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rectors
I
The director is usually depicted as a terrible, monarchial, inartistic, film-eating sort of roaring tiger. It behooves someone to write of him an appreciation. Here it is.
THERE arc, of course, fifty-seven varieties of directors. At any rate there are fifty-seven different ways of describing them — not to mention ways that require words which are not in my vocabulary. But there are only two important kinds: those who know their business and tho-e whose knowledge is confined to fluent and plausible conversation about it.
Of the latter kind I know only by hearsay. My own personal experience has been singularly fortunate, as I have been brought in contact only with the most able and intelligent. And this is not said for the purpose of being ingratiating or from any reluctance to write unpleasant truths. You need only look over the list of directors I have been associated with in the making of pictures and you will see that they are all men whose skill is unquestionably admitted by everybody in "the craft. Hugh Ford, for instance, Edouard Jose. Emile Chautard. Robert Vignola, Joe Kaufman and Hobart Henley — all men whose abilitv has been tried and proved.
Incidentally you will observe that every one of them is a theatre-trained man, got his schooling in the footlights, knows the history, tradition and technic of the drama. Their experience shows in their work. Perhaps it is easier for one who works with them to realize this fact than it is for you who sit out in front of the screen. But even this is doubtful, for the letters that arrive in my mail even day show me that the people who go regularly to cinema theatres have a critical and intensive knowledge of technical values that is sometimes quite awkward! But that, as Kipling would say. is another story.
For my part. I was lucky from the very first moment I went into pictures. My very first director was Hugh Ford. The play was Hall Caine's "The Eternal City.'* For both of us, it was our first picture. He knew no more about the cinema than except that he had thought a great deal more — not about the cinema but every other conceivable sub:t in the world.
I could write an entire article about Hugh Ford, and
I think I should, although writing is not in my line,
if it were not for the fact that it would annoy
Hugh to death. For he is that rare and most
llie panoramic scone above shows Hugh Ford directing Miss first director, is standing .it the extreme
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