Oil! by Upton Sinclair

They adjourned to the larger cathedral, where the lights were dim, and there appeared, very appropriately in place of the altar, a large white screen. At the far end of the room was a projecting machine, and the guests distributed themselves in lounging chairs, prepared to pay for their entertainment by watching the first two reels of Annabelle's new picture, and giving their professional judgments on the "cutting. " Pangs of Passion you may recall as a soul-shaking story about a society bud whose handsome young husband is led astray by a divorcee, and who, in order to make him jealous, begins a flirtation with a bootlegger, and is carried off in a rum-running vessel, and made the victim of the customary pulling and hauling and tearing of feminine costumes. "My God," said Vee Tracy, in an aside to Bunny, "Annabelle has been playing these society flappers since before they were born, and in all that time she's never had a story above the intelligence of a twelve year old child! You'll think it's a joke, but I know it for a fact that Perry Duchane gets a bunch of school children together and tells them the scenario, and if there's anything they don't like, he cuts it out."

And then to Annabelle she said, "It's up to standard, my dear; it will sell all right. " And to Bunny, "That's one good thing about Annabelle, you can say that and she's satisfied -- she doesn't ask you if it's a work of art. But others do, and I've made mortal enemies because I won't lie to them. I say, ‘Leave art out of it, dearie; we all know our stuff is trash."