It permits pleading again the cause of factuality in screen biographies and histories, The greatest of these films have been, invariably, the ones that accepted the record and em-hellished it or eluded it no more than was necessary for dramatic emphasis and clarity. If, in addition to the argument of duty, it can be proved that the honest approach is the more dramatic, then perhaps Hollywood will accept the Warner lead and make unnecessary a measure which for a time seemed to be required—the creation of a Legion of Historical Accuracy to kill at birth or to maim by boycott the illegitimate screen offspring of conscienceless movie historious.
With all the vivid, significant, rich and spectacular pages of history to draw from; with the great resources and technical facilities at its command; with a world-wide audience at its service, Hollywood—as it has proved here—can take the history of civilization and treat it as a still-unfolding process, as a sequence of a great newsreel of the human adventure. Every age Has had its heroes, its glories an@ its tragedies; and every age can be drawn out of its dead past and made to live again. "The Life of Emile Zola" has brought one era to life, has permitted a great man to raise his voice again, has spoken a valiant word for freedom and justice and truth. That it is a great motion picture an? a thorough entertainment as well ig not just coit was almost inevitable.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.