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Taylorology Issue 87
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 87 -- March 2000 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Contemporary Editorials Discussing the Taylor Case
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
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The two-hour special documentary on the Taylor case produced by A&E cable TV
is scheduled to be broadcast on the evening of March 19, 2000. Check local
program listing for the exact time.
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Contemporary Editorials Discussing the Taylor Case
The following is a selection of contemporary newspaper editorials commenting
on the William Desmond Taylor murder case.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 4, 1922
OMAHA BEE
A Tragedy of the Movies
The latest "release" from Los Angeles cinema colony is that of a
thriller that promises to run through more than one reel. It is the tale of
a murder, sordid, perhaps, in its intimate details, yet possessed of the one
attribute dear to the producer's heart, that of mystery. How or in what
manner it will end is just now beside the case. That wonderful community of
abnormal personalities will continue to hold a fair place on the front page
for some time yet because of this unpretty contribution to the record its
habitues have made. Will H. Hays will find in it at least one of the minor
problems he will have to deal with, although it is conceivable that the
regulation of the private lives of the actors who disport before the camera
is not included in the business management of the great industry.
Unfortunate though it be, the assembling in more or less forced intimacy of
considerable numbers of persons of both sexes whose code of personal behavior
is not the rigid sort that pervades the general walk of life, is likely to
produce results that shock the world by their nature. Nothing shown on the
screen has so far exceeded in weirdness the things actually done by the movie
players. Men and women in other walks of life have suffered by similar
tragedies, but it is the movie stars' misfortune in such cases that millions
of people had interest in them. Their every act almost, even those of
personal conduct, are on a public stage.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 4, 1922
WICHITA EAGLE
Another Movie Scandal?
Another typical California murder has been staged in the movie colony.
William Desmond Taylor, wealthy movie director, ex-husband of two [sic] women
and alleged prospective husband of at least as many more, is dead of gunshot
wounds, and police are questioning men and women known to have been on
intimate terms with the director.
Several million-dollar names are being bandied about, and the stage
seems to be all set for the interesting unraveling of another movie scandal.
Under the shadow of this tragedy, Fatty Arbuckle ought to be able to
sneak away and become insignificant enough to escape further public notice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 4, 1922
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"How Different from the Home Life of our Dear Queen"
David W. Griffith, the moving picture producer, in expressing his regret
that some one had shot William Desmond Taylor, also a producer, in his Los
Angeles home, said that he hoped people would not be led to false ideas of
moving picture domestic life and social ideals and would not unjustly
criticize the moving picture colony in Los Angeles. He would be grieved if
through false impressions anything discreditable to the screen profession
prevailed to its injury in the public mind.
We believe that he need fear no such misfortune. The moving picture
industry, as the public gets glimpses of it from time to time, seems to
possess some delectable isle where the charm of life is never withered and
only occasionally marked by some romantic murder and subsequent murder trial.
If sometimes the movies appear as unreal, it is only because we view
them from the actualities of our own experience and do not know that they are
interpretations of realities in the life of the moving picture artists. For
them there are swans on the lake, Russian wolfhounds stand beside the
automobile, and whenever there is an evening party the ladies and gentlemen
have a frolic in the marble pool in the pink moonlight, while the ju-ju birds
bill in the cypress trees.
On this delectable island the law of cause and effect does not run.
Prohibition is not a cause and abstinence is not an effect. Wherever the
enchanted people go cocktails precede them and highballs follow them. Even
death, when it enters, comes on velvet feet, with a Cecil De Mill composition
and David Wark Griffith direction.
This is the life, as Mr. Griffith's publicity matter describes the
"Orphans of the Storm," "when people went dancing, singing, loving, and
taking, as they pleased. The lawless--but not loveless--city in that
cyclonic last act. From the storehouse they took gold and silver and
precious stones, from the storehouse they took satins and silks to make
alluring--" It is much too much. We cannot go on. But what a life!
The director, having said good night to his faithful colored servitor,
is alone in his beautiful house, reading Freud. Rare things of art and
wealth surround him. A cocktail mixer stands at his elbow. Sunset glow. A
dove in the red cedar calls to its mate in the willow. The Russian
wolfhounds doze in their kennels. A beautiful lady in a beautiful car
arrives, eating peanuts.
