Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

86 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. V, No. 5. twilight — march across the whitened screen back of the lecturer's rostrum. The jails, the prisons and the poorer parts of the big cities are invaded in an effort to secure a proper background for some of these pictures that are to be used in fighting the devil and inculcating morality. Banks, department stores, factories and mills are used as the scenes of battle between right and wrong and good and evil. It is the endeavor of the men back of the movement to show by everyday scenes the everlasting conflict between the two sides of man's nature. Chicago has become the center of a great part of moving picture industry of the country. The shows throughout Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas have been securing their film reels of Chicago agencies. These agencies have noticed the continual rise in the demand for those films that are undoubtedly moral. Every day or so a church that has never used moving pictures before sends an order for a few of the more moral and scriptural films, and for the machine with which they are shown. The country churches are not far behind those of the city in their use of this new method of fighting satan. Orders come in from churches in Hannibal, Mo. ; Hot Springs, Ark. ; Paducah, Ky., and Tulsa, Okla. The favorites of the church that is using them for the first time are the biblical pictures — "The Life of Moses," "The Good Samaritan" and "Scenes in Jerusalem" and others of whose morality there can be no doubt. Later on those that have been carefully censored, and those that were made with the intention of driving home some great truth with especial force, are chosen. A dozen of the country's churches have been using the motion picture machine in some parts of their churchly activities for a year or more. Most of them have never as yet dared to use the flashing films in the course of their regular services. In the West several of the churches have installed a permanent machine as a part of the regular equipment of their lecture and entertainment halls and rooms. In most instances the admission to. these moving picture exhibitions held by the church is free. It has resulted in a great many folk who never by any chance, as they would express it, "went near a church," becoming attendants on a portion of the services. The church is now beginning to fight back with the same effective weapon that was once turned entirely upon the younger members of these religious congregations. All the sects and denominations were sufferers from the inroads of these amusements a year or so ago. Jewish, Catholic and Protestant felt the pull of the scenes and sensations that were being shown to the picture patrons. The educational and amusement value of the pictures has been known for a long time, and many of the city institutions, church institutions and homes have been using them for years; but the idea of coming out into, the open and using the films as a means of routing satan is still so new that in some quarters it can not be entertained. The fact that the picture show on the outside is undignified and sometimes immoral, has helped to keep it from being used by many militant churches and earnest ministers. As an instance of the interest in scriptural and religious subjects for moving picture reels, it is known that a Parisian manufacturer recently made a trip to the village of Oberammergau and offered the simple villagers there something like $200,000 for the privilege of making a set of films showing the "Passion Play." His money was refused. No amount of per suasion had any power to change the minds of the villagers, and the manufacturer went back to Paris. There he staged a "Passion Play" that was every bit as elaborate and as wonderfully costumed as that of the villagers of Oberammergau. He hired a company of the most skillful actors and rehearsed them carefully until they reproduced the "Passion Play" fully as well as the original. It did not cost him $200,000 to do this, nor even a fourth of that amount, and the pictures sold, for after all it is the story of the great scene that makes the pictures and the "Passion Play" itself worth while. Moving picture audiences all over the world were able to see passing before them the wonderful story they had heard in mere words all their lives. It was not necessary for them to make any effort of the mind to follow the story. It was unrolling there before them. Paydown, Mo. ; Eldorado, 111., and Tabcat, Ky., have all been allowed to look upon these pictures showing the life and death of the savior of the world. This and the "Tale of the Widow's Mite" and "Parable of the Sower" may not put an end to family feuds in the Cumberlands, coal stealing from railroad yards in East St. Louis or thefts of groceries from crossroads stores by petty bandits, but the effect of the "morals" generally is undoubted, The religious revivalist of the newer orders does not scorn to use these pictures as a means of appealing to the better natures of his hearers. The pathetic tales of conversions, death beds and sorrowful scenes of poverty and searing sin are but the pictured tales that he has been painting verbally all through his career. "The Wandering Boy," the old mother waiting at home for her erring son, the wife waiting and watching for the wayward husband, the dead child lying in the middle of the room and a thousand others of the scenes that tug at the heart strings and fill the eyes with unhidden tears and the heart with repentance have been placed on the films. They have their effect, and there are but few who believe in revivals at all who condemn their use. Through these pictures the revivalist is able to reach the man who is deaf, but not blind, whose eyes are more susceptible than his ears. There are many such, as every revivalist, teacher and preacher knows. The American people have the moving picture habit. Its spread has sounded the death knell of melodrama, and it is driving the vicious burlesque out of business. Some of the pictures have inclined toward vulgarity and viciousness, but the present attitude of so many churches insures that all pictures in the future will be just a little cleaner than they have been in the past. The board of censors will continue to find their work easy, for no manufacturer will care to have so large a number of films impossible for use in hundreds of churches and church halls. To fight Satan with the moving pictures the church will be forced to keep its films full of action and interest. The audiences demand some form of a thrill, whether it is that which comes from dangerous scenes or that which is_ a part of the religious feeling and the solemn emotions of the race. Ordinance Against Frame Buildings Superintendent of Buildings of Seattle, Wash., is preparing an ordinance to be presented to the council which will forbid the operation of moving picture shows in frame buildings.