From a post on Noel Sickles with quotes by Alex Toth:
"Okay, you all know what talent is: you know when you see it and when you don't. But what the hell is 'the touch'? you ask."
"Oftimes it's hard to verbalize... but let me try. I'll put it this way: It's just not enough to have 'talent'. How you apply that talent is what demonstrates touch. Noel's learnt to apply it very well from the start."
"[The touch is] a joyous thing to perceive in any work of art -- that elevates it far and above its contemporaries, and causes responses of wonder, respect, admiration, and professional envy. It is: "The Majesty of the Simple thing"! (Repeat after me -- 100 times -- "The Majesty of the Simple Thing.") "
"It is creating a piece of work by a subtractive process rather than an additive one! Once the necessary elements for a story telling picture have been selected and set down on paper in their most effective arrangement, the matter of delineating them remains."
"How one solves the problem, in the "finishing" stages, tells us either too much (more than we really need, or want to know) or not enough!"
"Ahh, but the artist with that "touch" -- he finds that magical, marvelous balance point between the two choices. His eye, intellect, taste, and hand find the razor's edge dividing them. The final assembly of lines tells us as much about the artist as it does his subject. In economy lies the truth."
(emphasis mine)
A Noel Sickles Flickr Gallery.
All about Sickles and his creation, Scorchy Smith.
Okay, so why I am shining a (second) spotlight on Sickles? Because his work and Alex Toth's comments about his work pretty much sums up the pulp aesthetic - both in writing and filming:
Write only what is necessary to tell the story and nothing more.
Shoot only what is necessary in the angle and dynamic necessary and nothing more.
The Majesty of the Simple Thing.
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