Moving Picture Age (Jan-Dec 1920)

February, 1920 MOVING PICTURE AGE 39 Omaha Chamber of Commerce Plans World-Wide Distribution of Film Featuring City The Omaha Chamber of Commerce has approved of a specially made motion picture depicting the interesting features of this city of the prairies, which will be shown around the world. The newspapers and writers of Omaha attended a private showing of the picture in the Chamber of Commerce building. The opinion was that after seeing the film the people of the French Riviera and other garden spot of the world probably would pick up and move to Omaha. The' plan of distribution for "Where East Meets West," as the picture is called, outlined by Harry Levey, managing director of the educational department of Universal, that made the film, calls for showings throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as the United States. Australia is particularly anxious to see what a typical western American city looks like. The chambers of commerce of S3'dney and Melbourne have applied for prints. One of the principal ideas back of the film is to counteract the unfavorable publicity Omaha received from the recent riot and to that end the city is asking the co-operation of newspapers and chambers of commerce in other cities that the truth may be known. Sunday Screen Showings in Louisville Church The first tryout of moving pictures in a fashionable church in Louisville, Ky., was made recently by Rev. R. Ernest Atkin, in the Unitarian church on Fourth avenue. It resulted in much discussion of the subject, with a number of the churches opposing the plan. Mr. Atkin's move in this direction received more press notices than some of the big films shown in the first run theaters get. It is Louisville's first attempt at pictures in the churches but it promises to be not the last by any means. Pro and con talk may be lively for a while but the success of the plan is probable, both for this church and others in the city. On the Trail of the Conquistadores Willemsen and Company, of New Orleans and New York, will soon introduce to the screen "Tales of the Tropics," as a series of independent features. The first subject will lie "On the Trail of the Conquistadores," a feature covering the trial of the Spanish conquerors through Guatemala. "We believe," says Mario H. Willemsen, "that there is a great future for our work and a future for all educational and informative films. Educational subjects are becoming more and more in demand with the public, and exhibitors will be compelled to follow the trend of this demand. We have about 30,000 feet of film from a territory where other attempts by those who have tried to film Guatemalans have resulted in less than a thousand feet. We have gone into the far corners where the people are living in exactly the same state of almost uncivilization that they were when the conquerors came into the country. "Our efforts have covered nearly two years, and the films include some amazing scenes incident to the earthquake that well nigh ruined the beautiful capital city of Guatemala. We have filmed the natives in their haunts and woven into the subject a story of interest that will add entertainment to the educational value of the films. The pictures will be distributed on territorial rights, with our firm keeping some of the southern states for our own exploitation. In subsequent features we will take up industrial features of life in Guatemala, where coffee is the dominating product. We built our own laboratory in Guatemala to handle the work on the spot, coming to New Orleans and to New York to assemble the negatives and get the prints." Western Coast Industrials and Educationals In San Francisco Miles Brothers are producing some interesting industrial and educational films and in a recent letter state that they are at work upon a short film for the American .legion that is to have a national circulation. Among their recent productions, "A Day With a Visiting Tuberculosis Nurse," is only a short film of three hundred feet, but verj^ acceptable for this reason to the managers of theaters. In all about fifty orders were received from various branches of the Red Cross Anti-Tubercular Societies in the larger cities throughout the United States for it. They have also just completed a pretentious film for the Parker Institute of Painless Dentistry which has numerous branch offices throughout the west. Another interesting film just completed to be exhibited at a convention in New York held for the benefit of workers in the eastern field, is that of the Viavi Company of this city. The film, of more than 3,000 feet, was made to bring the factory to the eastern representatives of the company who were too far away to visit the home office. Dr. Howard O. Naffziger, in charge of the nerve cases and wounds at the Letterman Hospital, has ordered a film to preserve the valuable data and symptoms of the many peculiar cases along these lines that came under his observance. Travel Films for Interchurch World Movement A most coniprehensive plan for the making of travel films in the history of motion pictures is contained in an announcement issued this week by Vice-President E. W. Hammons, of the Educational Films Corporation of America. Contracts have been signed by the Interchurch World Movement, which are to result in the establishment of a permanent Division of Films, affiliated with the Educational Films Corporation of America, for the purpose of securing motion pictures which will acquaint one half of the world with how the other half lives. Little known countries are to be invaded bj the camera, and one or more expeditions are to be constantly at work in remote corners of the globe. Expeditions left New York on Friday and Saturday of last week, the first of which Mr. Hammons has placed under the direction of E. Lloyd Sheldon, the well known writer, together with Rev. A. V. Casselman o£ the Interchurch Movement, and the second to be directed by Willard Price, editor of "World Outlook" magazine. The Interchurch World Movement, a co-operative plan of Protestant churches and church agencies for missionary activities both at home and in foreign lands, is an outgrowth of some thirty or more great denominational "forward movements" in the last few years. Notable among these are the Presbyterian New Era Movement and the Methodist Centenary, which held an exposition at Columbus, Ohio, last summer. Dr. Earl S. Taylor is general secretary and executive head of the organization. Mr. H. H. Casselman is the Interchurch executive assigned to the direction of the new Division of Films. PRIZMA A new method of practical, color motion photography that re-creates Nature on the screen in all her splendid colors. Entertaining, instructive, and altogether delightful ! Now sho\A/ing in leading theatres. ASK THE MANAGER OF YOUR FAVORITE THEATRE Distributed by REPUBLIC DISTRIBUTING CORPORATION