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36 A HISTORY OF THE MOVIES
In the get-rich-quick hurly-burly of these years, quantity was fundamental, and whenever quality appeared it was incidental and often accidental. The screen passed through three periods and entered the fourth before there was any systematic effort to attain quality.
While the novelty of pictures in motion was still drawing coins to peep-show cabinets in rural communities and city districts in which screen rooms had not been opened, movies entered into the second period of development, in which incidents were expanded or more scenes were photographed to acquire a greater length of film, but the type of subjects was not materially changed. Animation, action, speed, were the principal elements sought by the manufacturers.
This second period (films of two hundred and fifty to four hundred foot lengths), marked the development of the "chase" motif which has persisted for more than three decades as one of the surest methods of arousing spectators to a high pitch of excitement. A pursuit of any kind was sufficient to please picture patrons for a while, and chases covered a wide range, from hunters riding after a fox to comedy policemen racing after a grotesque tramp. However, the primitive enjoyment of mere pursuit was satisfied within a few years, and screen spectators demanded progress. The chase had to become a part of a theme or fragmentary story: the pursuit of Indians by white men, or of bandits by the sheriff's posse; or bound up with some exhibition of daring or heroism that aroused admiration of physical courage.
Almost equal to the chase in the affection of audiences were comedies, if the comedies were built on the situations and actions used as standard formulas for hundreds of years by clowns, jugglers, and mountebanks: a man hits another with barrel-stave; well-dressed man kicks hat under which a brick is concealed; dignified (preferably snobbish) man passes under ladder and bucket of paint falls on him; dude sits down in custard pie; waiter throws custard pie or any sticky mess at fellow workman, who dodges as well-dressed man suddenly enters scene and receives the pie in his face; and other similar situations. Physical