Peanut shells are all over the beautiful car. The handsome chauffeur
sweeps them out while the director reads Freud to the beautiful lady in the
twilight beside the cocktail shaker. Mae Tinee says that some low down
realist, finding his reason shaken by the combination of beautiful lady
eating peanuts and fatherly man reading Freud to her, was driven to murder.
Possibly, but he never went to the movies much, or it would not have jarred
him.
Nightfall and the brilliantly lighted house. Midnight and another
beautiful lady casually stops for a good-night chat. The door bell rings,
but otherwise it is a house of silence, because it is a house of death. One
fatal shot has rung out in the night and shadowy mystery waves the curtains
as the sun comes up.
The Tribune sent Mr. Doherty to the Pacific coast to report the murders
and other social advantages of that region, and he has been busy ever since.
He was asked if he did not want to take a rest and come back home. He
replied that he would resign first.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 5, 1922
MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Movie Crimes Becoming Real
Surely is the city of pleasant make-believe in the luxuriant state of
California coming to the attention of the nation through realities that are
by no means pleasant. One crime seems to tread upon the heels of another in
the great moving picture colony with each succeeding one more lurid and
dispiriting than its predecessor. While one member of this community of
luxury and license awaits his fate on a sordid charge of manslaughter another
is mysteriously shot to death, and the details surrounding his murder seem to
point to conditions even more ugly and sordid than the preceding one.
Newspaper correspondents peeping behind the veil of mystery say that
revelations in the newest tragedy will go beyond the drunkenness and sexual
lubricity of the other one to the dismal depths of drug-crazed minds and
bodies.
It would seem at least on the face of things as if sins of sexual
license and violent purpose even in the make-believe are two-edged swords
that can do damage to the wielder as well as to those for whom they are
wielded. We have become more or less acquainted with the evils that such
portrayals may work upon those who witness them, but have not know so much
about the reflex action upon the portrayers. Psychologists and psycho
analysists may argue the point as to whether the moral laxity of some of the
pictures is the cause or is the effect of the moral turpitude of some of the
producers. But their argumentation will not alter the obvious fact that an
unwholesome atmosphere seems to pervade this city of make-believe.
Time was, as is recorded in Holy Writ, when two cities of the
Palestinian plains not so far from the Dead Sea so offended the Creator by
their vices and concupiscences that He rained down fire and brimstone and
destroyed them in their sins. Some modern cities, and among them this movie
community of mimic life, dare also to tempt the wrath of the Supreme Being.
They may have no such calamitous visitation as is recorded in Genesis, but
they are at least bringing about the contempt of decent-minded people and by
so doing are destroying the golden opportunity that is theirs. Besides, the
guilty members of this colony, each and every one of them, are feasting
themselves solely upon Dead Sea fruit.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 5, 1922
IDAHO STATESMAN
"Reel" Values
The real tragedy of William D. Taylor may eclipse in sensation any of
the reel ones he directed. It involves murder and mystery, assumed names,
actors and actresses of wide reputation, luxurious environments; in fact, all
the necessary ingredients of the movie thriller.
There is an unfortunate side to it. We are likely again, as in the
Arbuckle case, to have the private life of each of several prominent screen
people uncovered and dissected. Many a man would blush, blameless as his
past may actually have been, to have that past studied as Taylor's may be and
as Arbuckle's was. Few people live to middle age without having been guilty
of an indiscretion or two at which they are vexed in secret.
This engineer-actor-director who has gone by the name of Taylor may have
been something of a Don Juan and, in the course of his moving picture life,
much engaged. It may even be that this is not the worst that can be said of
him; but he is dead now and we would prefer to be charitable, though,
charitable or not, we are, it seems, to have the facts thrust upon us.
Perhaps they will leave us a little more disgusted with those who have
contributed to our delight in the movies.
Taylor was successful as a director; that does not mean he was
successful as a man. Many an actress thrills us; until we find,
unexpectedly, to our sorrow, that she failed to live as well as she acted. A
few more of these disillusionments and we may lose our respect for these
hired entertainers who dance and mimic for our amusement. We have idolized
them too much, heaped favors too high upon them, given them too high a status
in our modern life. It may be about time to readjust ourselves and give
them, in our minds, their proper and lower place.
