Short Comedies Disappearing

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20733, 17 February 1939, Page 4

Short Comedies Disappearing

“There Goes My Heart” is described by its producer as romantic comedy. The slapstick is Incidental. Hal Roach, famous producer of comedies, has been drifting away from broad farce. It was, ne said, not hard to be successful in pictures in the industry’s pioneering days. It was not, he continued, hard to make money with two-reel comedies until recently. “Not much competition,” he explained. “Then theatres began to show double features and that killed the short comedies. “We used to release fiftytwo two-reelers a year. That’s a picture a week. And we had to preview each one several times. That meant I saw practically every picture made, sometimes several times, waiting in theatres for my picture to come on. Thus I learned to know what audiences like most. Advertisements ought to let audiences know what kind of picture they're going to see. so pictures will get the kind of audiences that will fn.joy them. You get an audience expecting one kind of picture and of course they won't like it when they get another kind. And I’d rather take a chance on a slapstick comedy presented to a Crowd of college professors than shown to a bunch of socalled sophisticated people.”