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

0 f @ c i e n c e iss lar role, has already been produced and will shortly be released. This program of famous players and plays in motion pictures is so impressive that its full significance cannot be fully grasped all at once. "Think of what we would have to-day if moving pictures had been invented five hundred years ago!" This is Mr. Zukor's continual question. "Consider how history would have been enriched," he goes on; "how facilities of education would have been improved ! Think how intimately all the great figures in stage history — Shakespeare, David Garrick, Kemble, Macready, Edwin Forrest, Rachel — would be revealed to us! The light of their genius would be imperishable and shine as brightly for us to-day as it did in the heydey of their glorious careers. What a difference that would make to humanity! If we can give future generations what we of the present have missed, I shall be more than satisfied." In this vision of future benefits to the human race, in his enthusiasm to leave something behind that our ancestors could not bequeath to us, Mr. Zukor overlooked the immediate present, and forgot for the moment that even the people of to-day are receiving great and immeasurable advantages from his project ; for he has brought within physical and financial reach of all the great artists of the day in their foremost successes. Into every hamlet and village of the civilized world Mr. Zukor has sent his wonderful motion pictures, bringing before people who could never otherv/ise see the great stars of the day, the famous artists and great plays that constitute the Famous Players' program. When Mr. Zukor contemplated the organization of the Famous Players' Film Company, he realized that