The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

436 THE EDUCATIONAL SCREEN A New Producing Company THE BARD OF AVON once said, "The Play's the Thing," and through all the changeful phases of popular theatrical entertainment, how true this has been! Witness the light and frothy dramas, the evanescent musical comedies. They have their little day and are completely forgotten. Yet today Shakespeare's plays still hold the boards successfully. We will always have our Hamlet, our As You Like It, and our King Lear. Why? Is it not simply because the play that rings true to human experience, whose story throbs with realism, is the play that grips and holds us? We feel the every emotion, we talk and act with the characters portrayed and so the drama lives for we live with it. However, the play, to be immortal, must not only be able to entertain, but also to teach. This does not mean that an obvious moral must be tacked on to every story — Shakespeare never did. Yet throughout his plays some underlying lesson carries its force of argument down to the present day, when his plays are being studied, read, and reread in widening circles each year. Any work thai presents life with reality and truth must teach ■ — ^though it may be an entirely unconscious process for the reader or spectator. Without this redeeming feature, the average play is lost; it lacks the vital quality necessary for its life. As with the spoken drama, so with the drama of the screen — that modern vehicle of dramatic portrayal. It must be vital, it must be real. Human emotions remain the same, though they may manifest themselves in a different manner each decade. And as the dramas of Shakespeare arouse our intellect and make us better for having come in contact with them, so, too, should the motion picture, the most powerful educational medium of the age, always have the same effect. With this thought in mind, that to be truly worth while a picture must both instruct and entertain, the Standard Pictures Corporation, after six munt search for suitable material to launch itself succt fully on the non-theatrical field of motion picti production, has finally determined on Salvage to the proper vehicle for its first production. Jay Geh author of the piece, is well and favorably known a writer of clean, human, entertaining, and wh( some books and plays. One of her most success efforts for the screen, Driven was hailed by drama and motion picture critics everywhere as one the finest plays of the season. Knowing the crying need for clean, wholeso and "homey" dramas suitable for any man, won or child, with plot and situation so constructed to please even the most fastidious. Standard Pictu bought Salvage. As 0. W. Wahlstrom, the execut secretary of the organization recently stated: "W no thought of turning back the pages of time, with thought of making»ld-fashioned pictures, but w an high idealism that is forward-looking, Stands Pictures is going to give the public clean, wholesoi and educating programs." No expense will be spared to make the "Twe Standard Specials," as the first twelve pictures to put out by Standard Pictures are to be known, 1 very best. Stars of renown as Earl Williams, Me MacAUister, Anders Randolph, Carroll Nye, and L Archer, have been signed to take the leading pa in the dramatic end of the company with Harry Frazer directing, while the business and executi portion is being well taken care of by such w« known men as H. Talbot Walbrook as presider O. W. Wahlstrom, Kathleen Clifford, M. P. Illit( and Herbert Fajans. Recognizing the fact that the non-theatrical fi« has a special responsibility, representative men a women in the religious, educational, club, and judic I'fe have been called upon to assist in the prodi tion of pictures of a high grade by giving Standa Pictures the benefit of their criticism and censi ship. This makes it certain that every "Standar picture has been censored before it reaches public. New Location Rothacker Industrial Films, Inc., have receni moved into their new plant at 7510-14 North Ashlai Avenue, Chicago. The personnel of the Rothacker company is ma up of laboratory and technical experts formerly co nected with the Rothacker Film Manufacturii Company of Chicago. Douglas D. Rothacker president.