Exhibitors Herald (Sep-Dec 1918)

EXHIBITORS HERALD AND MOTOGRAPHY J. Stuart Blackton Gives Views on " What Will Be Future of War Plays Screen Classics, Inc "Great Victory" Film To Be Shown Abroad Sees An Era of Prosperity for War Play With Proper Theme — Points to Stage Successes as Example One of the most important questions in the present day vocabulary of motion picture producers and theatrical producers alike is, "What will be the future of motion pictures and stage plays founded on or concerning the war? Will they continue to make a record as successful box office attractions and satisfactory entertainment ?" On this subject, J. Stuart Blackton, producer of "Safe for Democracy," the work-or-fight picture which scored at the Rivoli Theatre, New York, recently, and "The Common Cause," the feature filmed under the auspices of the BritishCanadian Recruiting Mission and now ready for Vitagraph distribution, states: "The dominating question is 'What will be the attitude of the public toward war plays and war pictures now that peace has been declared?' And in answering it I am very glad to be able to express my opinion based upon a close and critical study of the situation during the past week or two, based also upon common sense, logic and human nature and, best of all, because most practical, based upon actual performances and conditions I have observed. People Want War Plays "Do the people still want war plays? Emphatically yes. To substantiate this opinion, I sent around to the Cort Theatre the other day to get seats for "The Better 'Ole." The house was sold out. And this was not on a holiday. The play is a dramatization of Captain Bairnsfather's well-known sketches of life at the front. It is war from beginning to end. "The people still want war plays of the right kind, the proof being that every war play in New York is doing big business. They do not want any more horrors or atrocities, but the play or picture that is human, clever and funny, with a war back-ground or a war theme, that picture is going to get the money for its producers when many others are starving to death. "There is a silly idea circulating among exhibitors that because the war is over all reference to war must be eliminated from screen productions Is this reasonable or sensible? Do the people of the United States want to forget what Germany had done to the world? Do the three or four million families that sent their sons to France want to forget what their boys went for? Do the millions of our boys who come back want to find the stage and screen devoid of any reference to the work for which thev consecrated their bodies and shed their blood? Cites Several Instances "My answer to this is that many of our boys will have to stay "over there" for a year or more longer. Hundreds of thousands of them will be coming home during the next year 'ind every home-coming will again arouse patriotic enthusiasm to fever heat. I believe we need war plays and war pictures and war literature lest we forget, and so far as my productions go 1 shall continue to make specials which will have as a theme the sublimest drama die world has ever known. "At the Lambs Club today I asked the opinion oi two well known writers. Bayard Yeiller and Rex Beach. Mr. Veiller said, "The best answer to your question is "The Crowded Hour," a war play by Channing Pollock and Edgar nelwyn, which played to $17,000 last week in Chicago. 1 find it impossible to interest myself in any dramatic theme that does not reflect in some way the greatest of all wars.' Mr. Beach said, 'It does not matter whether or not the managers want war pictures or war plays, they are going to get them, and keep getting them. The subject is in the hearts and minds ot the people and it must continue to find expression.' "Art, literature, the stage and the screen will all be influenced by it now and for years to come, and the producers and theatres that do not go to the extremes in either direction but give the public pictures that thrill, enthuse and amuse, these will reap their just reward and the alarmists and extremists and pro-Germans who are now trying to hush the echoes of Germany's crimes and dim the splendor of America's achievements will see the money going to their competitors. "Now that the war is over 1 see an era of unbounded prosperity for the picture industry and the war theme properly handled will play a big part in bringing that prosperity to the box office." "The Great \ ictory, Wilson or the Kaiser? The Fall of the Hohenzollerns," the new Screen Classics, Inc., super-feature dealing with war and peace, will be published simultaneously in Europe and America, having received full government endorsement. Count di Cippico, who is representative of the Italian High Commission in America, will sail ior Europe in a lew days, taKing with him a duplicate negative and positive prints of the film, it is announced by Metro. "The Great Yictory" will then be exhibited in all leading European centers, loreign exhibitors having already spoken for the first-run rights in tlieir respective localities. " iT.e (jreat Victory" is said to be international in scope and interest. There is no nation not represented in its imposing cast of characters. Moreover, it mirrors faithfully world events of the present time, and forecasts those of the future. \\ ritten by Maxwell Karger and produced under his personal supervision under the direction of Charles M'ller, it has a cast of stars. Henry Kolker plays the Kaiser; Joseph Kilgour appears as von Bissing, Margaret McWade plays the martyred Edith Cavell, Florence Billings as Yilma — and intensely dramatic role, and E. J. Connelly appears as old Paul Le Brett. Fred C. Truesdell plays President Wilson, Helen Ferguson is seen as Amy Gordon. Twelve hundred players were used in the production and there are more than fifty parts of real importance. The entire story of the war and the beginnings of peace are shown in this surprising super-feature, which has in several instances anticipated history. It is a rare combination of romance and c >n tructive patriotism. SCENE FROM THE TOURNEUR PRODUCTION, "WOMAN' SHOWIXi; ONE OF THE MANY ARTISTIC SETS OF THIS I XIOI E SEVEN UEE1. PICTURE BKINC DISTUIBl'TED BY HII.I.EK AND U'lI.K 23