American cinematographer (Nov 1921-Jan 1922)

December 1,1921 THE AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 11 Jimmy the Assistant REVIEWS and REVIEWERS Next to the weather man, the Movie reviewer is the most popular prophet we have Both of 'em's in the same class, as far as reliability is concerned, only the weather man has a slight edge on acct. of having some nowledge of weather. The reviewer was all right as long as he stuck to reviewing, but when he started predicting box office valyoos and such like stunts of miracling he put himself right beside the weather man as joke material. The only reason either of 'em gets their stuff printed is because people is still more or less sooperstishus and believes in signs, lucky days, and soothsayers. Otherwise there wouldn't be no weeping and wailing and gnashing of newspapers at the studios every Tuesday morning when the picture reviews comes out. The average picture review is a awful joke, and I can't see why it is they're taken seriously at all. In the first place, it aint given to but darn few people to be able to pick winners or failures. Nobody knows which pictures is going over until the percentages is figured, and that's a long time after the first showing. Then give a little think about the reviewers' job. Imagine having to look at all and every kind of pictures for a living, and you'll see how terribly blawzay he must be. To him all pictures must be punk, only some are punker than others. About the only thing he can appreshiate is novelty, and when he gets hold of a novel picture he most generally thanks the perducer for the treat by praising the picture to the skies whether it's got any money-making valyoo or not. That's probly why the reviews of these here German pictures has been so flattening. It aint because they're good, but because they're differnt. Another thing that throws them off lots of times is the fact that audiences is all different. A picture may go big in New York, and have all the movie magazines published there go nutty about it, and the darn thing wont make a dime anywhere else. Then again, it might be a flop there, and clean up somewhere else. You cant trust any one audience to judge a picture any more than you can trust any one man's opinion of it. This thing has been proved so many times that you'd think the reviewers would be a little careful how they pans a picture, but they don't. They go right ahead and write "Sorrows of Sue; Punk Meller with no Plot; Direction Acceptable in Spots; Weak Star with Bum Support. " Then he goes on to advise the exhibitors to duck this one, as it is a lemon. But the exhibitor is like as not tied down to contracts and can't duck it, so he shows the picture in spite of the roast, and, since the people like melodrammer, and the star is popular, and the average audience not bored to tears like the reviewer is, the picture ends up with a nice comfortable 85f/ . One of the best examples of the other way round was "Busted Blossoms." When that picture was produced in the big cities it had all kinds of special color perjection, imported orchestras, and a lot of special props to put it over, and it looked like a clean-up. It was a novelty, so all the reviewers went into hystericks about it's sublimity, and all that kind of highbrow stuff. When this same picture went out into the cold, bleek world to make a living, all by its lonesome, and got showed in just a regular picture house, with no special nothing to help it out, it was a sad, sad, story. They walked out on it. The farmers who had cranked up the old flivver and drove into town to see a rattling good thriller like Griffith is famous for, couldn't quite dope out what it was all about, so they went across the street to see some other picture that, like as not, the reviewers had tromped all over. Another thing worth thinking over is the fact that most big money makers is just regular program pictures that happens to hit. Nobody knows when they're liable to get one of these, and sometimes a picture that just escapes being shelved is the one that does it. Most big pictures, intended to make a lot of jack, and figured as winners, is flops. There's just enough exceptions to prove the rule. Now then, if the people who make the pictures can't tell whether a picture is good or not, what chance has a reviewer to make any kind of appraysall? Once in a great while the reviewer just happens to give the right steer on a picture, but it's more luck than anything else. Even the weather man is right sometimes. the co-operation of educators and business men over all the country. The plan is first to collect in one central film library the films which have already been made showing the industries and resources of any community. As yet comparatively few scenics and industries have been filmed and these have never been correlated as a part of a film library of America to which the public could go as to a circulating library and learn how the other one hundred and four million live. Such films are most valuable when they form a part of a national film movement, national in its scope. The plan is to build up region by region, county by county, the film story of the United States. Pictures that have already been taken will be used wherever possible. Expert cameramen and experienced directors will be sent, on reqeust to national headquarters, into any community, to film not just the external characteristics, but to get the very soul of the place, its historic background, its industries, all that will be of the most benefit to the community itself and will serve as an inspiring message to the country at large. "Journeys Through the Valley of Heart's Delight," the first film to take its place in the "national film library of knowledge," can be secured by schools, colleges, chambers of commerce, boards of trade and other organizations through National NonTheatrical exchanges in various sections of the country. All communities owning films of this kind which they may be willing to contribute to the national film library are urged by Miss Thornburgh to write concerning them to National Non-Theatrical Motion Pictures, Inc., headquarters at 232 West 38th Street, New York City. The sooner all available films are assembled at a central point so that educators interested can learn what has been done and what remains to be filmed the sooner the nation-wide movement, which has the hearty endorsement of visual educators in many sections, will get under way. Laura Thornburgh, writing The American Cinematocrapher, tells of a public-spirited movement to show America to Americans in films, headed by noted educators and financiers, which will seek At LAST, the Perfect Tripod Special Range Head QuickActing Leg Clam ps Special Hinged /*\ Claw Feet Thalhammer Special Model A K. IV. THALHAMMER 550 So. Figueroa Los Angeles, Calif. Main 1574