Button, Button(39)
Yet, in spite of the incredible number of theaters, motion pictures exceeded them in quantity (if not quality). It was in compensation for this economically dangerous situation that the studios inaugurated the expedient practice of burning films in order to maintain the stability of the price floor. This aroused great antipathy among the smaller studios who did not produce enough films to burn any.
Another liability involved in the production of motion pictures was the geometric increase in difficulties raised by small but voluble pressure groups. One typical coterie was the Anti-Horse League of Dallas which put up strenuous opposition to the utilization of horses in films. This, plus the increasing incidence of car owning which had made horse breeding unprofitable, made the production of Western films (as they had been known) an impossible chore. Thus was it that the so-called "Western" gravitated rapidly toward the "drawing room" drama.
SECTION OF A TYPICAL S CREENPLAY12
Tex D'Urberville comes riding into Doomtown on the Colorado, his Jaguar raising a cloud of dust in the sleepy western town. He parks in front of the Golden Sovereign Saloon and steps out. He is a tall, rangy cowhand, impeccably attired in waistcoat and fawn-skin trousers with a ten-gallon hat, boots and pearl-gray spats. A heavy sixgun is belted at his waist. He carries a gold-topped malacca cane.
He enters the saloon and every man there scatters from the room, leaving only Tex and a scowling hulk of a man at the other end of the bar. This is Dirty Ned Updyke, local ruffian and gunman.
TEX (Removing his white gloves and, pretending he does not see Dirty Ned, addressing the bartender): Pour me a whiskey and seltzer will you, Roger, there's a good fellow.
ROGER: Yes sir.
Dirty Ned scowls over his aperitif but does not dare to reach for his Webley Automatic pistol which is concealed in a holster beneath his tweed jacket.
Now Tex D'Urberville allows his icy blue eyes to move slowly about the room until they rest on the craven features of Dirty Ned.
TEX: So . . . you're the beastly cad what shot my brother.
Instantly they draw their cane swords and, approaching, salute each other grimly.
An additional result not to be overlooked was the effect of increased film production on politics. The need for high-salaried workers such as writers, actors, directors and plumbers was intense and this mass of nouveau riche, having come upon good times so relatively abruptly, acquired a definite guilt neurosis which resulted in their intensive participation in the so-called "liberal" and "progressive" groups. This swelling of radical activity did much to alter the course of American political history. (This subject being another which requires separate inquiry for a proper evaluation of its many and varied ramifications.)
Two other factors of this period which may be mentioned briefly are the increase in divorce due to the relaxation of divorce laws in every state affected by the Los Angeles Movement and the slow but eventually complete bans placed upon tennis and beach supplies by a rabid but powerful group within the N.A.M. This ban led inexorably to a brief span of time which paralleled the so-called "Prohibition" period of the 1920s. During this infamous period, thrill seekers attended the many bootleg tennis courts throughout the country, which sprang up wherever perverse public demand made them profitable ventures for unscrupulous men.
In the first days of January of 1983 the Los Angeles Movement reached almost to the Atlantic shoreline. Panic spread through New England and the southern coastal region.
The country and, ultimately, Washington reverberated with cries of "Stop Los Angeles!" and all processes of government ground to a virtual halt in the ensuing chaos. Law enforcement atrophied, crime waves spilled across the nation and conditions became so grave that even the outlawed L.A. Firsters held revival meetings in the street.
On February 11, 1983, the Los Angeles Movement forded the Hudson River and invaded Manhattan Island. Flame-throwing tanks proved futile against the invincible flux. Within a week the subways were closed and car purchases had trebled.
By March 1983 the only unaltered states in the union were Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. This was later explained by the lethargic adaptation of the fungi to the rocky New England soil and to the immediate inclement weather.
These northern states, cornered and helpless, resorted to extraordinary measures in a hopeless bid to ward off the awful incrustation. Several of them legalized the mercy killing of any person discovered to have acquired the taint of "Ellieitis." Newspaper reports of shootings, stabbings, poisonings and strangulations became so common in those days of "The Last-Ditch Defense" that newspapers inaugurated a daily section of their contents to such reports.