Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

Imagine Broadway's Paramount (left), Rialto (left, above) and Rivoli (right, above) Theaters covered with cobwebs! Five years ago, movie producers would have laughed at the thought. But to-day — with television on the up and up? W here Is Television? THERE is no use at all in disputing the power of the press. Generally, that power is quite reasonably and accurately used, but occasionally the sensational orgy of headlines is about something of which they know little or nothing, and the result is frequently unfortunate. These news jags usually concern scientific matters. There's television, for example. A combination of one Greek word and one English word, presumably intended to indicate sight at a distance; it is just now rather upsetting to the minds of motion picture producers, theater owners and investors in picture securities — to say nothing of those well-disposed folk always anxious to pioneer with their dollars. (Confidentially, the last-named are known in Wall Street as "suckers.") Actually, however, television is intended to describe any process by which a person at one place — Chicago, for instance — can see what is going on in another place — let us say New Orleans. The picture business is often the last to know about the inventions which may affect, or even revolutionize it. For five or six years, the talkies were being perfected in the experimental laboratories of electrical companies, before the picture producers woke up to what was going on. And when they did wake up, their first reaction was one of terror. The new is always threatening! It is said on reliable authority that several of the biggest motion picture executives went to the Warner Brothers and remonstrated with them, begging them to hold off sound a while longer and save the equipment and investment of the studios. Is it possible that television is being delayed purposely for fear of its startling possibilities.'' Rumors of its perfection are legion. Recently, in Schenectady, the General Electric Company experts put on a demonstration, during the course Why Movie Men Look Harassed Another disturbing thought occurs. If we are to distribute by radio'television, is it necessary to go to the trouble of putting the picture — or all the pictures, rather — on celluloid film at all? Why not good stock companies at various strategic points, with their performances broadcast — televisionally? Then what happens to the motion picture studios and their enormous equipment and invest* ment? What happens to the motion picture stars? This thing begins to look rather terrifying to the industry! of which a musician was dimly seen waving his baton and! directing an orchestra whose music poured forth from a loud speaker — the picture appearing on a small screen. A very few miles were bridged in what was frankly an experiment. Earlier, the Bell Telephone Company's radio laboratory at Whippany, N. J., had broadcast some television pictures at more or less regular intervals, and these had been picked up by experimenters at various points. In Washington, D. C, C. Francis Jenkins, one of the inventors of the motion picture projector, has done considerable television work. And m England, J. C. Baird has made more than a little progress in transmitting recognizable likenesses over various distances. Add some German and French experiments and you come to the following conclusion. It is possible to transmit by radio waves some reproductions of current events. And there are amateur radio sharps at work all over the country, striving to produce good television results. Also — and this is stated without any prejudice whatever — a number of astute and long-visioned gentlemen have anticipated the scientific situation by organizing commercial companies to manufacture and sell television apparatus for the home. Two such television receivers were exhibited at the May convention of the Radio Manufacturers' Association at Atlantic City. Also, stock in television companies is for sale! Looking Back Five Years A FEW days before this article began to roll off a typewriter, I set afoot two simple inquiries, just to check my own information. I felt certain that the whole television situation was altogether too chimerical in its present stage of development to warrant the wild press tales I had been reading. I felt — and still feel — that any 24