Having recapitulated so much for the people who walked into the theater in the middle of the picture, we continue with hackneyed theme number seven:
7. The couple who fall in love, only to find that they are brother and sister, parted early in life.
As we mentioned earlier, this might be profitably combined with No. 5, “the husband jealous of one of his wife’s relatives,” to make a twisted farce in which the husband is jealous of a man who his wife assures him is her long-absent brother, only to discover that he himself, the husband, is the real long-lost brother, which means that the supposed brother is not a brother at all. We might even adopt the birthmark or locket from No. 1. It could be argued that this farce would be in bad taste, but bad taste is considered a virtue in current literature.
A more reasonable objection is that farce is the unforgivable sin in current entertainment. But since soap-opera plots are now taken seriously as deep tragedy, we can make our farce acceptable just by not making it funny. As long as the unlikely revelations are played as tragic shocks, audiences will probably eat it up.
8. The unapproved marriage finally made acceptable by a child.
When we take up this theme, we ought to remember that, for current audiences, we might have to explain the idea that it is important for a marriage to be “approved” by anyone besides the parties to that marriage. We could probably get by with it, though, in a fantasy setting, as long as we make it clear that aristocracy is bad and people who think family alliances are important are cruel and anti-happiness. That gives us our treatment of the plot: the families of the married couple, previously trying their best to keep the pair apart, now find themselves jockeying for favor with them, because on one side the continuation of family power, and on the other side the elevation of the family’s fortunes, will depend on influence over the heir.
9. A mischievous little boy.
A bit vague, but it is true that the early 1920s saw a glut of movies about mischievous little boys, and scenario editors had reason to be thoroughly sick of them. Since the suggestion is so vague, we can do almost anything with it, and we choose to make our mischievous little boy the king of a powerful nation teetering on the brink of war with its equally powerful neighbor. Very delicate diplomacy is going on, but the young boy thinks ambassadors and ministers are funny and likes to play pranks on them. Naturally, he nearly provokes the war his diplomats have been working strenuously to avert. If we were writing this in the 1920s, the hackneyed ending would have the young king getting a good spanking, with the approval of diplomats and ministers on both sides. Our ending would have the diplomats and ministers on both sides, finally united in their disgust with the young king, collaborating on a prank that out-pranks the king himself and ends with as many custard pies as our budget will procure.
10. All stories requiring trick photography.
We might be justified in skipping this one on the grounds that it is not a situation so much as a question of technology. What was both expensive and unconvincing a century ago is now mere run-of-the-mill moviemaking.
But since we have taken it upon ourselves to go right through the Glyn list, we need a story that requires trick photography of a sort that would have been possible in 1923. We might write an old-dark-house mystery in which spooks and other weird phenomena are produced by the sorts of practical effects that could be managed in a stage play. Bits of the machinery of these effects—a piece of gauze, a magic lantern, a reel of fishing line—would be noticed here and there by the various characters, but the significance of the objects would not be understood until the clever amateur detective wraps up all the clues and shows how the wastrel nephew, fifth in line to inherit the house and the fortune that goes with it, had arranged the whole spectacle to drive his more respectable but superstitious relations out of the house, the inheritance, and their minds. The revelation of how the illusions were created would be a big part of the fun, so our scenario must specify that the tricks are to be accomplished exactly the way the detective says they were.
Once again we stop at four hackneyed themes, believing that a higher dose might have unacceptable side effects. And once again, better suggestions for making use of these hackneyed themes are welcome in the comments.
Continues in Part Four.