TASTES IN MOVIE STORIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 520, 24 November 1928, Page 15

TASTES IN MOVIE STORIES

PUBLIC DEMANDS NEW STYLES THE TASK OF THE PRODUCER It has been often remarked that the motion picture of to-day seems to move in cycles. One year a certain type of story will And favour with the public who, a year later, will demand entertainment of an entirely different nature. Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Paramount Pictures, likens “Vo {£?¥ Of the motion picture producer to that of the newspaper editor. a lie lattei scans the day's news and decides what will appeal most to his public, he places on the first page. It iudement is wrong his paper is a failure The film maker anticipates the public taste in a very similar way and makes his assignments to correspond with his judgment. ... during the World War, fraught w lth tragedy for everyone, there was an insistent demand for humour and comedv that was a very natural reaction. One of the purposes of entertainment is to make people forget the troubles of their everyday existence. The preference for comedy persisted for some years after the armistice but tho public has a notoriously short memory and so it is that war pictures came into their own and enjoyed a considerable period of prosperity. The recent startling developments and triumphs of aviation have had their effect and Paramount broke new ground with that epic of the air, “Wings,” and is following it > another, "The Legion of the Condemned.” The motion had become “air conscious and so thev were taken aloft. There has always been a place for the mystery story according to Mr. T askv —that is, the good mysteij story, and Paramount has already in production “The Canary Murder Case, written by that master of mystery, fa. S. van Dine.