The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

of^ciencc 87 tures will come into their own. They are valued now only for advertising purposes, and, when a stage play is reproduced in pictures with any success, it is inevitably found that often the plot and always the manner of treatment have been entirely departed from. "D. W. GRIFFITH." The receipt of Mr. Griffith's letter coming as it did just as this volume goes to press, indicates that the present writer is supported in his theories — theories he has given expression to in magazines and in the public press — by men who have helped to m.ake the motionpicture art what it is to-day. And if such authorities as Mr. Griffith are correct in their viewpoint, the present stage movement in filmdom will be followed by the vital era of the new art itself. The photoplay depicting criminal life in various phases is about as widely discussed by writers in the press and magazines as any subject the camera man has embraced, yet the consensus of opinion indicates that censorship such as now obtains in this country is wholly inadequate to exercise any control of the widely varied outlets through which the crime photoplay may have "got by." Even where censorship is most rigid the productions of objectionable plays dealing with crime and violations of law and order are not less prolific than in those sections of the country where the control is vested in leagues, created in recent years by representative bodies of state exhibitors, who have banded together for upHft of the industry which has endowed their members with a lucrative occupation. The writer, wishing to present in the current volume the views of some one experienced in criminal proced