Exhibitors' Times (May-Sep 1913)

EXHIBITORS' TIMES a TANNHAUSER" Wagner's Great Work the Theme of a Thanhouser Three-Reel Feature To reproduce adequately in photo drama form an inspiring masterpiece that has stirred the souls of humanity throughout the world with its immortal allegory is no small undertaking. When the Thanhouser Co. therefore set to work on this dramatic, poem of Wagner's, the director evidently realized that, in justice to the public and the master, a literal filmization of his libretto would be as cumbersome as unnecessary. What the aim seems to have been was the proper and forceful interpretation of the spirit of the poem. And in this the Thanhouser Co. has succeeded admirably. "Tannhauser" may be considered a wonderfully beautiful fairy play for grown-ups. It symbolizes the eternal conflict that surges within every man from adolescence to senility: the passionate desire for the solely sensual gratification of the sex-instinct versus the spiritual craving" for that higher, purer and more lasting love which ennobles through reverence. The hero is made to pass through alternate stages of pleasure, pain and exaltation, sometimes with carnal lust in the ascendancy and at other times with sweet renunciation victorious. After having been glutted with voluptuousness, then racked in the throes of bitter remorse, he is finally enveloped in balmy purity, his end typifying the apotheosis of the soul which vanquishes the flesh. Wagner drew the sources of his story from the old German ballads and tales in which there was a singular blending of Teutonic and Roman mythology. The poet-composer took these scattered pagan fragments and welded them into a master work, glorifying it with a spiritual motif. The Thanhouser Co.'s adaptation skilfully presents the allegorical struggle with the proper balance of the "higher" and "lower" desires to give the spectator a concise and artistic idea of the theme. Tannhauser, the minstrel-knight, appears at the castle of the Landgrave of Thuringia during a song festival. A prize is to be awarded to the worthiest singer. When all have finished, Tannhauser bursts into a lay of such exquisite beauty that his hearers are entranced. The Landgrave's niece, Elizabeth, glows with a strange, tremulous emotion when she murmurs her praises to the handsome young Tannhauser, who reciprocates this feeling. Later, when he learns that Elizabeth is engaged to Wolfram, an older knight, he journeys off in despair. In the course of his wanderings, the minstrel meets Venus, goddess of sinful love and the direct antithesis of the pure Elizabeth. The enchantress leads him to her abode in the subterranean realms, where nymphs and bacchantes sport in flashing lakes and waterfalls and dance on mossy banks in wild ecstasies. After a year of mad revels and excesses, he feels his life with Venus palling on him. Lie prays to heaven for deliverance and is transported back to the green valleys of the earth. The Landgrave and his retinue come upon Tannhauser as he is worshipping at a roadside shrine and persuade him to return to Wartburg castle. Elizabeth is overjoyed to see him ; he adores her as some lovely, (Concluded on page 10) Big Demand for Cowboy Subjects The American Film Mfg. Co., announce the release of "Red Sweeney's Defeat," Saturday, Sept. 13, 1913, a onereel Western feature. Other subjects on the same order will follow, as there has been a big demand for this class of subjects. New exchange blood will probably enter the film industry. Sidney Firestone, of New York City, representing a syndicate of men who struck ore is in negotiation with Joseph Miles, manager of the Exclusive Supply Corporation, for the handling of its Feature Program in the South. Widely-known managers of exchanges have been asked, to join the new company and are reported to be optimistic about the prospects of the Exclusive Program there. Simultaneously with the opening of this office, another would be opened in New York. Herman Rifkin, representing the Eastern Feature Film Company of Boston, is, with his associates, considering the Exclusive proposal for New England. W. E. Greene of Boston, with whom a number of the Exclusive's companies are now doing business, was also in New York last week. [Concluded on page 15] The Portals of Despair, [American]