Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1916)

20 How They Have Changed ming Bird," "Bought and Paid For," "Bella Donna," and hundreds of others. It will scarcely be necessary to trace the parallel for any motion-picture follower, for he will see in this very brief sketch of the stage development an almost exact replica of the story of the film. Biograph, Edison, and the other early-day companies flooded the screen with Indian films, and then, as trick the "drawing-room" drama, which reached its culmination with the introduction of adaptations of many of the great stage dramas, some of which have already been enumerated. Though there were some society plays produced upon the screen in the early days of the motion picture, the thrillers and "stunt" pictures were so greatly in the majority that it was not until 1912, Helen Gibson is one of the few who survives as a player of thrillers — but even she has to be an actress as well. photography became more and more thoroughly understood by the camera men, they used all sorts of "effects." Realism ever has been one of the great assets of the motion picture, and this fact was used to the utmost advantage by the producers. The Civil War burst forth on the screen in all its glory, and the actor dead littered the fields for miles around. Then the next phase of the story was when the Famous Players Film Company inaugurated the first feature program devoted to the introduction of stage stars and adaptations of theatrical successes, that dramas of this character became a potent factor in the motionpicture industry. To-day, they are in the great majority with producers in general, the African picture and other exotic settings being in the minority.