Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1912)

Former Mayor Bridges Smith, of Macon, Ga., is a real fan. He was recently interviewed and his remarks are worth repeating. Here are just a few of them : "Moving Pictures are the greatest things ever devised for the delectation of man, and the most wonderful. And they are just in their infancy. What they will lead up to, no man can tell. They are a blessing to mankind. It is the best recreation, the best diversion, the best short vacation, that a busy man can take. Many a man, I really believe, and woman, is made better by going to these plays.' The public school buildings in America are put to good use in the daytime, but to what better use could they be put to in the night time than to give them up to educational, instructive, and amusing Photoplays? Mr. and Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan entertained their friends during the holidays with an exhibition of Motion Pictures, at the Morgan mansion, 219 Madison Avenue, N. Y. City. And yet they say that Motion Pictures are only for the poor. If the reader of this column should read several hundred clippings each month from all parts of the country, as the writer of this column does, he would be surprised at the number of civic societies that are devoting themselves to the task of "Stopping Immoral Films." When these societies start out, they are thoroly convinced that most of the films are immoral. When they investigate, they learn that most films are not immoral, and these same gentle persons themselves soon become "fans." Thus, every cloud has a silver lining, and the more the Moving Picture business is investigated, the larger becomes its following. Miss Kate Davis, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., of whom mention was made in these columns last month, has pronounced the Motion Pictures shown in Williamsport morally wholesome. We congratulate Miss Davis on her discovery. There were recently shown before the Lackawanna County Medical Society, in the Y. M. C. A. auditorium at Scranton, Pa., a series of Motion Pictures, thru the courtesy of the Lubin Company, that promise to be a great scientific aid to the medical profession everywhere. The views embraced all the important nervous diseases, and extended thru the field of neurology, including the study of insanity. The medical fraternity is indebted to Dr. T. *H. Weisenburg, as well as to Mr. Lubin, for these important pictures. The New York American recently said editorially : "The Board of Education should take action to have the Moving Picture shows in public schools resumed as' quickly as possible. Their success has been remarkable. Their educational value is beyond question. The American speaks for a wide public in insisting that this new and inspiring form of public instruction should go on and grow to greater prevalence. Quite apart from their significance as a means of amusement, the Moving Picture exhibitions in the public schools are making whole communities, young and old, aware of their vested rights in the public school buildings. Thus the people are getting ready to make schoolhouses the rallying places of a new and nobler politics — the centers of democratic social life." To all of which we subscribe. Those exhibitors who think that Motion Pictures in the schools will injure business are certainly short-sighted, as pointed out in these columns long ago. It will help business, by winning thousands of converts who otherwise would never step inside a Picture House. The stage began its career as a moral izer, and for two centuries or more continued on its upward journey, until in recent years it began to decline. Motion Pictures began its career, not as a moralizer. nor as an educator, but twenty years of progress have made it a rival of the stage in its halcyon days. And, it has just begun ! Thirty thousand miles is a long way to go for a Motion Picture. Add tribes of savage and treacherous black men, an almost unknown country, and a superabundance of venomous reptiles, and you are able to form some idea of the kind of enterprise that one of our manufacturers has cheerfully undertaken in order to produce for you some striking and instructive films. The parts to be explored with the camera aire in the Northern Territory of South Australia. 141