Page:The New Yorker 0003, 1925-03-07.pdf/8

6

THE DAWNCAME

IN the course of time, Man- always believed everything the last man told her, and hattan became the center

never got anything straight until the hero, single- of American culture. The handed, licked everybody in sight. nie wspapers were now pre- The pictures invariably had a melancholy ending. serving the best traditions The audiences demanded this, and the producers of the grocery business, catered to their taste. Struggle as they might against the bootleggers had bought it, the Dawn would eventually overcome the Sierras; up the saloons and the Pro- and the poor, two-fisted, he-American would find him- hibition agents (preserving self marrying the rescued dumbbell. the most conspicuous fea- This was the spiritual food upon which the people tures of each) while the of Manhattan fed and it was thus that they were able other best minds of the city endowed the moving pic- to retain their faith in Human Nature, despite the ture industry with the best traditions of the cloak and folks across the court and in the apartment just below, suit trade. These folks were called Neighbors, and they were Great economies were effected in the moving pic- a never-ending trial to the Manhattanites. Where they cure field through maximum production and the sim- came from, no one knew. New Yorkers made ever ple device of making the pictures all alike. effort to get acquainted with them, short of speaking Up to this time, the world had had a great deal of to them directly, but they never got any results. Pa- trouble in the creation of drama, mainly because there tiently they listened at the dumbwaiter and when the were so many kinds of folks. The cloak and suit folks across the court forgot to draw the shades, the men solved this problem easily. Hereafter, they Manhattanites studied them conscientiously. said, only three kinds of people would be allowed on But they were a stubborn, alien horde, and the over- the screen-the good, the bad and the funny. tures of the Manhattanites were in vain. The awful The pictures now became a great moral influence. Neighbors always held their parties on the wrong It was never difficult after this for anyone to tell the nights, and their taste in jazz records was execrable. difference between right and wrong. All one had to They slept when the New Yorkers celebrated, and do was to go to the movies and the whole problem was they celebrated when the New Yorkers slept. simplified. -Sawduse If a man was a big, two-fisted, he-American, he could be depended upon. Such a man was never small or three-fisted, and he never turned out to be a she- By Way of Introduction R. Open Spaces, men were invariably males. worthy of Aladdin's lamp. I do not mean that the pictures were monotonous. We strolled from the street into a lobby columned One season, the hero would own a ranch in Arizona; like the Parthenon- in the next season's output, he would be foreman of a And on, passing His Highness, the Ticket Taker, Montana mine. This assured variety. But along to a foyer walled with silver and jade and spread with about sundown, in either case, he would get a hunch a rug from a Rajah's treasure house- that he was needed Still on, through in New York and a lounge hung he would get with precious tape- there, too, just in stries and paintings time to let the her- by the Masters oine know that she And further on, didn't have to sinking deep and marry the Mexi- silent into a silky can horse thief, carpet, past a purl- even though her ing fountain of dead father's law- flawless marble yers had already Thence to our arranged the match. Where we ar- The heroine rived to see the was always good. comedy man of a Goodness, in fact, dance was the only qual- smack against a ity a moving pic- solid gold proscen- ture heroine was ium, making be- allowed to have. lieve that he hadn't Uniformly, she seen it, and getting was brainless. She He Would Get There Just in Time the usual laugh. Amerisances This was because he came from the Wide MR ALS EEPS meliwaudeville theatre is a palace Terb seats- team run wer