Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

By z€. "D EN J AMI N ALTAIAN, who died the other day, was a man after my own heart. He had the loftiest possible ideals. His beautiful store on Fifth avenue, the splendor of its administration, the loving care extended to his horses, excited my keen admiration when I first made the acquaintance of these marks of high-mindedness. I reasoned it out that the man at the head of these enterprises must be a virtuoso — a sincere lover of the best things in life. So it proved to be. Mr. Benjamin Altman has shown himself great in his death. He died bequeathing to this city one of the finest art collections ever gathered together by one man. In respect of being a collector he transcended the late J. Pierpont Morgan, who as a collector was too acquisitive, too eclectic, not sufficiently discriminative. Discrimination was the forte of Mr. Altman. 1\ TR. ALT MAN'S munificence is bound to have a great effect (strange though this may read) on the future of the motion picture. For the more you study good "still" paintings or pictures of any kind, the more you are likely to be able to understand and appreciate good motion pictures. The motion picture, as we in this paper are constantly insisting, is an artistic product. Mr. Altman got together some of the greatest artistic representations in the world. These pictures are of an educational nature. As Thomas Constable is alleged to have said, "A good picture is seen at a glance." Now if you look at good still pictures, whether they are photographs, paintings, etchings, or what not, they will lead you to appreciate cognate or allied qualities which you see in pictures which have motion. TT70ULD you be surprised to learn that, in my * ▼ humble opinion, Mr. Andrew Carnegie is taking a course which, although he probably has not so calculated, will operate by helping the great cause of the motion picture? This is the endowment of the Palace of Peace in Europe and the support of the peace propaganda. I can imagine the reader screwing up his face and saying something like this : "What on earth has this to do with the motion picture?" It has a great deal to do with it, friend reader, as you will concede by the time you get to the end of these paragraphs. * * * * npALKING about pictures with a friend from a distant part of the world a few days ago, he interjected thusly: "For goodness sake, don't send us any more military pictures. We are sick and tired of the blues and grays — the Civil War subjects. The people that go to theatres don't want them. Tell the film makers not to make any more." I pass on the advice, dear brethren. Take it. It's good ; it's sound sense. The public is sick of war subjects on the screen, just as the public is sick of war between nations. HP HE bravest soldiers hate war. General Sherman is alleged to have called it "hell." Kitchener and Roberts, the British generals who have years of conquest in all parts of the world to their credit, who have been miscalled butchers, are two of the kindest-hearted men I have met and they hate war. But war is their trade, and they ply their trade as I am plying the pen that writes this paragraph because it is my trade. The difference between Roberts and Kitchener and me is that I like my trade, though it does not make me a General or get me medals or glory. * * * * MR. CARNEGIE is a shrewd man. He has been shrewd in business, and although he is laughed at for many of his theories, he can foresee the time when universal peace will prevail on the earth. It must prevail. War will become so costly that no nation or two nations will be able to afford the money to play the game. So he has backed up the peace propaganda and built this Peace House for the purpose of teaching the lesson that war is waste of money. We of the general public have not yet got to Andrew Carnegie's advanced stage of thought. I am writing generally. But it is a distinct sign of progress when you have evidence forced upon you that the millions and millions of people who go to motion picture theatres are sick of wars on the screen. They are sick of the Spanish-American War, they are sick of the Civil War, they are sick of the Boer (Continued on page 17)