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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (July 13, 1958)
imagination on how the murderer carved up his victim. And the more horrid the thought the more macabre the idea the lietter the audience likes it, especially the adult audience. While children are honestly and out spokenly cruel, adults have learned to control their emotions, if not their imaginations. This lets them vicariously enjoy what they see on the screen because they are in no way responsible for what is happening. THROUGH DESERT HEAT, MOUNTAIN COLD . . . The amazing performance of Atlas products is constantly being proved under all ex tremes of weather, in countries round the world. Such field tests demonstrate the superior wearing qualities of Atlas Tires! IF IT'S "ATLAS," IT'S MET EVERY TEST! Whether it's an Atlas Tire. Atlas Micronal Oil Filter or any other Atlas product, it must pass the stiff analyses of Atlas Automotive Specialists. So, for proved superiority, look for the Atlas label. r'i'i;terWa.iA..iVii'uaiiiMi? 1 I B IsC Ml ISS t I If pi 1 v'l ' iri I'll r " ' I - o- 1 H ' v V v.s i r . cr? ' e, 1 I p?llt 7mI f .1.-' W m W a- a ON A LABORATORY "TORTURE RACK" AT 200. . . This "tire ply adhesion test" and many others go on continuously not only on Atlas products, but on competitive products, ton. Kvery year thousands of tires, batteries ond accessories are com pared to insure thai Atlas gives you the very best in performance, safety and value. fM cr-1 rgL RECOMMENDED AND SOLD BY 38,000 SERVICE STATIONS! More service station dealers sell Atlas products than any other brand. Ask your local dealer to show you the famous written guarantee on Atlas Tires and Batteries. It's honored on the spot at over 38,000 service stations in all 48 states, Alaska, Canada. YOUR GUARANTEE OF PROVED TOP VALUE Mf. U.S. of. Crrrifi lJI Attn Urpti crr, i. M. J. But how wonderful the feeling of relief is when the problem is solved! It makes everything that's happened before twice as rewarding. However, if you don't come to the inevitable end, if you let the audience hang in midair, they get angry. They were very upset with me for one of my first pictures, when I showed a small boy carrying a time bomb across London. I cut to the boy's feet, to the bomb, had him ride a bus through the streets of the city, cut back to the bomb, showed him playing with a cut, then the bomb whipping up excitement as the ex plosion time approached. The audience could anticipate the inevitable pail of water in which the bomb was to be dropped at the last moment. Only I didn't give it to them. I let the child carry the bomb three minutes beyond the time it was set, then let it go off, blowing him and everything around him to bits. After the premiere, one of the lead ing critics nearly hit me in the face. "How dare you do this to us?" she cried out. The other critics were not rmich more kind. From then on I've always tried to work out the climax to everyone's sat isfaction and relief. Fortunately, for the success of my type of pictures, fear itself is a basic, obvious, ordinary, and very enjoyable characteristic. Take a group of people riding a roller coaster. Their terror-filled screams as they are whisked up and down and around the steep railways are very real, although they'd scream differently if the coaster would actually jump the tracks and go over the side. A person rooting for his favorite baseball team yells because he wants to see it win and because he's afraid they might lose! Yet from a director's point of view, there is a subtle line where he must stop depicting fear. The audience wants to be entertained, and they love to get scared but they don't want to be antagonized. In making a picture it is very im portant to remember that the audience realizes that what they see is not per manent, not actually happening to them, and thus they can enjoy it even though the real thing revolts them. Being "typed," as I am, has certain disadvantages in both my private and professional life. I once made a film with Ingrid Bergman which caused one critic to protest that he had to wait 105 minutes for the first thrill. There was no thrill intended in the picture. Likewise, I've long been considered ' a horrid creature by people who don't know me. Particularly women. Once, when the wife of a producer met me at a party, she confessed that she had no idea I was such a nice, inoffensive person. And, confidentially, I'm not so sure this was a compliment if I am to believe my own theory that people enjoy nothing more than the horrid, macabre, fearful kind of a thrill I try to give them in my pictures. romilu Wrrkly. July 1.1.
