We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Theatrical Film Critique o Conducted by M. F. L. UR PURPOSE: To analyze with fearless sincerity the current films representative of present production. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND As long as moving pictures remain in an experimental stage there will arise many endless queries as to what "be- longs" and what does not. Have we any right to screen Barrie's Little Minister, a book preeminently valuable for excel- lent dialogue and rich description—two modes of expression at the novelist's dis- posal but utterly impossible for the screen writer who must speak with pantomime? The question persists. Yet to screen Barrie is a casual task compared to that of screening Charles Dickens. And of all the Dickens library, to choose Our Mu- tual Friend with its packed characteriza- tion, its multiplicity of minute details, its many essential characters, would seem the attempt of either a careless thinker or a ruthless literary pirate. Whatever the choice seems, the result a magnificently Dickensesque film, faithfully accurate. First, the picture proves that the screen ioes not necessarily find itself concerned Dnly with the larger action of a story but :an be rich in an amazing amount of 'side action." Second, this film proves he advisability of keeping one narrative it the lead with any others subordinated. When that story which may carry the hief emphasis in the beginning becomes ubordinate to what has been a sub-plot, he two may change places, thereby main- aining a unity. The immediate rebuttal o this assertion might be the muted cry )f too many subtitles and leaders. There nay, of course, be isolated cases where mch a shift might require too much itling. It did not in Our Mutual Friend. a the beginning there was, indeed, an ■larming amount of titling and leaders, but that had nothing to do with any shift in emphasis; rather with the general problem of getting Dickens into screen form. A preponderance of "leaders was the first suspicion we had of the film, a suspicion to be taken seriously when we remember that pantomime, unbroken by titles, is the ideal for many who are looking toward the great age of moving pictures. At the special showing, two reviewers found themselves side by side. One pro- tested at this "deluge of titles." "But how screen Dickens in any other way?" said the second. "Dickens doesn't belong on the screen," rasped the first. "But it makes the crowd read him. Do you know that in Minneapolis a perfectly huge run on the book took place after this film had been shown?" The first personage was undismayed; went off on a tangent. "That makes for weak imaginative powers. If our race is to depend on pictures before it can read the same stuff ,". the voice trailed off indefinitely. "Then you'd rather they would never get Dickens," suggested the second in- dividual, evidently determined to force the issue. "Possibly," remarked the imperturb- able one. "At least, we see two fields for the movie—the artistic movie for the theatre, and an educational Dickens film for the school, after the book has been read!" Here the dialogue closed because it was impossible for even reviewers to converse and review in the same breath and glance. The conversation is repeated here be- 123