Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1915)

98 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE "Are Motion Pictures destined to outshine the stage? Never!" returned Mr. Prior, earnestly. "As to the improvements for Motion Pictures, they are innumerable, but I want to say one thing : The surest way to ruin the Motion Picture business is by the continued production of the multiple-reel pictures. People who are downtown and have perhaps an hour or less to spare will step into a Motion Picture theater. Perhaps a three or four-reel picture is being shown. They haven't time to wait for the first of it, should they perhaps come in during the middle of it. They leave without knowing what it was all about. And then, too, perhaps the picture is poor. If it is only one reel, we say: 'Oh, well, that will soon be over and perhaps the next one will be good.' But a three or four-reel picture — that is bad. It seems to me that five hundred feet for a comedy and one thousand for a drama is long enough. Sometimes a three-reel picture only contains enough real plot to make a corking one-reel, and it is padded until the real plot is smothered." "Well, Herbert," interrupted his wife, "you've been dying to say that, haven't you?" So we may infer that Mr. Prior's prejudice is deepseated. He admitted, however, that in the future there would probably be a place for the feature as well as for the shorter plays, but maintained that the feature idea was at present being overdone. "I spend my evenings in different ways," said he, in response to my question. "Naturally, I dont like to do the same thing all the time, I read, go to theaters, Motion Pictures, all that sort of thing — and beat my wife," at which "my wife" chuckled gleefully. "The greatest living statesman ? Myself, of course. Politically, I 'm for any good man. I think Woodrow Wilson is a fine man. I consider him the right man in the right place and at the right time. My religion ? I 'm Protestant — Episcopalian born and bred. I believe in all Nature as a religion." He is six feet and a half inch in height and weighs one hundred and ninety pounds. He does not approve of the censorship of films, for he thinks it is the right of each studio manager to choose what shall and shall not be produced, and he is quite sure that very rarely would the various companies overstep the bounds of decency and propriety. "The public, after all, is the real censor, the court of last resort," Mr. Prior added, ' ' and while I do not object to the National Board of Censors. I feel that even that distinguished body would die a natural death if they were to adopt a policy that was not in accord with the demands of the public. There is no excuse for official censorship." I left, after the pleasantest evening I can recall, with the silvery voice of Mrs. Prior urging me to call again. Pearl Gaddis. BLISS MILFORD, OF THE KINETOPHOTE COMPANY She is five foot four, Peter-Pannish, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and I am certain — sure (I would stake a dinner in Childs' on it) — that she cries: "Oh, isn't it the sweetest thing!" whenever she sees a baby. She says she has been with Edison three years, and before that with "His Last Dollar," "Clay of Missouri," "The Candy Shop"— stop! I dont believe it. I know that she was still playing with paper dolls then. But, dear, dear ! she will be ancient and severely intellectual, in spite of her looks. She had a volume of Balzac in one hand when I interviewed her, and her first words to me were : "Dont you think child labor the worst evil of the age ? ' ' So I said at once I did, and we were friends. "That sounds like a suffraget, but I'm a harmless one," she reassured me. "I believe in lots of things, you know — New Thought, fresh air, the