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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FILM
for some years, between 1903 and 1909. These consisted of panoramic and travelling shots of scenes in various countries, projected on to a screen at the end of a room which was arranged like the interior of a railway carriage. The spectators were given the illusion of a tour through some distant land, the screen variously showing the railway track and spectacular views of well-known 'beauty spots.' Effect was added to the performance by the whole carriage being rocked to one side whenever the screen showed the train rounding a curve. This may perhaps be regarded as the first attempt to achieve atmosphere; certainly the carriages may be looked upon as the forerunners of the vast 'atmospheric' cinemas of to-day. The outside of the place was made to resemble the end of a carriage, with two rails, and an attendant dressed as a railway-guard. The gilded, whiskered walruses who guard the portals of London's Empire and New York's Roxy would scorn to recognise their predecessors in these pseudo railway-guards, attracting attention by a screaming phonograph.
Out of the nickelodeons, music-hall shows, and Hale's Tours there developed the first cinemas, which carried on the profitable business and caused an increased demand for story-pictures. This led to the erection of film studios and the forming of stock companies of actors and actresses by the picture-makers. From the one-reel melodramas and slapstick comedies there emerged the longer storyfilms; and there grew up around the latter many names which were to become world-famous. In 1908, David Wark Griffith, a stage actor, was engaged by the American Biograph Company of New York as a scenariowriter and actor, and his great influence on the film was to manifest itself during the next ten years. About this time also, numerous one-reeler 'westerns,' with their cowboys and Indians, were especially popular with the ever-increasing film public.
From 1911 to 1914 the industry developed with astounding rapidity. The film, hitherto a thousand feet, grew in length. But the most sensational pictures now began to come from Europe, and had considerable influence on the American producers. In England, the Hep worth, the British and Colonial Kinematograph, and the London Film Companies were all creating a demand by the good quality of their steady output. France, with her national leanings towards spectacular pageantry, produced historical films of considerable length, the most renowned being Louis Mercanton's Queen
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