Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1920)

Thonrimnoi ^e aVt to note that Isaac ineunginai Wolper, president of the Mayflower StorylsCom Photoplay Corporation, believes with ins Back us ^at t'ie orginal story is coming back. His reason for that belief, which we have already stated in this department, is that the present tendency on the part of authors, publishers, and play producers to boost prices of published works will create a demand for originals with merit regardless of their advertising value. Mr. Wolper recently expressed his views on the subject as follows: Price does not necessarily make a story. Proof of this lies in the fact that two of the biggest screen successes— De Mille's "Don't Change Your Husband," and "The Miracle Man" were not high-priced stories. "Don't Change Your Husband" was an original, while "The Miracle Man" was practically unknown as a book and certainly not a great success as a play. Yet both these pictures were sensations, artistically and from a box-office standpoint. Dual Roles The Mayflower president believes that the prevailing practice of paying fabulous prices for screen vehicles is but a passing fad — that the money expended purchases advertising and publicity value only. He says : Take, for example, a story which costs the producer one hundred thousand dollars. At least seventyfive thousand dollars is paid for the publicity value. For actual merit, only twenty-five thousand dollars is laid out. Consider the case of the screen rights for such novels as Harold MacGrath's "The Luck of the Irish." Such novels are bought at very high figures because they have an established advertising value. Both authors and publishers are boosting prices to a point now where they themselves will break the market. They will slay the goose which lays the golden eggs. For money cannot be made on a production when the story costs one hundred thousand dollars or more, which is the high-water mark said to have been touched in the purchase of "The Tailor-Made Man," "Turn to the Right," and "Way Down East," and a few other such works. If a story costs one hundred thousand dollars, according to Mr. Wolper, not less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars should be expended to insure proper production. This means, he says, that when the picture is published it must gross at least half a million dollars to cover the cost of prints, distribution, and exploitation, and even then the matter of profit will be doubtful. Which is a convincing argument for the original story — even if the original story for screening is not, in the end, the worthiest story of 'em all. QUESTIONS concerning scenario writing, addressed to this department, will be gladly answered, when accompanied by a stamped and addressed return envelope. Beginners, however, are advised first to procure our "Guideposts for Scenario Writers," a booklet covering all the points on which beginners usually wish to be informed, which will be sent for ten cents. Those who wish the names and addresses of the principal producers, with statements of the kinds of stories they want, may procure our Market Booklet for six cents. Please note that we cannot read or criticize scripts. Lord Wright Go slow on the dual-role stuff — the mistaken identity idea. Every one has been working the latter trick since long before the days when Alexander Dumas got his hunch and wrote "The Corsican Brothers." Shakespeare used the idea, and he got it from the Roman playwrights. Of late it has been overworked. Right offhand I can name a dozen pictures in which it has been used. So when you see the story of the two men looking so much alike that one cannot be told from the other on the screen, refrain from going and writing something along the same line. There are a few dualrole film features as yet not released, and the market is already crowded with them. Five-Reel Comedies I think I have stated before that comedy is the most difficult form of writing for the screen. Beware the story that reads humorously. Nine times out of ten it will prove a sad performance indeed. It is the idea between the lines that will act humorously. As those of you who read "Old Comedies — or New?" in the last issue of PicturePlay already know, there is a movement well advanced to get away from the pie-throwing brands of film comedy, and to get into a higher class of comedy with a logical story and natural situations. Companies that have been making one and two-reel comedies are now making five-reelers — feature comedies, if you will. Now if you have comedy ideas your time is coming, provided these five-reel comedies receive public approval. Comedy to run five reels must have plot and story. It can't be made up "as they go along." If you want to do comedies try to do something that would make a five-reeler. Don't waste your time writing ideas for short-length comedy. The film comedy of to-day consists of one slight idea and is built tip as work progresses— any one having a "hunch" for funny business handing it along to the director. Your script stands very little chance. Your ideas must not be as good as the other fellow — -they must be better. This is a fact that must invariably be faced by the free-lance writer of movie plots. There are a lot of professional fellows on the "inside" — staff writers and the like, who can submit the usual thing, done with an understand Stuff Must Be Better