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

356 C&c Cljeatte Up to now the musician has seemed to be wholly immune from the great gift which science has bestowed upon m.ankind, but the next two years may alter this condition materially. Already the popular song composer has his ear to the ground, and one at least is preparing for the future as is his wont along lines that will find many emulators in due course. Charles K. Harris, who wrote "After the Ball," a generation ago and who averages about three "hits" a year, is preparing a play and a photoplay around the theme of his first success. Mr. Harris is also planning to visualize all of his most compelling ballads. If Harris should enter the musical film field on a large scale, as now seems likely, his procedure will be watched by his confreres of "tin-pan alley" with intense interest. The time is ripe now for some musical craze. Nothing has developed since the vogue of "illustrated songs" and the "animated song sheet," though both were the forerunners of the present "movie" craze. The cabarets are seeking musical talent now in preference to that of vaudeville, and if Harris can evolve some method of producing song films that will represent the modem spirit of doing things, the craze that would follow would be even greater than that which followed the advent of modern dances. Somewhere, too, in this big town Alfred L. Simpson must be figuring on the song film problem. Simpson will be recalled as the artistic member of the oncefamous kings of illustrated songs — Maxwell and Simpson— that is to say, he was the electrical genius and Maxwell sang as only he could render songs requiring "tears in the voice." When illustrated songs exhausted their vogue to a