Vanity Fair, April, 1922

A Dictionary for the Motion Pictures

A Convenient Lexicon for Those Who Like the Cinema—and for Those Who Don’t

Compiled and Edited By WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT

(Continued from March, 1922 issue)

JAPANESE, n. (1) A valet. (2) A spy.
JOWL, n. What would seem to be the chief qualification by which an actor is chosen for the role of Wall-street magnate.
KEY, n. An instrument used by strict and prudish maiden aunts for locking up their beautiful but flighty young nieces who immediately escape by the window.
KEYHOLE, n. An aperture in a door through which a person on the outside can distinctly see everything that is going on in all parts of the room beyond.
LACHRYMAL, adj. Those glands of an actress which assure her the greatest number of close-ups.
LADY, n. A woman who carries a lorgnette, arches her brows when speaking, and shakes hands with the tips of her fingers held on a level with her eyes.
LANDLORD, n. A crabbed gentleman with Dundrearys and a black frock coat, who calls in person on poor and decrepit widows who are behind in their rent, and threatens eviction when it is not immediately forthcoming.
LANTERN, n. A kind of lamp which, though it may be extinguished by a breath, yet invariably remains lighted in the most violent blizzard or rainstorm; and casts a steady, vivid illumination over the whole countryside.
LAVISH, adj. A cinematographic synonym for “artistic”. The more lavish a picture, the greater its artistry.
LETTER, n. An incriminating document which is carefully preserved.
LIBRARY, n. The room wherein the butler finds the gentleman of the house murdered.
LOVER, n. That member of a cast who is at all times clean-shaven, has curling eyelashes, and exhibits a fondness for animals.
MAGDALEN, n. A lady who, at one time or another, has held hands with a young man to whom she was not formally betrothed.
MALLET, n. A large wooden club for knocking people over the head as they come through a door.
MANUSCRIPT, n. The author’s version of a picture, which differs in all essentials from the completed film.
MARRIAGE, n. The climax of nearly every motion-picture drama, which, despite the experience of centuries, is still optimistically regarded as a happy ending.
MEAL, n. A small social gathering at three sides of a table, occupying from thirty to sixty seconds.
MILLION, n. An elastic designation for any amount from 50,000 to 150,000. For example: A “million” dollar production.
MILLIONAIRE, n. A gentleman with a frock coat, a liveried chauffeur, a gray patch over each ear, an office sixty feet square, and an unmarried daughter who is in love with one of his noble young employees.
MOON, n. A satellite of the earth, from which emanates a bright blue light of an intensity slightly less than that of the sun.
NIGHTLY, adj. When carnivals are held in Venice.
NORTH, n. That section of the country where human blood is characterized by the fact that it is always Red.
OLD FASHIONED, adj. That which is good, noble, desirable, and sacred; as opposed to “modern,” which is evil, ignoble, undesirable, and sacrilegious.
ORCHARD, n. Where the noble and wealthy young gentleman from the city chases the rustic heroine about among the trees immediately preceding his proposal of marriage.
ORGY, n. Any party at which the men don tissue-paper hats.
ORPHAN, n. A beautiful, pure and highly talented young lady who invariably marries wealth.
PAPER-CUTTER, n. A long, sharp knife, shaped like a dagger, which financiers keep on their desks, and with which, sooner or later, they are stabbed.
PARADE, n. The world’s principal news event of the week.
PARDON, n. A document with which the heroine, driving a Stutz Bearcat, speeds over the crossing just ahead of the onrushing express train, in her mad dash to the prison, where they are in the act of strapping the handsome and innocent leading-man to the electric chair.
PECKSNIFF, m. The original censor.
PEP, n. An ingénue’s substitute for histrionic talent.
PERSONALITY, n. A word which covers a multitude of bad actors.
PISTOL, n. A small gun which fires an endless number of shots without being reloaded, and which—no matter where it is aimed—invariably hits the fleeing victim in the seat of the trousers.
POKER, n. A gambling game at which someone is invariably caught cheating.
POLICEMAN, n. An officer of the law, who, by some gift of miraculous prevision, always appears upon the scene of a crime within thirty seconds of its commission.
POLISH, n. A characteristic of society gentlemen, which, for the most part, is limited to their hair.
POLLYANA, n. The unbilled heroine of the great majority of our motion-picture dramas.
POOR, adj. A temporary condition of the virtuous, immediately preceding great riches.
PROLOGUE, n. A short act, pantomime, or tableau, generally conceived by the local theatre manager, which has the psychological effect of making any picture that follows it seem like a masterpiece.
QUARTETTE, n. The basis of a De Mille society drama: the wife, the husband, the other woman, and the other man.
QUELL, v. t. What any noble young man can do to a strike merely by appearing calmly at the factory door and appealing to the working-men’s better nature.
RACE, n. The climax of a Griffith picture, in which Death is beaten by a nose.
RAIN, n. A continuous cloudburst through which actors may walk without getting wet.
RAT, n. A species of animal found in large numbers in the cellars where the heroine, bound and gagged, is temporarily placed by her abductors.
RECONCILIATION, n. That which any child can immediately bring about merely by appearing in its night-dress and surreptitiously placing the wife’s hand into that of the husband.
REFINED, adj. Anyone who refrains from shaking hands, and merely bows, when acknowledging an introduction.
REFORM, v. i. That which all burglars do after two minutes’ conversation with a child in a baby-bunting night-dress.
SANTA CLAUS, n. The person for whom all children, waking at night, mistake burglars, thereby unconsciously turning them into a life of purity and uplift.
SASH, n. An article of clothing worn by all painters, Spaniards, and forty-year-old debutantes.
SEQUEL, n. Another reel just as bad.
SICK, adj. The physical status of all babies whose fathers are out of work.
SIGHT, n. That which the blind always recover after being operated upon by a great specialist.
SITUATION, n. That moment when a certain combination of events has resulted in a pure young lady being compelled to choose between (1) permitting the villain to kiss her, or (2) standing by and witnessing her poor old father tortured to death.
SOCIETY, n. A coterie in which all the women carry lorgnettes and all the men wear white kid gloves after dark, and in which everyone talks with raised eyebrows and holds the little finger rigid when grasping a tea-cup.
STEM, n. That part of a wine-glass which inadvertently snaps between the fingers of the kindly gentleman with the gray areas over the ears, when someone proposes a toast to a certain absent lady.
STIRRUP, n. What no cowboy would deign to make use of when mounting a horse.
TELEPHONE, n. An instrument hidden inside of a large doll dressed like Madame Du Barry.
TINY, adj. The kind of garments which, when a husband finds them in his wife’s sewing-basket, renders him speechless with amazement.
TRUNK, n. A receptacle in which the comedian hides just before the draymen arrive and hurl it down the stairs.
UNCLE, n. A benevolent elderly gentleman with money, who, because of an unhappy love affair in his youth, has never married.
USHER, n. A young woman of superhuman mental resistance, who is able to witness two performances of the same picture each day, for from three to seven days running, without loss of sanity.
VALISE, n. A receptacle which, after being carefully packed by a comedian, immediately falls open when picked up by the handle.
VICTORY, n. That which is invariably won by the poor, the weak, and the virtuous.
WANTON, n. A woman who wears a ring on her thumb.
YOKEL, n. A man whose whiskers grow straight out from beneath the chin.

(The End.)

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