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FEATURE PICTURES 105
not only exist under the mental strain of this extensive concentration on a spectacular melodrama, but actually enjoyed the experience and clamored for more long films. Pictures longer than two or three reels came to be known in the trade as "features," to distinguish them from films sold as part of a program.
Occasionally an American would make a feature, or an ambitious director would smuggle one through a studio while his company's officers were so busy with commercial and legal battles that they could not watch him closely. Almost invariably these long films were successful with audiences. The homegrown plots, dealing with American themes, were "sure-fire" when they reached the screen in feature length. However, it was fatal to distribute such features as a part of the usual program as the greater cost of production could not be earned save by special handling. The extension from two or three reels to five was not merely an expansion of screen time; it necessitated a different and much more expensive technique permitting even more improvements in each department of production than were possible in the change from one reel to two.
One reel may be compared to a literary sketch, two reels to a short story, and a five-reel feature to the epitomization of a complete novel. Each important role in a feature length could be presented with sufficient detail to be clear and convincing; a larger amount of money could be spent on settings, furnishings, and costumes; directors could take time to rehearse players before photographing the scenes; camera men could experiment to get the best lighting effects and could re-shoot unsatisfactory sequences. Necessarily the costs of production advanced in proportion, the earliest American features involving a footage expense twenty-five to one hundred percent higher than one or two reel films.
From time to time a few General Film manufacturers yielded to the desire for feature length, but, distributing these productions on the footage basis, were unable to make a profit. One noteworthy experiment was "Judith of Bethulia," directed by Griffith for Biograph, in somewhat less than four thousand feet.