unearths some literary gems.
From Bateman and I in Filmland, by Dudley Clark (illustrated by H. M. Bateman):
[The conceit here is a primer or tourist guide about how the inhabitants of "Filmland"--i.e., life as it's shown in the (silent) movies--behave. The observations are all pretty obvious (and I imagine were already so in the year of publication, 1926), but sometimes they made me smile despite that.]
***
Everybody drinks champagne--gallons of it. Society Filmlanders have not much time to spare for eating. They just toss off a few goblets of champagne, look at their watches, and walk or slouch or slink or stagger away. They settle their bills with a sheaf of notes and never expect any change.
***
[The Filmlander] is not content that his face, however picturesque, should be purely ornamental; he expects it to work for its living, and to work hard. So addicted, in fact, is he to facial intercourse that when circumstances compel him to use the telephone he wastes quite a lot of fine silent emotion upon the unresponsive transmitter.
***
It is not that Filmlanders dislike books; on the contrary, they take them up and put them down quite a lot....
In the Filmland home the library is dedicated to domestic quarrels, murders, and startling revelations by the family solicitor. There is no literary use for the place. The most a Filmlander cares to read at a sitting is about a quarter of a newspaper column consisting almost entirely of headlines.
***
No one knows until the bell rings whether the favourite will be running, or, if running, who will ride him.
The Filmland race-horse is neither surprised nor discomposed when at the last moment his jockey is found to be missing. He knows that in thirty seconds or so the owner's daughter, or fiancée, who is clasping her hands in the front row of the grand stand, will have changed her clothes [and] leapt on his back....
***
In Filmland they do not go in for any little wispy bits of moon that look like a slice of melon. The Filmland moon, when it shines, shines all over, irrespective of anything the calendar may have to say about it.
"Don't talk to me about 'phases' and 'partial eclipses,'" says the Filmland moon...."Look at all those people down there making love and so on. What's the use of their trying to be picturesque and working their faces about if I don't give 'em a decent light to do it by?"
***
The Filmlander knows, or should know by this time, exactly what sort of weather he is going to get according to what he intends doing when he goes out.
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It is wonderful the way in which Filmlanders will master the contents of a long letter simply by tearing it open, glancing at it, and crushing it convulsively in their hands.
[....]
Sometimes they are rather careless in the way they leave them lying about. A tremendous amount of trouble is caused in Filmland by letters and dispatches being read by people other than those for whom they are intended.
***
