Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

Who STARTED the Fun? The last thing the First Lady of the Land did when President Coolidge broke camp in the Adirondack^ was to take her own motion pictures. When the Crown Prince of Sweden passed through the United States on his tour of the world he made his own motion pictures to show the Royal Family and his friends in Stockholm what he saw in the United States. The Duke of York and Roy D. Chapin hold the records in England and the United States for the first movies of their children. Mr. Chapin could not wait eighteen hours after one of his heirs was born until he had the baby's features recorded for his own silver screen. The Duke of York, who is an enthusiastic camera man. filmed his daughter and showed the pictures to the Duchess while she was convalescing! Surely neither Shakespeare nor Aristotle contemplated the time when the cradle would be robbed so that the action might be preserved on the screen. Is it possible that Robert Burns thought we might want to see ourselves as others saw us when we were two days old? Individual motion pictures have made many professionals amateurs again, — on the silver screen. George Ade discovered, as a little movie fan, that there was more fun watching the facial expressions of his golfing companions in the movies than there was following them around the links. How could anyone possibly know how one looks playing tennis or golf, swimming or canoeing without a motion picture? A football or basketball game is over in a few hours but it may live a lifetime on a film. The biggest fish caught on a camping trip never get away if they are filmed! Should you hunt big game in Africa you might buy the skins and tusks to bring back home, but a motion picture of a lion chasing you through a jungle, filmed by your trusty guide, would tell its own story. We all know that Vice-President Dawes smokes forty-seven matches with each pipe of tobacco and that Galli-Curci can sing, but what does the distinguished presiding officer of the United States Senate do when only his family and friends are around? We know that the famous opera star dances for her husband's motion pictures but we may never see her in this fascinating role. John T. McCutcheon may draw cartoons that win elections but how does he act in his own movies? If J. P. Morgan and Charles M. Schwab have their own motion pictures, what roles do they prefer? Some great men have been known to let their grandchildren ride on their backs while they crawled on their hands and knees. Whether Mr. Schwab is a Charlie Chaplin or a Douglas Fairbanks, only his family and friends can tell, for they have seen the pictures. It is highly improbable that Mr. Morgan plays Jack and the Beanstalk but one never can tell! Recently a well-known banker in Northern New York invited his guests to a house party to take part in an amateur play called "Katherine the Rum Runner's Daughter," which he had written, with his wife starring in the title role. "Love by Proxy" is already famous as an amateur production, with Miss Mildred Sachse, who appears on our cover, as leading lady. Every little movie has a meaning all its own. That is the secret of the fun. It tells a story which has never been told before and may never be told again. Formerly, Americans went abroad to "see" Europe or "do" the Continent, but today they travel to see themselves abroad. Nothing can prove better that you paraded the beach at the Lido in fancy pajamas than the individual motion picture. How could you expect to prove that you rode a mule in the Grand Canyon without a motion picture? "Still" photographs of such experiences are too frequently made in studios! Here, there and everywhere, sixteen thousand amateurs are creating their own Hollywoods, — Hollywoods of real people having fun wherever nature sets the stage, and the day is coming, says Mr. Chapin, when every home will have its screen. Perhaps in our first issue of AMATEUR MOVIE MAKERS it might be interesting to speculate on who started the fun, — on what makes us enjoy our own movies. Perhaps it was Shakespeare who made us drama conscious, or it may have been Robert Burns who aroused our curiosity to see ourselves as others see us. Certainly neither the mirror, the photograph nor the family album makes us feel like Romeos and Juliets. Think of the love's labor which has been lost because it was not filmed! In the "Story of Philosophy," however, may be found the answer to our queries. Aristotle really started the fun. "Happiness," wrote the great Greek philosopher, "is multiplied by being shared." That is where the joy in amateur motion pictures originates. But to modern science and industry we owe our gratitude for placing the mechanism in our hands! Nine