The Moving Picture World (1907)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 701 "Another thought occurs to me. How many people are there in Chicago who have never been out of Chicago? This' applies to all other cities also. The thinking man is fond of reading of the wonders of the world. As an instance, to make the thing as local as possible, how many of the thinking men who are not blessed with the dollars to get there, have visited your won- derful National park—Yellowstone Park? Wonder upon won- ders meet the eye as one goes through that magnificent place. In such subjects I feel there is a vast field for the exhibitor to get a good, steady, thinking, better class man into his show. "Once the exhibitor shows his interest and his need for such subjects, he will find that the film manufacturers of the world are ready and waiting to supply his wants. "What can be more interesting to a man living in the heart of such a vast continent as America than to see how salt water fish are caught? The majority can only read about it. It is not given to every man to have the means, to travel to his heart's content, but by means of such pictures of industries you enable him to enjoy all the beauties of travel without the cost, trouble, or inconvenience. * "To come right down to something which Chicago has a di- rect interest in, that is, the wonderful, fearless attempt of Wal- ter Weliman to plant the American flag on the North Pole. Here is a man thousands of miles away from civilization, with just a few faithful followers, and with all the difficulties of handling one of the largest airships in the whole world. Last July a storm blowing at the rate of eighty miles an hour fetched down some of the steel work upon which they had spent two laborious years in setting up. Here were difficulties unheard and un- thought of. How entertaining to every one throughout^ the wide world to see the efforts of Walter Weliman and his lieutenant, Major Hersey, struggling against nature's forces to do some- thing which has never before been accomplished. It is only by moving pictures, and moving pictures only, that such scenes can be depicted and brought home to your very door, at the cost of a nickel, or thereabouts. "A moving picture man to-day accompanies all such expedi- tions. We have just sent out a moving picture camera to the South Pole. A moving picture camera has just been taken right through that fever infected place, the Belgian Congo. Our op- erator, as is already known to the world, stood in the trenches at Casablanca, when France was fighting the Moors on behalf of civilization. In that picture we see something which we can only read about, viz.: the new French field gun at work, which, by an ingenious construction, utilizes the gases formed to counter- act the recoil. A still photograph or drawing, or description, could not convey an adequate idea of the workings of this won- derful instrument of warfare.. "Do you think that the present prosperity now prevailing will continue?" asked The Show. World man. - "I have met one or two pessimistic men in the business who fear that the boom which we are now enjoying to-day in mov- ing, pictures will not last Let me tell such people that in the whole eleven years I have been connected with cinematography I have heard the same tale, that to-morrow will be. the last day that moving pictures will draw. But to-morrow never comes. I would tell the great American exhibitor that he is only on the verge of the enormous possibilities of the cinematograph. There are fields lying fallow which have never had a furrow put into them, so far as moving pictures are concerned. They are sim- ply lying there waiting for the plow to come along, and the man who puts the plow in and sows the seed will have a very rich harvest. "I refer to the working men's club, the Band of Hope, the church, the schools, political world, the big dry goods store en- terprises, the railways, the steamships, and various other places which will most readily suggest themselves ■ to a live man in the business so soon as he puts his thoughts in that direction. "So impressed am I with the possibilities of the business here in the States that I have determined to open a branch of my business in New York. Also, I am putting the interest of my Canadian business in the hands of Mr. George Kleine, of the Kleine Optical Company, whom I consider the Napoleon of the moving picture industry of the American continent. "Do not think in the views which I put before you—and I want you to make it quite clear to the whole of the trade— that it is in no dictatorial spirit that I have given you my views. My one and sole idea is for the uplifting of the business. I feel that only by uplifting our business, and it is in the hands of the exhibitor to do it and not in the hands of the manufac- turer, that we shall become as sound and as stable an industry as the rock of Gibraltar, and as necessary as the butcher or the baker. "The American, public are our masters in this business, as they are in all businesses which cater to amusement, We must always remember we are in a business which can