Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

20 REEL and SLIDE Film Best "Trail Blazer" for U. S. Industries Abroad By Orrin G. Cocks (Secretary, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures) THE war has done it! The bands are burst asunder. America has sprung forth unshackled as a world leader. The war has aided us to win the affection and love of the world. Its peoples want to know the genius and the causes of America's democracy. They are all ready to learn and to use the good of the principles we have developed. So the time has come for us to interpret in practical terms the reasons for our solidarity and idealism. Among the influences which can tell the story with universal power and convincing eloquence the motion picture has advanced to a foremost place. Prophecy is a dangerous pastime, but events have indicated certain lines of motion picture development which must come both here and abroad in response to the new position of the United States among the nations. These lines may be indicated with some degree of confidence. Our own people have expressed unmistakably their desire for clean entertainment with plenty of heart throbs, whimsical comedy or satire, stories of love or romance interspersed with the spice of adventure, daring and courage. These tales have held the emotions of the world from time out of mind and they always will. The public has now tired of war stories, but they are greatly interested in the lives of the peoples in the countries which have become real because of the world conflict. Film to Describe Other Peoples The provincialism of America has received some salutary lessons. France is not frivolous ; England is not decadent ; the Balkans are not inhabited by fanatic, ignorant guerrillas ; Japan is not untrue to alliances; South Americans are not untrustworthy bandits; Russia is not stolid and stupid. No, indeed! They are very different from our pre-war imaginings. They all have high purpose and substantial historic backgrounds. While we have lived in a smug fool's paradise, they have, in turn, developed their misunderstandings and suspicions of the United States, which we may thank the war for modifying. Some trustworthy interchange of information is needed to increase knowledge and mutual respect. Motion picture films are needed from these countries for exhibition in the United States. They will be eagerly welcomed by our people without being compared to the costume story, for which the American public has had little use. They will now be regarded as truly modern and as intensely intersting as one photographed on Broadway, in an American country town or on a western ranch. We want stories from the countries of our Allies and from South America, Asia and Oceanica. Everyone now knows that the glorious Anzacs from Australia are similar to the Canadians or Americans. Let us see them on the films. Our war activities have brought Brazil and the South American states near to us and swelling commerce will help to strengthen the ties which bind us. It is the part of wisdom to broaden the minds of the American people with tales which have their settings in these countries and which inform us of the splendid qualities of their peoples. All of them are fast growing into the state of brothers in the enlarged family of free democratic men. The news and informative films may turn the trick, but experience has proved that the dramatic picture has a power out of all proportion to the others. Witness in confirmation the influence in social education of the picture version of Brieux's "Damaged Goods," which aimed primarily in telling a convincing story. An Ethical Contribution For our own good and theirs we will increase the number of dramatic pictures which tell us and our neighbors across the water of the many-sided life of our democracy. Both we and they want facts about the operations and projects of our national and state departments. Are we entering world trade and increased naval activity? Then let's dramatize it. Has the Government plans for development of waste lands, waterways, soil cultivation or child saving? Then the world may be the better for fine dramas which make these clear. Do the industries wish to tell the world of their processes, plants, products and social activities: Here at hand is the film which can educate and inspire while it carries the finest form of modern advertising. ! en more important for every man here and twelve thousand miles away are those fine pictures of America's treatment of her sons and daughters in their social activities. There are some fine stories still to be told of working people, of home conditions, of equal opportunity, of relief, of care of the old, the young, the delinquent and the sick. These are inspiring in the extreme. Surely, too, there is something yet untold of the various methods used in our civic life to bind our country together and teach the peoples abroad to advance along substantial roads to orderly and lasting freedom. Nor have we yet exhausted the inevitable development of the motion picture. The world has learned that the film has an ethical contribution which will strengthen those agencies which minister to character development. The Chinese wall of church indifference is crumbling and pictures will be demanded more largely in connection with church activities. The ministers returning from France with the Y. M. C. A. secretaries have discovered that men turn in numbers to this form of wholesome entertainment during their leisure hours. They will solidify the demand. Progress, however, will be accelerated when leaders in the church and Y. M. C. A., in education and in social movements, co-operate with skilled dramatists and motion picture producers. Their function is to indicate facts and ideas which may be used and grant some freedom to the men who know motion picture limitations and permit them to infuse into the ideas the spirit of life and of drama. In our attempt to help in the democratic transformation of the world, let's learn some lessons from Germany. Before the war she had spawned the world's industrial streams ; she had impregnated whole nations with her peculiar trade and cultural ideas. Quite, unrepentant, she is now planning still further to win the peoples to her aims and business methods. In the name of reason, why should she be given a free field? With all agencies at our hand, and especially the motion picture film, let us combine business and democratic helpfulness by telling America's story to every village and every nation on the footstool. Suggests Motor Trucks to Convey Pictures to Rural Districts "A greater use of the motion picture in rural districts for entertainment and informational purposes is most desirable. The difficulty in the past of bringing this modern type of entertainment to the small community has been the cost and the legal requirements in order to safeguard against fire," says the Bulletin of the affiliated committees. "These can be minimized through the organization of entertainment circuits and the use of a motor truck for the purpose of moving the show from place and providing electric current for the exhibition. A pamphlet, prepared by the National Committee of Patriotic Societies in co-operation with the Federal Bureau of Commercial Economics and the National Board of Review, contains the following description of traveling equipment for the use of the incandescent lamp machines : "A one-ton truck (Ford type is good) is of sufficient size to carry the projector, the generator, the films and the screen from place to place. The chauffeur should be the motion picture operator. The screen, of whatever material, ought to be made with grommet holes, so that it may be laced to two upright and two cross pieces, made preferably of piping, though wood will answer. This frame may be held either by cross legs at the bottom, or guyed with ropes to any convenient posts, trees, etc. The truck should have a reel holding at least 300 feet of electric cable, leading out through the bottom, so that the truck may remain at the roadside and the projection equipment taken into any schoolhouse, town hall, or parish house and perfect projection given the pictures." Miss Abbie B. Gantz, for many years in charge of the insurance library in the Insurance Exchange, Chicago, and now connected with the Insurance Field, addressed the Fire Insurance Club of Chicago recently on her experiences in the Minnesota fire district. Miss Gantz spent three weeks there, covering the disaster for the paper, and described the devastation and the work of the insurance men and officials, and related many interesting incidents. Her address was followed bv 700 feet of moving picture film showing scenes in the forest fire territorv. At a meeting of the Sunday school superintendents, members of the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Sunday School Union, the discussion of motion pictures in Sunday school work was an important feature of the program. The Symington Company of Rochester, N. Y., purchased two thousand tickets for "America's Answer," for the showing at the Gordon Theater, and invited their employes to see the government war picture.