Seymour Stern: American Film Critic, Guardian and Prophet

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THE BIRTH OF A THEORIST

Seymour Stern began his literary career with a regular column that was first published in 1926 in the Greenwich Village Quill, a low-circulation but influential literary arts magazine published by Henry Harrison.

Entitled "Kaleido-scopia." Stern's column brought almost immediate notice to itself and reaction from established writers for the larger publications, among them Richard Watts, critic for the New York Herald-Tribune.

Stern's writings quickly found additional outlets. His byline began to appear in The New York Sun, The New York Herald-Tribune, Cinema Art, The National Board of Review, Billboard and Motion Picture Today.

It was in these mass audience outlets that the most profound of all early aesthetic theories were expounded upon by Stern in such articles as "The Ideal Film Theatre" (1926);⁶ "Clearing the Critical Jungle" (1927);⁷ "The Function of the Directors" (1927)⁸ "Silence" (1927)⁹ and "What Makes the Film an Art" (1929).¹⁰ All of these pieces were quite lengthy and, more interestingly, written on assignment.

In 1928 Stern spent three months travelling through nine European nations studying the respective motion picture industries and production techniques of France, Belgium, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and England.

Upon his return to the U.S., Stern wrote a number of articles based upon his observations, especially with reference to the German, Austrian and French cinemas, for his informal syndicate of commercial outlets.

Among these articles were such pieces as "Legal Practices Are Indicted In German Drama;"¹¹ "Little Cinemas Offer Best Of French Films;"¹² "Germans Plan Photoplays For American Tastes;"¹³ "Little Film Movement in France Leaps Ahead;"¹⁴ and others in the same vein.

Amongst these early reportorial pieces, however, Stern was already beginning to write the foundation pieces on the subject of Griffith that would guide much of his later work.

Some of these articles, ranking amongst the least known an' most widely forgotten of all of Stern's works, include "The Case of D.W. Griffith" (1926);¹⁵ "D.W. Griffith: His Influence and His Future" (1926);¹⁶ "The Function of the Director" (1927)¹⁷ and "Iris In On Hollywood" (1934).¹⁸

After Stern's byline had been featured in a number publications in the span of several years, an offer came 1 Stern, which he accepted, to come to Hollywood, ostensibly' to study film techniques and to impart his wisdom on the theory of camera movement.

This offer had been made to the Carl Laemmle's, Sr. as well as Jr., and Stern's work entitled "The Six Principles of Camera Montage" became required reading at the Universal Pictures studio complex in 1929.¹⁹

Stern's theoretical concepts and his craftsmanship his the written word quickly led him to work for other studios such as MGM, RKO, and Fox.

He worked as a "shadow” director for some of the industry's most notable creative individuals, such as Upton Sinclair, Howard Hugh' Rouben Mamoulian, Sergei Eisenstein, Sidney Howard William Saroyan, David O. Selznick and Irving Thalberg Stern rewrote their scripts, made outlines for came movements and angles, and advised upon the cutting of the films.²⁰

Into the 1930's Stern found another outlet for his talents. Stern shared the continuity credit for an experimental documentary entitled IMPERIAL VALLEY, financed a sponsored by the playwright, Sidney Howard.²¹

A second documentary effort called LAND OF THE SUN,²² based the "landscape and life of Southern California," was both directed and edited by Stern, with Stanley Cortez, LeRoy Robbins and Irving Akers as his cameraman and A. Jenson as his assistant director/cameraman.

Another independent endeavor was an original continuity BLACK DAWN,²³ an original story written by Josef Berne and Cameron McPherson.

But Stern's meteoric rise to prominence, which had begun on such a high note in 1926, was beginning to falter.

In fact, on the afore-mentioned project, IMPERIAL VALLEY Stern's involvement ceased:

. . . due to 'disasterous political conflict' which arose between makers and sponsors, the production was turned over to another crew.²⁴