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THE AMERICAN FILM
Actually, it is simply the basic principle of advertising. Several players could be named who are stars simply because they appear with monotonous regularity three times a year. Obviously, in order to retain the 'popularity' of their stars all over the world, no scruples have been spared by American producers in devising new methods for keeping their public and for the furtherance of constructing, packing, and selling their goods. There are practically no lengths to which a Hollywood firm will not go to sell a film.
At this point, it is of interest to sketch briefly the relationship of the public to the American cinema. From the early period of the first story-pictures until a year or two after the war, the American movie progressed in quality. It found constant support in the public primarily because of the novelty of the cinema itself. During the whole of this period, producers were assured of the loyalty of the masses, which was continually on the increase. To many people the film was still an innovation. They went to the cinema because it was the cinema, and not for any other reason. Nearly every big production converts more people to the ranks of the cinema-going public. The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Big Parade, and Ben-Hur all created new film-goers. In the same way, one single showing of Battleship 'Potemkiri* and The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari gains believers in the film proper. During this period, therefore, from about 191 2 until about 1920, the very marvelling of the general public, watching every new film with mouths agape, was sufficient for the studios to become established on a practical basis, capable of mass production. To this golden era belongs the best work of Griffith, Thomas Ince, and Mack Sennett, together with the sincere efforts of William S. Hart and Douglas Fairbanks. These pictures had a roughness about them, an intensity of feeling and an air of honesty that have long since vanished in the up-to-date slickness of the Hollywood movie. It may, perhaps, be said that the first indications of the star-system were making themselves shown, but although individual personalities were gradually being connected with separate pictures, there was no wide exploitation of the fact. He Comes Up Smiling and Reaching for the Moon were seen because they were cinema. They were invigorating and they were stimulating. They had not yet begun to be Fairbanks.
But from this stage the American cinema began to succumb to the
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