The girl with the wind-blown hair and glowing cheeks one meets at the
corner grocery, buying a yeast cake for her mother, may be better in soul and
of more real use to the world than any of these actresses. The genial lad
who wraps up our collars at the store may be as interesting, as likeable, as
morally sound and as successful in the end as any director who, megaphone to
mouth, has bellowed, "Action! Camera!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 6, 1922
CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Crime and the News
A tragedy in the moving picture colony in Los Angeles, coming in the
wake of the tragedy in a San Francisco hotel, in which performers were
involved, again turns the searchlight on the industry and has a tendency to
cast odium on the performers as a class and Hollywood as a place of their
abode.
One has only to visit southern California and Hollywood to see the lure
of the place. The climate is wonderful, it is not tropical, yet all the
exotic things to be found in the tropics are found in this comparatively
temperate zone. But, a few days at the place will prove an eternal verity so
that the atmosphere will get one as some lotus blossom deprives one of
rational ideas and wafts them on the wave of emotions to pleasant dreams.
The "movie" colony is also one recruited from the ends of the world.
The world's butterflies have assembled there, but, in addition, practical
business men and legitimate performers of all kinds have loaned or sold their
arts and energies to the making of pictures which has got such a hold on the
public that the industry is said to be the fourth largest in the United
States in volume of money spent on their making and showing.
It would be unfair to say that there is more immorality in the moving
picture colonies that anywhere else in the country, although the setting
would be perfect for excesses of all kinds. At times there are as many as
40,000 persons engaged in one way or another in the industry in Los Angeles
and environs.
A few days ago a player and director was murdered. It was the first
crime of a similar nature in the colony for years. The identity of the
murdered man, his importance to the industry, and the fact that there is some
mystery as to the identity of his slayer, have all the elements which would
appeal to the scenario writers engaged in the industry. But the incident has
again startled the critics, and, while there is no necessity, it seems to
offer a brief for the industry, there are some facts that might be cited.
In the city of Charleston homicides are not unusual. The court records
would show an astonishing number. A murder here is news which is relegated
generally to a place of secondary importance, but California has a way of
advertising itself which sometimes assumes the form of exploiting notoriety.
In the present instance, as in the Arbuckle case, the industry of making
pictures gets more notoriety than is deserved. It is very natural that there
should occasionally be a scandal in a community as large as Hollywood, and it
is just as natural that occasionally some hatred should find expression in
one individual slaying another. We do not know the statistics relative to
homicides in Los Angeles, and it is not our intention to magnify the number
in Kanawha county, but it would be interesting to print the facts. We are
certain that there are less in Los Angeles than there are in Kanawha county
although Los Angeles has half a million inhabitants.
The facts seem to be, however, that the public and the press give much
importance to news items such as the killing of Taylor. But there is a
defense for the tendency to print in detail the stories of such crimes. One
is the public demand for the details. The press, purveyor of news, must have
it to sell. One of the reasons why the newspapers of America today are the
greatest mediums of advertising is because they are the most widely read
mediums. If they ignored the news they would not be read. Pulitzer said
that "crime was news," and a poll of all the people would probably prove that
at this time the latest murder mystery of Los Angeles was discussed in more
homes yesterday than was the morning sermon in the churches.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 6, 1922
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Moviedom's Garbage
William Desmond Taylor's murder has lifted the lid of moviedom's garbage
can. The odor arising is not sweet. A filthy mess is being revealed as the
police delve into the crime.
The murder is the climax of a series of revolting divorce cases, dope
parties and other nasty affairs.
From Hollywood, center of the motion picture business, come many stories
of orgies. Too many stars of the screen have been paraded before the public
in a mantle of vice.
In a general way folk on "the inside" have known of these things. It
has taken the Arbuckle case, the Valentino-Acker divorce suit and the Taylor
mystery to lift the lid for the public gaze.
A portion of filmdom, at least, seems to need a good cleaning. The
capable and energetic Mr. Will Hays is the gentleman to administer it.
The movie business has been hurt as a result of the escapades of some
stars. Cow-eyed "heroes" and star-eyed "heroines" have not lured crowds to
the box offices as of yore. There are good reasons.
Movie stars have given us many of our pet illusions. But illusions fade
when one reads of shining lights of filmdom being dragged through scandalous
muck.
It is only fair to a large number of actors, producers and directors to
point out that the individuals involved in the scandals are the minority.
Frequently they are of the class exploited into stardom because of
favoritism, not because of ability to act. These persons believe what their
press agents write about them. Inflated heads and disaster follow.
They have been the ones who have hurt the picture business. Parents
don't care to see or to take their children to see on the screen in heroic
roles men and women who have been involved in sordid cases.
