What’s Wrong with the Movies? by Aleister Crowley in Vanity Fair, Jul 1917.

“But his successors have not his willpower. To-day every inartistic man in a movie production must needs have a finger in the artistic pie. Some of their suggestions may possibly be good, some bad; but the unity and coherence of the author’s conceptions are lost, and the outcome is a muddle. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Too many cooks spoil the broth.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “ANOTHER point is the question of ‘new stuff.’ One enterprising movie manager did actually go so far as to engage a set of competent artists–at $150 per diem, all told–to get out new ideas for him: original costumes, lights, scenery, and all the rest of it. They produced new ideas. ‘Fine! Fine!’ cried he. Then a horrid doubt seized him. ‘But this isn’t a bit like what we’ve been used to!’ he stammered. ‘No,’ they said, ‘it’s new. You said ‘new,’ you know!’ ‘That’s right, I did,’ he cried, ‘but, say, the public wouldn’t stand for this, it’s too new.'”
  2. “See the wealthy New York man of fashion, dressing for a dinner at Mrs. De Peyster Stuyvesant’s! See how deftly he shoots on his detachable cuffs and snaps on his elastic tie. See how charmingly he wears his derby hat with his evening coat. He even retains it, possibly fearing that it may be stolen in Mrs. Stuyvesant’s drawing room, which is, of course, furnished in the manner of the gentlemen’s lounge on a Fall River boat.”
  3. “MILLIONS of dollars have already been lost in the movies by the many errors indicated above; and it may be well to point out that the public recognizes that the business is everywhere approaching a grave crisis. You, gentlemen, who are still making money, take heed: you are going to lose it in another few months unless you learn a little something about good taste in matters of art.”
  4. “Tinker with the whole, bring in one inharmonious element and the entire conception goes by the board. A Zulu chief is a magnificent object–but you must not exchange his gum-ring for Charlie Chaplin’s derby hat.”
  5. “And so, alas, it all came about. These two master minds could not foresee that everyone who had read Hugo’s great story would leave the theatre foaming at the mouth, raving for blood. Similarly with ‘Hedda Gabler.’ They had to improve on Ibsen’s great curtain, and bring in George Tesman to confront Brack, who faints on hearing the pistol shot, and asks, ‘Why should you faint at my wife’s death?’ with all the air of one who proposes an amusing riddle!”