It is very restful. Each film is preceded on the screen by a certificate
showing that its morality has been guaranteed by Mr. REDFORD. I have
complete confidence in Mr. REDFORD'S sense of propriety. If, for
instance, a bedroom scene is shown and a lady is about to change her
gown, one's advance blushes are needless. That film will be arrested at
the loosing of the first hook or button. Virtue will always be plainly
triumphant and vice as plainly vanquished. Even the minor imperfections
of character will be suitably punished. When on the screen we see Daisy,
the flighty college girl, borrowing without permission her friend's hat,
gown, shoes, necklace and curls in order to make a fascinating display
before her young college man, it is certain that she will be publicly
shamed by her friends and discredited in the eyes of her lover whose
affections she seeks to win in this unmoral fashion.
On the screen we shall be sure to meet many old friends. The young
American society nuts, in square-rigged coats, spacious trousers, and
knobbly shoes, will buzz around the pretty girl like flies around a
honey-pot, clamouring for the privilege of presenting her with a
twenty-dollar bouquet of American Beauty roses. The bouquet she accepts
will be the hero's; and the other nuts will then group themselves in the
background while she registers a glad but demure smile full in the eye
of the camera.
The hero, however, loses his paternal expectations in the maelstrom of
Wall Street. Throwing off his coat--literally, because at the cinema we
are left in no doubt as to intentions--he resolves to go "out West" and
retrieve the family fortunes.
Our old friends the cow-boys meet him at the wooden shack which
represents the railway station at Waybackville, registering great glee
at the prospect of hazing a tenderfoot. We know full well that he will
eventually win their respect and high regard--probably by foiling a
dastardly plot on the part of a Mexican half-breed--and we are therefore
in no anxiety of mind when they raise the dust around his feet with
their six-shooters, toss him in a blanket or entice him on to a
meek-looking, but in reality record-busting, broncho.
In the middle of the drama we look forward to the "chases," and we are
never disappointed. Our pursued hero, attired in the picturesque
bandarilleros of shaggy mohair and the open-throated shirterino of the
West, will race through the tangled thickets of the picadoro-trees;
thunder down the crumbling banks of amontillados so steep that the
camera probably gets a crick in the neck looking up at him; ride the
foaming torrent with one hand clasping the mane of his now tamed
broncho, and the other hand triggering his shooting-iron; and eventually
fall exhausted from the horse at the very doorstep of the ranch, one
arm, pinged by a dastardly rifle-bullet, dangling helplessly by his
side. (It is, by the way, always the arm or shoulder; the cinema never
allows him to get it distressingly in the leg or in the neck.)
In the ultimate, with the wounded arm in a sling, he will tenderly
embrace the heroine through a hundred feet of film, she meanwhile
registering great joy and trustfulness, until the scene slowly darkens
into blackness, and the screen suddenly announces that the next item on
the programme will be No. 7, Exclusive to the Picturedrome.
We are greatly favoured with "exclusives." It may be possible that other
suburbs have these films, but it must be second-hand, after we have
finished with them. The names of the artistes who create the _roles_ are
announced on the screen: "_Captain Jack Reckless_--Mr. Courcy van
Highball," or it maybe "_Juliet_, Miss Mamie Euffles." Or it is a film
taken at the local regatta or athletic sports, and the actors in it
include all the notabilities of the district. We flock to see how we (or
our neighbours) look on the screen, and enjoy a hearty laugh when the
scullers of "The Laburnums" register a crab full in the eye of the
camera, or "The Oleanders" canoe receives a plenteous backwash from a
river-steamer.
But the staple fare is drama--red-blooded drama, where one is never in
doubt as to who is in love with whom, and how much. Sometimes, to be
frank, there is a passing flirtation, due to pique, between a wife and a
third party, leading to misunderstandings, complications and blank
despair on the part of the husband; but as there is always a "little
one" somewhere in the background, we are never anxious as to the final
outcome. It will end with the husband embracing the repentant (but
stainless) wife, and at the same time extending a manly hand of
reconciliation to the third party.
We also like the dying fiddler (with visions) and the motor-car
splurges--especially the latter. In our daily life we are plagued with
motor-cars, cycle-cars and motor-cycle side-cars, being on a highroad
from London town to the country; but on the screen we adore them.
The cinema is very restful. There are no problems to vex the moral
judgment; no psychological doubts; no anxieties. It will be "the mixture
as before," ending in the loving, lingering kiss.
Say what you will of Mr. REDFORD, he never deprives us of the kiss.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Gladys_ (_who has been told she may see her convalescent
Daddy, but fails to recognise him with ten days' growth of beard_).
"Mummy, Mummy, Daddy's not there; but there's a burglarer in his bed."]
* * * * *