Motion picture stars are public characters. They cannot afford to have
private lives. They live in glass houses, constantly on exhibit. They are
idols.
Some of these idols are proving to be clay. In picking these
individuals out of the industry lies one of Mr. Hays's big opportunities. It
is safe to predict Mr. Hays is broad visioned enough to realize this fact and
to administer a spring cleaning.
The garbage of moviedom--even if it has been perfumed in the past--must
be dumped overboard for the good of an industry that is needed to entertain
millions.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 6, 1922
INDIANAPOLIS NEWS
Hollywood Happenings
The murder last week of a movie director, and the facts brought to light
by the police inquiry, throw a light on the Hollywood colony that must be
painfully unwelcome, especially at this juncture, to the colonists. There is
no reason in the nature of things why there should be immorality in movie
circles. In the film itself there is nothing wicked--unless indeed it is an
evil film--nor need any wickedness mark its production. It would be most
unfair to class all together, and to assume that all those connected with the
business are pariahs.
The trouble seems to come from a combination of a low order of mentality
and big salaries--as in the Arbuckle case. Few things are more dangerous
than money in the hands of those who have no idea of its value, and not the
slightest sense of the responsibility which its possession imposes.
Undoubtedly there are many of these people who are not rich, but probably all
expect to be, and also the pace is set by those who are rich. There do not
seem to be any moral standards--hardly indeed a suspicion that such things
exist.
When such influences operate in a restricted community composed wholly
of movie people who know nothing except their trade, think of nothing else,
and have no idea of any public opinion except that of the little community in
which they live and work (and "play")--under such conditions shocking things
are bound to occur. To an over-supply of money and an under-supply of brains
one must look for an explanation of the happenings at Hollywood. There are
rumors of the existence of a circle of so-called "esthetes" which would only
make the situation worse. The murdered man in the latest case was, it is
said, a student of Freud, while the studies of another member of the
community seem to have been divided between Freud and the Police Gazette. Of
course moral depravity is by no means unrepresented in the Hollywood colony.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 7, 1922
SACRAMENTO BEE
Clean-Up from Inside
Should be Movie Program
The murder of William Desmond Taylor, the film director in Los Angeles,
has disclosed a story as unsavory as the details of the Roscoe Arbuckle case
and rivaling that of the Thaw case of former years.
Even more prominent figures in filmdom, however, have been drawn into
the mess, and the impression left with the general public is that the moral
tone of life among the men and women of the screen resembles too closely that
of decadent Rome.
Unless some drastic changes are made, the results are likely to be
disastrous to the industry. A few more such malodorous incidents will result
in such a wave of public indignation as may be ruinous to the business.
Wise producers have scented the danger, but, for the most part, the
energy thus far disclosed, has been of a hunt for cover order, rather than an
honest confession that some things were wrong and a cleaning up is needed.
Just lie low until the storm blows over, and then everything will resume
its normal order, was the attitude of too many of the filmmakers after the
arrest of Arbuckle.
This attitude becomes increasingly difficult of maintenance as the
result of this new scandal.
If it is true that a vast majority of the people connected with the
photoplay making are decent and respectable, now is surely the time for them
to assert themselves.
One suggestion offered is that the Hollywood colony be closed, and that
a new start be made at Long Island, New York, where no orgies have occurred,
and where a church would be erected to give notice to the world that in this
spot Arcadia would be reborn.
This sounds too much like a real estate scheme, and it does not in any
way touch the heart of the situation.
It is people which make or mar the character of any spot, and if the
Arbuckles and the Taylors are permitted to set the pace no little church
spire or change of location is going to help matters.
Proponents of this scheme should remember what Lincoln said about
fooling the people.
Most of the trouble can be traced to the large sums of easy money which
the motion picture industry has brought to individuals to whom wealth means
license, and who can find only in abnormal or degrading sensations a real
"kick" in life.
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."
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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 a
cquaintance 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
of some members of the so-called "smart set" have aroused the indignation of
right-thinking persons.
There is a difference between the wealth employed in establishing
foundations for the study of disease, or for the advancement of education,
and wealth employed to seek out a new sensation through "hop parties,"
"moonshine orgies" or the utter senselessness of "monkey parties."
It is not well for humanity that it shall "get its cocktails too
easily."
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Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following:
http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/
http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/
http://www.silent-movies.com/Taylorology/
Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/
or at http://www.silent-movies.com/search.html. For more information about
Taylor, see
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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