Philip Merivale Brnads Movies as Hopelessly Illiterate--Lazy Ex-Actors Are Cinema Talent

The producers of the modern motion picture and the results of their labor, the much advertised 'talkies,' are practically illiterate," said Philip Merivale, now playing at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, in a CRIMSON interview last night. "They are in the hands of the wrong people; people whose object is money, not art. These people who produce motion pictures take no delight in their work, they have not the least semblance of an aesthetic sense about them. The actors and actresses themselves are little better. They either have no real ability at all, or are well-known stage people who have become lazy and greedy of money. They see an opportunity of doing a minimum of work and they immediately take it. They see the advantage of the continual retakes; their acting does not always have to be perfect. No, I do not believe the motion picture ever has really threatened to displace the stage, or ever will."

When asked about how he liked Boston audiences, Mr. Merivale said, "They are just about the same as any others. Possible a little less demonstrative, and a little more quietly appreciative. Audiences never vary much according to locality, except in Los Angeles. There are the worst audiences in the world. The only people out there who ever show any real appreciation of our work are a large group that have never seen a stage presentation before, and are frankly amazed at seeing a flesh and blood actor.

"A person devoid of ability cannot be taught to act. There must be some talent present, and the only way to bring it out, and to perfect it, is to get experience; such, for example, as that offered in school and college dramatics. I know that the first time that I really began to act was one evening, three years after I had taken up the stage. I was playing in a light, romantic comedy. Suddenly I heard the audience laughing, and realized that what I was saying, and the way in which I was saying it was making them laugh; and I realized that I had the power to make them laugh. From them on, I believe I really began to act and to give real interpretation to may paris."