be done with- out, and it is only by having our business on the solid founda- tion of clean, wholesome, interesting and educational amusement that we can get that solidity which we are all seeking." "Mr. Barker, what, in your opinion, is the general trend of the industry?" "The general trend of amusements is upward, and the moving picture industry must keep pace with that trend, if not set an example to the whole amusement world. Every individual ex- hibitor has it in his power to aid in this movement by seeing that he puts on the screen nothing he would have the least qualm about showing to his wife, his children, or his sweetheart, his sister or his mother. "Edison, with his wonderful invention, put it into the power of the human race to see with its own eyes all the glones of this wonderful world that we live in, just as he put into our hands the power of recording forever the actual voices of the departed great. So that really the moving picture man has a mission, and we must see that we do not abuse that mission. The moving picture should be as much a necessity of our lives as is the daily.newspaper, and even more. "Natural events, or, as we call them, actualities,-are far more graphically described in pictures than in cold print It is the trend of the educational age to-day to teach rather through the eye, the first sense, than through the ear. A lesson taught through the eye is calculated by teachers to have far more last- ing properties than that which is taught through the ear. And so we find that in the art of healing—I refer to that great body of men studying at the university to be physicians and surgeons— these are being largely, taught operations, etc., by the aid of the cinematograph. "One operation, which is brought to my mind very vividly, as I had the honor of turning the handle, was a case of tre- panning, one of the most delicate operations which a surgeon can perform to-day. This art is being taught in many medical col- leges by the aid of the 'cinematograph, in deference to the views of anti-vivisectionists, and it is held by some of the most learned professors in the world that such operations can be as correctly and as vividly taught by the aid of moving pictures as they can be by subjecting poor, harmless monkeys and dogs to such an ordeal." "What was your general impression of Pittsburg?" "My impression of Pittsburg, if you mean the city and not the convention, was that I felt instantly at home on my stepping from one of your palatial Pullmans. I could scarce see my hand for smoke and fog—in fact to use a good old London expression, I could cut it with a knife. This very fact made me feel In- stantly at home, being a Londoner, or, to use a more familiar phrase, orterm, a cockney. But evidently you don't mean what were my impressions of Pittsburg. "My impression of the convention was that I never saw a body of men get down to the real work of the moment quicker and with fuller understanding of their needs. That convention should mark a wonderful period in the history of moving pictures on your great continent. One thing struck me very forcibly in- deed, and that was that the gray beards were conspicuous by their absence. There was all the vivacity, go aheadiveness, smart- 4 ness and typical Yankee impetuosity amongst the young "men who seem to have got hold of the moving picture business in the United States. This is to my mind a very fine omen for the future of the business. Young blood is very tenacious and enthusiastic, and they have this advantage, that they can grow up in the business as it develops. They have not the disadvan- tage of growing too old before the business is down on a sound bottom. They have youth at the helm, and with youth at the helm the ship of the moving picture industry should sail trough fair weather and rough weather seas of all times. "Youth in America assumes responsibilities that a man of fifty in Europe would not dare. In that phase of American life I fancy I see that which we Englishmen want to know very much indeed. I feel that I have unearthed the secret, or one of the secrets, of America's great success and prosperity, in that she believes in youth, whereas in Europe the son is still a child until the father is dead, which very often means that a man is looked upon • and treated as a child until he arrives at such an age that all his spirit of initiative has been lost. In other words, the spirit of initiative has not been permitted to burst forth in the flame of action." "Are you to remain in the States long enough to attend the coming meeting in Chicago?" "Unfortunately, I have already been too long away from my headquarters in England, and it is with deep regret that I can- not see the consummation of the Pittsburg meeting. For I feel that the Pittsburg meeting will be consummated at the adjourned meeting to be held in Chicago. But although separated by leagues of land and sea, please consider that I shall be with all the boys in spirit By the courtesy of The Show World you have allowed me to talk to the great moving picture industry of America, a privilege I very much appreciate. I feel I have