The Moving Picture Weekly (1920-1921)

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THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY 35 PUTTING COLOR IN THE SERIAL REAL ORIENTAL BACKGROUND FOR HIGH-POWER DRAMA Story of McRae's Invasion of the Far East— Strange Lands Visited by the "U" Playei BY GRACE KINGSLEY Reprinted from The Los Angeles Sunday Times VAUNT the yellow age of film literature, particularly the wild, wild serial ! In fact, it is even now avaunting to make way for a better sort, the sort which Henry McRae has just brought back from the Orient for Universal, and which seems destined to set a new pace. Serials for the most part belong to what might be called the "early Universal" period of pictures. They aren't being used at all this season in our best theatres. But do you remember how you used to sit and bulge out your eyes at the wild adventures of the brave hero and the beautiful heroine in "The Poisoned Claw" or "The Mystery of the Haunted Tin Armor?" Why, it didn't seem, when you looked at thse pictures, as if there could possibly be a single police department on the job in the whole, wide world; those crooked bands of solemn masked murderers did carry on so! And, oh, that shivery mysterious thing in armor who went around looking like an animated cookstove! Wasn't he the boy for your money, though? Then there was the hero, who didn't think he had enough for a mess unless he killed at least five crooks at a throw! As for the heroine, what a trustful girl she was, to be sure ! No matter how often she got caught by the villains and thrown into dark wells and crocodile dens and amidst crowds of villains, the sweet young thing would get up at any time in the middle of the night at the call of a total stianger's voice, and hike out to be caught again! That girl never did seem to learn any sense ! But now there's a new order of things in the serial world. It has just been invented by Henry McRae. The new serial is a combination story and travelogue, and you have no idea of the zest in those fresh and inherently interesting backgrounds! ""The Dragon's Net" is the name of the serial, and there are 90,000 feet of it. I watched some fifteen reels run off the other day, and never wearied for a moment, so adroitly has the historical and travelogue feature ben worked into the thrilling story. Mr. McRae and his company, in which Marie Walcamp and Harland Tucker play the leading roles, spent nearly a year in the Orient. "They visited Japan, China, the Philippine Islands and the South Sea Islands, gathering the most interesting material imaginable, and while, at present, it is intended to show the serial in episodes of two reels, with twenty episodes, it is possible a change may be made so as to show a fewer number of episodes with four or five reels included in each. Universal heads are to determine this. Native Concerns During his trails Mr. McRae found one motion picture company in China and one in Japan. Their methods are archaic, and, while the Orientals would vastly prefer their own stories and their own actors, if pictures could be properly made for them, yet, as the Orental producers seem to have no idea of picture production, the natives are compelled to depend on the American output. However, it is possible Mr. McRae may accept an offer made him by Chinese capital to return next year and start a company. At present the Orientals are especially fond of bloodcurdling thrillers. Next to these, odd to say, they like Charlie Chaplin, whom they laugh at uproariously and imitate, and littlarMary Pickford. One thing about our pictures, however, the Chinese cannot understand, says Mr. McRae, and that is the relationships of the people in the plays. I mean they believe that the picture father or mother, brother or sister, is the real relative of the star, and they get confused when they see different relatives with the same star in another picture. So the exhibitors have a hard time explaining. Both Chinese and Japanese have interpreters in their picture houses, who, unseen, speak lines and explain action in the film. They are very dramatic, their voices rising to a shriek in the exciting parts. In making his picture, McRae has done a wonderful work in the carefully casual manner, so to speak, in which he has introduced titles showing where the locations are that are used as backgrounds, and also giving a hint of their history. Included in the high spots used as these backgrounds are the Ming tombs, the long lane of carved animals leading to the tombs, the great Chinese Wall, the Empress Dowager's $100,000,000 summer palace at Peking, in which views of the interior are for the first time in history allowed to be shown; Kamakura, the old capital of Japan, in which McRae was allowed to take pictures whenever he chose, including private residences, both interior and exterior, strange temples, bits of wonderfully picturesque old gardens; and in the Philippines, pictures of the various industries as well as of historic and government buildings, and remote spots on the smaller islands. In China the picture makers went into the northern part of the country, in Mongolia, where the natives never before had seen films taken. This was also true '-^ portions of Japan. Here the natives worked in the nictures, and were childishly overawed at seeing themselves on the screen.