Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

MUSINGS OF "THE PHOTOPLAY PHILOSOPHER" 129 The other day I asked a manufacturer why he did not make a film entitled ' ' The Wonders of New York, ' ' and he told me that it would not pay because nobody would care to see it. The fact is, that there is too much of a sameness to the pictures one usually sees. Perhaps we shall never tire of being carried thru the beautiful ranches of California with their plum and orange groves, and over the mountains of Colorado with their narrow passes and steep cliffs, or over the deserts of Nevada and Arizona with their rude mining camps, or along the river banks of the sunny South amid the darkies, and thru the cotton and tobacco fields, or over the plains of the Middle West with its miles of waving corn and wheat, or around the lumber camps and log cabins of the cold North, or to the Indian reservations where real Indians mingle with painted ones, and where real squaws with their papooses strut around their wigwams in the picturesque hunting grounds for the benefit of the man with a camera. All these things are ever interesting, but why not show the slums of New York, the great East Side, the new Grand Central depot, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Aquarium, Chinatown, Wall Street, the great libraries, Fifth Avenue, the wharves, Broadway, the shopping, banking, drygoods, market and residential districts, the parks, the schools, the public buildings, the reservoirs, and hundreds of other things of interest? Even we who live in New York would like to see such pictures, because, strange as it may seem, the people who live in New York know very little about it. The use of Motion Pictures in teaching medicine, surgery, carpentry, engineering, machinery, mining, and various other arts, sciences and trades is getting very common. In Philadelphia recently the College of Physicians gave an exhibition of food in the various processes of digestion, and other Moving Pictures of a similar nature have been exhibited in various hospitals and colleges. Thanks are due the Lubin Company for many of these very useful films. C I do not believe in betting, and I do not want to act as referee to decide wagers, as I am frequently asked to do. Whether the Essanay people or the Melies people have the best cowboys, whether the Kalem Company or the Pathe Freres Company have the most realistic Indians, whether Florence Turner, Alice Joyce, Florence Lawrence or Mabel Trunelle is the most popular actress, whether the Biograph or the Vitagraph does the best work, and whether the Edison Company or the Lubin Company produces the funniest comedies, I must decline to say, for the simple reason that I do not know. According to Puck, Germany does not like us, France is suspicious of us, Japan is actually preparing to fight us,» Canada thinks we are trying to kidnap her, Mexico feels that we want to mortgage her resources and then foreclose the mortgage, Spain positively detests us, Cuba thinks we are a fresh lot of Alecks, China secretly buys battleships and sells them to other nations who want to lick us, Russia thinks we are an ungrateful lot, and so on ad infinitum. "Will the muckrakers kindly advise us," asks Puck, "does anybody love us?" This is supposed to be good humor, and perhaps it is; but there is a good lesson to be drawn from it. Did the ' ' muckrakers ' ' know the dangers of printing so much unfounded news about the likelihood of war, they would have a care. History is not much more than a list of the cruel, barbarous, wasteful wars that men have made upon one another, and many of these wars were caused by some mere trifle, such as a groundless newspaper article. But, the city editors must have news, and even if that news should involve the country in war, or ruin a whole industry, such as the Motion Picture industry, still the city editors must have news.