Photoplay (Apr - Sep 1918)

p^t m & fit. ^ m PS * #• swallo\ifs are making them read-y to fly, J=JL Wheeling out on a windy sky THEM CRY on the cheek of the emoting heroine A. Cohn Most directors realize that the emotion which accompanies the opening of the ocular sluicegates is much more effective than the tears themselves, so they try for the real thing. There are certain well established methods of priming the tear ducts — of "working up" a scene; "getting it" is a favored and highly expressive way of designating the operation. One famous director of the days when a violinist wou'd have been considered an unheard of extravagance was wont to bring tears by the use of personal vituperation — "bawling out" as they would say at Vassar. He would rail at some timid little ingenue; tell her she ought to be back at Snigel & Hoopers ribbon counter; that she could never and would never act; that she didn't have the brains of a caterpillar, and so forth until the victim of his baiting would burst into tears, and then they'd "shoot it." Nowadays, one seldom encounters such tactics except perhaps on the stage of a slapstick comedy company and the director usually means it, but that's extraneous matter, as it were, and not germane to this discussion. There are not many directors who possess those qualities which can be so brought to play on the minds of others that the expressions which portray every feeling in the gamut of human emotions can be successfully registered. The moving pictures have evolved only one or two of such dominant personalities, so the unquestioned power of music has been invoked to get the same results and in addi ^ )od-bye,