| Although no one has ever accused Hollywood of modesty, movies about
the movie industry have never been as numerous as movies about such allied
enterprises as radio, theatre or grand opera. Furthermore, the few self
portraits that Hollywood has provided have been satirical like "A Star
Is Born" or "Once In A Lifertime". In Hollywood Cavalcade this omission
is fully rectified. Produced by Darryl Zanuck and and written somewhat
in the nostalgic manner of his "Alexander's Ragtime Band", it scurries
exuberantly through the history of the movies from their infancy to the
arrival of sound.
No serious evaluation like "The March Of Time's" survey of the cinema
this summer, "Hollywood Cavalcade" follows the pattern which in previous
enterprises has made producer Zanuck of 20th Century-Fox the Herodotus
of the screen. Cinema history is woven into a marathon romance between
Don Ameche and Alice Faye which lasts from 1913 - 1927. The picture's high
points occur, however, when the story stops entirely, allowing such memorable
personages as the Keystone Cops, The Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, Chester
Conklin and Buster Keaton, summoned out of the past for a nostalgic retake,
to romp across the screen exactly as they used to in the years of the movies
uproarious childhood.
 has lately had few chances to practice his speciality. Next to the invention of the Kinemascope by Thomas Edison, cinema history's most important discovery was that the spectacle of a human being getting hit in the face by a custard pie is a hilariously funny one. Overlooked by the later Hollywood producers, who in their efforts to ape the theatre, have descended to such feeble aids to comedy as dialogue, dancing and deformities, this majestic innovation receives its due in Hollywood Cavalcade. From the prosperous Hollywood limbo to which he has recently descended to writing, directing and producing pictures, Producer Zanuck recalled frozen-faced Buster Keaton, who flicks custard pies with machine gun rapidity and precision. Alice Faye, not yet to be compared to such Duses of bakery histrionics as Mabel Normand or Phyllis Haver, soon learned how to respond gracefully to Keaton's attentions. So successful were Miss Faye's scenes with Keaton's pies that three of her songs were cut out of the picture. The question of why people getting hit by pies are funny has been answered by many philosophers. All the answers however are unsatisfactory. In addition to being funny, the spectacle is ennobling. It teaches the lesson that while human dignity is frail, the human frame is durable and also that there is no famine in California. In Hollywood Cavalcade Keaton had an arsenal of 100 pies. Actually composed of whipped cream, sugar (for stiffening) and egg yolk, rather than real custard, they were prepared by Alfred Ulrich, the studio pastry chef. A good custard throwing-pie will hold its shape for 30 ft. Keaton's accuracy, however, can only be depended on for 15. |