The Motion Picture Director (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

4 N ovember ©irector serving as a medium for the presentation of the likes and dislikes of the theatre-going public to the industry of which this publication is a part. Through its columns thpse who see may find expression to those who make, and, by stating frankly what kind of pictures they really want, thus secure in the Film Capital of the Motion World that representation which is their inalienable right. Write to The Director your views on current productions. Tell us and through us the motion picture industry as a whole, what you have liked and why, and what you have not liked and why. Just one letter from one individual won’t achieve the result but many letters will. It is the purpose of The Director to make it possible for the lay public, the men and women who are the support of motion pictures, to have a voice in the guidance of the industry. Will you take advantage of that opportunity? Will you write us freely and frankly telling us just what you think? Will you work with us toward the end of developing the one hundred percent entertainment that is the goal of the industry? For instance, we have learned one fundamental truth concerning the likes and dislikes of the American people — their preference for the happy ending. With this as a starting point every director, every producer and every author versed in the technique of the screen endeavors to shape the screen story logically and naturally to that finis. And we believe that we have learned why the American people like the happy ending. Having learned why we are then in a position intelligently to .create entertainment features which, in that respect, at least, we know are sure to find favor with the public. Because we do know why we know just how far we can deviate from this fundamental law of motion pictures and still produce pleasing entertainment. But there are other elements which go into the building of screen entertainment and it is about these other factors that we urge you to write The Director, giving frank expression to your views on current screen production. Tell us frankly just what you like and what you don’t like, remembering that The Director is published by those who make for those who see motion pictures and that in writing to The Director you are actually writing to the motion picture industry of which it is a part, that your letters will be seen and read by the men who are making pictures and who are vitally concerned with learning from you your likes and dislikes. The Director offers you an opportunity to free yourself from the burden of “taxation without representation” by registering your vote for the type of screen productions you wish, not at the box office, but directly to your representatives in the Film Capital. Plagiarism r'l'^HE publicity given the decision rendered by Judge Samuel H. Sibley of the United States Court in Atlanta, Ga., in the case of Mrs. Mattie Thomas Thompson against Cecil B. DeMille, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and Jeanie Macpherson, charging plagiarism in the production of the DeMille feature, The Ten Commandments, together with the method of reasoning whereby Judge Sibley reached his decision that Mrs. Thompson had failed to establish her case, should do much to ward correcting what has long been a serious problem in the production world. Plagiarism has been a constantly growing bugaboo which has increased in magnitude in direct proportion to the increase in the popularity of the screen and the growth of the industry. There has been a growing tendency on the part of producers to close their doors entirely to the original screen story created by outside writers solely because of this fact, and to turn their attention more and more exclusively to the adaptation of published books or successful stage plays to which screen rights may be purchased with reasonable security. The recently announced stand of the Cecil DeMille studio on this subject, in which it was announced that in the future all unsolicited manuscripts submitted would be returned to the sender unopened, is a significant illustration. Conscious and deliberate plagiarism on the part of motion picture producers — entirely aside from the moral and ethical issues involved — is so obviously the worst kind of business that one is constrained to wonder why there should ever have arisen the accusation of story piracy. No producer who has any hope of success in the motion picture field would dare for one moment deliberately to steal a story idea in whole or in part from any manuscript submitted to him. He simply couldn’t afford to do so. And yet comparatively few of the big productions of recent years which have been based on historic fact or on the development of a purely fictional plot written directly for the screen have escaped without charges of plagiarism. The distressing part of it is the fact that in so many instances it would seem that the plaintiffs have been entirely sincere in their accusations and have really believed that their stories or ideas have been deliberately stolen. Yet it has been amply demonstrated in the field of mechanical invention that it is entirely possible for two minds in remotely separated regions of the country to develop almost the same identical idea under circumstances which utterly preclude the possibility of theft. Similarly in developing plots for screen plays it has been demonstrated in numerous instances that while one fundamental idea underlying an original scenario submitted to a studio may be the same as that upon which a finished production has been built, the picture itself was in production or even actually completed and ready for release before the manuscript containing that idea had been received. Judge Sibley’s decision in which Miss Macpherson is accredited as the author of the scenario of The Ten Commandments and which acquits Cecil de Mille and the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation from any accusation of conscious plagiarism, emphasizes a point that is of particular interest. In reviewing the evidence presented by Mrs. Thompson he points out that the notes and the completed script of the story she claims to have written bear such a striking resemblance to the continuity of the finished production as to afford foundation for the deduction that they could only have been written after the picture had been completely edited and prepared for release. He points out that such close similarity between Mrs. Thompson’s script and the finished production would imply that her story could only have been influenced by either the picture or by advance information concerning the structural plot of the story as finally cut and edited. This brings forth another phase of the situation which may afford some basis for the belief that, in some instances at least, plaintiffs in cases charging plagiarism on