the boycott of the picture injure her any?
|
|
It is a question of emphasis.
|
|
To women who think that feminism is the issue, any criticism of any
|
|
woman in the world is an error to be fought.
|
|
But if right and wrong, or good or bad policy is the issue, then men and
|
|
women, irrespective of sex, must be dealt with as factors in this complicated
|
|
system of rights and wrongs that we must work with.
|
|
We don't believe in official censorship of movies. We do believe in
|
|
unofficial, popular censorship of them. But any censorship, should be
|
|
sensible censorship.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 16, 1922
|
|
RUTLAND HERALD
|
|
The Films and the Murder
|
|
|
|
The newspapers which connected the names of Mary Miles Minter and Mabel
|
|
Normand with the recent mysterious death of William Desmond Taylor may be
|
|
responsible for the almost immediate decline of popularity in films with
|
|
which these women's names are connected, but they are merely responsible for
|
|
uttering the facts, not for the facts themselves.
|
|
The public does its own censoring more or less, but, after all, is there
|
|
any reason why the Normand and Minter films should be barred from the screen
|
|
as was done in Lynn recently?
|
|
No stretch of supposition has so far set up any personal connection
|
|
between the director's death and these actresses. No trial has been held.
|
|
It would seem at least fair to wait until there are some definite facts to go
|
|
on before their productions are blacklisted or boycotted.
|
|
Also, some of the newspapers rather overdid the Arbuckle business--
|
|
without much evidential fact to go on. The mistake ought not to be repeated.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 17, 1922
|
|
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
|
|
Cleaning up Movie-Land
|
|
|
|
Vested interests in existing reputations naturally are resisting
|
|
publicity in the Hollywood affair. Various pundits of the movie world are
|
|
busily explaining that virtue reigns supreme there and meanwhile we have an
|
|
exhibition of official confusion and helplessness in the investigation of the
|
|
Taylor murder which speaks volumes. The authorities are like babes in the
|
|
forest of rumor which sprang up so suddenly when Taylor was found dead in the
|
|
heart of the great movie colony. In the hubbub, the most conspicuous of the
|
|
suspects, Sands, seems to have disappeared as completely as if he were
|
|
evaporated. No one knows anything of any value about Taylor and his friends
|
|
whom everyone knew. It is the sort of situation which starts a detective
|
|
story auspiciously, but it is doing the movie profession and industry no
|
|
good.
|
|
We should recommend less protesting of virtue and innocence and more
|
|
candid confession of conditions which call for strong treatment. The trial
|
|
of an individual or individuals for the murder of Taylor might be costly to
|
|
profit making reputations, but it would help clean house and in the long run
|
|
it would enable the industry or profession to get out of the quicksand of
|
|
vice and lawlessness, to a firm footing on hard work and clean living. Other
|
|
and better founded popularities could be built up and such mishaps as have
|
|
occurred in recent years among the favorites of the screen could be
|
|
diminished or avoided. Conditions revealed at Hollywood are impossible for
|
|
any profession to survive and the quicker they are expelled from the world of
|
|
moving picture art the better for all concerned. Bitter medicine will have
|
|
to be taken, but it will have to take it.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 18, 1922
|
|
SAN FRANCISCO JOURNAL
|
|
A Public Duty
|
|
|
|
Upon District Attorney Woolwine of Los Angeles rests a heavy
|
|
responsibility. Practically speaking, the fate of the moving picture
|
|
industry of the South is in his hands. If it is to live, it must be purged
|
|
of its immoral element, and with the district attorney rests the burden of
|
|
the legal end of the task.
|
|
The good people of America are aroused to demand a day of better things.
|
|
They have opened the doors of their lives to this attractive form of
|
|
entertainment, but they demand protection from the evil thoughts that are
|
|
daily spread before their children. It is not the job of the district
|
|
attorney to censor the films, but it is his job to run down the crime that
|
|
has flourished like the deadly Upas tree. He should know the influences he
|
|
has to fight in unearthing crime, and he should make the public acquainted
|
|
with them. If there be a conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice, he should
|
|
ferret it out and exterminate it.
|
|
Upon the unflinching performance of the prosecutor's duty rests the only
|
|
hope of clearing up the Taylor murder mystery, and upon that contingency
|
|
rests the prospect of setting the movie house in order. No greater calamity
|
|
could befall its real best interests than to leave this thing undone. The
|
|
public will be satisfied with nothing less than thorough housecleaning.
|
|
When producers find out that it does not pay to flout public opinion,
|
|
they will quit doing it. When stars pass into sudden eclipse upon the
|
|
breaking of scandal or crime over them, the hazard of having huge sums of
|
|
money tied up in their discredited films will give the producers a strong
|
|
incentive to cultivate a line of talent that can be depended upon not to
|
|
spoil their futures by unseemly conduct.
|
|
The safest way for the producers to avoid a tyrannical censorship is to
|
|
produce films that do not need a censor.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 26, 1922
|
|
TACOMA LEDGER
|
|
Gets Cocktails too Easily
|
|
|
|
"Los Angeles gets its cocktails too easily and it has too many producers
|
|
who think that the evil things in their minds were implanted by public
|
|
demand. These two influences have worked havoc with scores of fine young
|
|
people who have invaded the kaleidoscopic realm of many marvels," says an
|
|
observer in commenting upon the Hollywood scandals which have lately
|
|
attracted the attention of the country.
|
|
It is not a good thing for any person to "get his cocktails too easily."
|
|
In other words, it is not usually well for the average person to be able to
|
|
obtain even the good things of life without a considerable effort, for unless
|
|
one has worked for that which he has, he neither can appreciate it to the
|
|
fullest measure, nor can he very often use it well.
|
|
Possession of great wealth may be a blessing or a curse, just what we
|
|
make of it. Wealth, when regarded as a trust involving obligations to
|
|
society, may be, and usually is, of most benefit to humanity. Wealth which
|
|
has come easily and which is regarded solely as a means for the gratification
|
|
of personal desires is a curse both to society and to the individual into
|
|
whose hands it has fallen.
|
|
It has well been said that the unfortunate occurrences which have
|
|
brought some moving picture stars and those connected therewith under a cloud
|
|
have been due to the sudden acquisition of money upon the part of those who
|
|
do not know what to do with it. It can also be said with equal truth that
|
|
such a state of affairs is by no means confined to moving picture folk. the
|
|
pranks of the idle rich have long amused sober-minded people, and the antics
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of some members of the so-called "smart set" have aroused the indignation of
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right-thinking persons.
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There is a difference between the wealth employed in establishing
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foundations for the study of disease, or for the advancement of education,
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and wealth employed to seek out a new sensation through "hop parties,"
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"moonshine orgies" or the utter senselessness of "monkey parties."
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It is not well for humanity that it shall "get its cocktails too
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easily."
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Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following:
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http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/
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http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/
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http://www.silent-movies.com/Taylorology/
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Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/
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or at http://www.silent-movies.com/search.html. For more information about
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Taylor, see
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WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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