Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

88 Photoplay Magazine Cuba, he went to Havana, promoted a manufacturing enterprise successfully, went on to Forlo Rico and repeated his success, and then, with a fair-sized fortune in cash, returned to Ntw York and dropped every dollar of it in Wall Street. About this time B. A. Rollc was looking for someone to help him organize a picture company to produce for Alco. "Will you organize this thing for me?" Rolfe asked Karger. ■Not for you — with you," Karger replied, and he did. Alco went kafluey. R. A. Rowland, Joseph W. Engel and James B. Clarke conceived the ground plan of Metro, on the ruins of .•\lco. They called in Karger because he had proved his ability as an organizer. They wanted fifty-two pictures a year. Nobody wanteil to accept the responsibility of guaranteeing any fixed number. The picture business was rather chaotic in those days, and the idea of guaranteeing production made them nervous. Finally Karger said: "Oh shucks!" or words to that effect. "I'll give bond to turn out the whole fifty-two myself, if the rest of these guys fall down." And they went to it. Metro has had its 52 pictures and more. Vou can take it from President Rowland, from that moment Ma.xwell Karger has been the mainstay of Metro productions. He has come as near to standardizing the moving picture as possible with such an elusive product. Perhaps IMetro has not made a great many sensationally successful pictures, though "Revelation," frequently regarded as the finest artistic creation ever given to the screen, and '"Draft 258," a triumph in timeliness, are very near the high water marks of the business. But there is in Metro a certain dependableness — a distinct approximation of fixed policy — that has spelled success through all the various bi-weekly crises which the industry has been weathering for ten years. Perhaps this is because Karger went at the job of organizing Metro production activity, not as an artist, but as a business man, yet not quite able to forget he was an artist first. And he swears by the scenario. Nothing is left to chance. One day Karger handed a scenario to a director and asked him to look it over. It was a scenario complete in all details. "I will make the picture." said the director, "but I won't be responsible for the results." "Who the sun, moon, stars and milky way said anything about your responsibility?" Karger replied. "Suppose the violinist says to the orchestra conductor, 'I can play this the way it is written, but I won't be responsible for the way it sounds!' Follow the score, son. follow the score." Tempo comes natural to Karger, from his musical education. And it is something that is not understood by five per cent of the picture makers. The gradations of speed from scene to scene can be worked out, to a certain extent, in the cutting room, but Karger goes farther than that. .In the making of the picture the cooperation of the cameraman is employed and by varying the speed of the cranking of the scenes the acceleration or retarding of the tempo is obtained. THE HOUSE THEY BUILT FOR BENNETT AN eight-room house, practically, ■with a grand stairway anJ hallway — but minus a fourth wall. This pleased Enid Bennett, for whose new picture it -was made. This is one of the largest sets ever built on the enclosed stage at the new^ Incc studios in Culver City. The new picture is a mystery story and it was necessary, to get the proper long shots, to construct three solid rooms at the head of the stairway on each side. The only reason the fourth wall was omitted was to permit free space for the camera to -work on the longer "shots." The house cost $1,250.00 and Tvas two weeks in the building. Fred Niblo is directing this scene with Enid Bennett-Niblo and Lloyd Hughes. Up on the landing — out of camera-range — an electrician is directing one of the spotlights, turned on the scene belo-w;