Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1919)

18 **When a Feller Needs a Friend" By "Briggs' / Hftve THRCE SLAv/e DRvueRS SVMDICATE MP,N/A€,(rR FRIEND Wife AND JOHNN) KELLETTE DIRECTOR WHEN the opportunity came to enter the motion picture field, I had a lot of new ideas that I thought the public ought to know about. I still have them, in spite of the directors and others of the motion picture world who tried to assure me that MY ideas of what a picture on the screen should be were really a liability, not an asset, so far as they were concerned. With a dozen or more completed films of assorted lengths, I still have the ideas intact, though slightly battered from ill treatment at the cruel hands of directors and things. When I was just about to begin operations, I sought the advice of a man who was then the head of one of the biggest picture concerns in the country. I told him all about what I had in mind as to what a picture should be in the comedy field and in my particular line of comedy, which is the comedy that comes naturally in showing childhood days in a natural manner. He not only approved of all my thoughts, but assured me that that was what he had been attempting to do for years, but so far had only partly succeeded. He was a bit discouraging when he informed me of all the discouragements I would meet at the hands of those who had been in the game so long that they were making pictures by a formula. He claimed that if 1 could get 50 per cent, of my own stuff in the films, they would be a success. He held out little hope that I would be able to get more than that. Now that the pictures have "gone over," I am not able to say whether or not it was because of my percentage or the director's. I know there is no doubt in the director's mind as to why they went over. I have steadily maintained that, to obtain child comedy in particular, one must not John Carr as i'Skinnay,,, Myra Brooks as his mother, in Paramount-Brig gs Comedy "The Photo Gallery." seek comedy. Treat the subject in all seriousness, naturally, and the comedy will come in spite of you. The tragedies of childhood appear to us now as comedy, but they must be taken with the camera as tragedy, with all the seriousness of tragedy. I suppose others who have entered the comedy field have said they would never — no, never — yield to the slapstick. That has been my one obsession since going into the game. In other words, I shall not have comedy dragged in by the heels and hold it up to the audience and say, "Now laugh, darn you!" If my audience does not care to laugh at my kind of comedy, it is perfectly all right with me, but I know I shall get a sincere smile and a chuckle that means more than a loud guffaw. I know that I shall never see a film of my own direction that will be entirely satisfactory to me. I hope I never shall ; it would be fatal to success. BUT if I can put over some of the sweetness of childhood in the quaint comedies we have all experienced, I shall feel that I have really given something worth while to the already crowded screen, that will help us all to "carry on." There is a common purpose between the cartoon of the daily paper and the film. Directors have disputed that "with me, claiming that methods of presentation are so vastly different that one who is accustomed to making cartoons and dealing directly with the public must realize in the moving picture one must think differently. But to me it is only a difference in mechanics. If the same atmosphere is retained in the film that has made the cartoon popular, I know the public will like it. Pictures is pictures and Public is Public. My reading public is the same public that is to see my work on the screen. If the M. P. Public do not like my (Continued on page S6) */8*'<^