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

o( %tienct 229 graph-Liebler film productions of Hall Caine's plays, the big Brooklyn concern has practically been immune from the "Theatrical Movement," yet who shall say that the Vitagraph has not held more than its own in its offerings to the public? Blackton and his artistic associate, Albert Smith, have no financial problems to solve. Both are impregnably intrenched in what is called the material side of their enterprise through a system of film distribution that would stagger the average showman v/ere he permitted to comprehend the statistics of a Vitagraph fiscal year. And what of the man Laemmle? The teutonic individual who presides over the destiny of the Universal Film Concern in the Mecca Building. The writer recently had a chat with Herbert Brenon, one of Laemmle's directors, and a big one, too, v/ho found himself when he entered the Laemmle concern. Said Brenon: "Men like Laemmle have not only been greatly responsible for the present-day growth of the film industry, but it is such as he who have inspired cotiservative business men in the world of finance to invest their capital. Men who have persistently refused to finance theatrical undertakings are now importuning the Universal's president to be 'let in' on his future operations." There you have it! Laemmle, whose extraordinary career is described in another chapter, can go into Wall Street and command more money in twenty-four hours than was ever invested by men from that district in theatricals in half a century, and surely Laem.mle's achievements in the past year show nothing to justify one to predict the least retrogression. Although I am wholly opposed to the film productions of vice plays, underworld revelations and the