The news has just been announced that one of the bigger American film companies is going to produce pictures in England. The plans are ready. Work is to begin in a few weeks╒ time. A promise has been given that some, at least, of the producers and players shall be British, that the finished works shall be internationally advertised as ╥British-made pictures,╙ and that subjects of British life and interest shall find a place among the other stories chosen for representation on the screen.
It is with the earnest wish to be helpful that I have drawn up, for the guidance of this company, a short alphabetical table of the people and properties of Great Britain as the camera has seen them in the years gone by. My list is necessarily incomplete. It includes only those details of English life which have come into my personal experience of picture-going. But if it saves only a little labour, expense, and reference to the films of this or any other company╒s yesterday I shall feel that my effort has not been altogether wasted. It runs so:-
Attorney: See Editor.
Authors, famous English: Shakespeare, Mrs. Elinor Glyn, and A.S.M. Hutchinson.
Barries, Sir James: Collaborator with Lasky, Zukor, and Brenon in the production of Peter Pan.
Chapel: See Church.
Chorus Girls: An earl╒s bride.
Church: A cathedral.
Coastguards: Armed police scouts sent out from Scotland Yard on Harley-Davidson motor-cycles.
Cook: A jolly, fat negress.
Cottage: see House.
Derby: A popular horse-race which quite two or three hundred people watch each year.
Dickens, Charles: Scenario writer of ╥A Tales of Two Cities.╙
Dinner: The time when estranged couples dress in their best, glance furtively at each other across a polished table, and lap a little soup.
Dogs: These are of two kinds, faithful and Pekingese.
Duchess: An old lady with a high grey wig, an errant son, a pair of lorgnettes, a tight bodies, and six ropes of pearls.
Duke: See Parliament, member of.
Editor: A grey-haired man with a cigar who sits behind a glass door marked ╥Private.╙
Father: There are no fathers in England, only adopted fathers and grandfathers.
Father, Adopted: A bully.
Father, Grand: An earl.
Fox-hunting: A fine old English sport done with guns.
Hats, Straw: Worn with evening dress by all heroes.
Hats, Top: Worn on all occasions by members of the peerage, doctors, theatrical managers, and fathers-in-law. When worn by a member of the peerage who is also a father-in-law the top-hat should be grey or white in colour.
House: See Mansion.
Lancashire: See Lancastershire.
Lancastershire: A wild country of craggy mountains and tropical vegetation where savage men and women mine for coal.
Lawyer: See Attorney.
Letters, Signature of: ╥Cordially, Lord So-and-so╙ is customary.
London: The only town in England.
Mansion: See Palace.
Mother: See Duchess.
Newspaper: Single sheet of paper mainly devoted to headlines, but allowing an inch or two in the middle for society gossip, criminal news, vers libre, or a picture of the heroine at play.
Newspaper office: A vast building with swing-doors, colonnades, a flight of marble steps, and the name in flashing electrics a mile high.
Nurse: See Cook.
Palace: A building consisting of one vast hall, with a gallery, a cut-glas chandelier, bearskin rugs, priceless tapestries, and six footmen; the home of the heroine.
Parliament, Houses of: Picturesque old-world buildings of decorative value only, situate next to the Tower of London.
Parliament, Member of: A thin man with protruding teeth and a monocle.
Reporter: A young man in a trench coat and a derby hat: employed to fight dangerous criminals.
Scotland: A northern State where men and women all wear skirts to the knee, glengarry bonnets, sporrans, and carry a gun. There are no towns in Scotland, and the houses are timbered Elizabethan structures, with trophies of big-game hunting slung around the walls. It is alwys sunny and temperate in Scotland. There is no rain.
Spittoons: These are made of brass in the best English homes.
Here, at present my guide-book ends. I hope it will be acceptable to the new company. They will notice that I have taken to heart the speech made only a few months ago by one of their chief directors, in which he begged ╤ nay, more imperiously, commanded ╤ English writers to give up their ╥continual and unwarranted criticism╙ of American studies of English life. We in England were unable for climatic reasons to make film stories of our own country. (He has changed the climate since that speech.) But when some experienced American, he cried, after long research and study, ╥goes out of his way to produce a picture portraying inteligently, favourably, and sincerely English manners and customs, let the British public, exhibitors, and renters, instead of making unfounded and destructive criticism, accept as sincere the efforts made.╙
I, for one, have accepted them. He cannot quarrel with my guide-book. It is offered to the country that suggested it without any criticism at all.
