Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

The Great Artist Contest Six Million Votes Will Soon Be Counted, and the Result Given to the Public Widespread Interest in Electing the Players t3 Unusual Honors Perhaps many of our readers do not fully appreciate one of the strongest motives back of the Great Artist Contest — a motive that has helped impel the Motion Picture Magazine into the hearts and homes of over a million readers. We frankly confess that the Great Artist Contest was started and carried thru with the idea of bettering the Motion Picture industry. In the past few years, ever since the dramatic element has been injected into Motion Pictures, it has ceased to be purely a manufacturing industry — used at the tail of the program as a "chaser" in a few theaters— and is fast shaping itself toward becoming one of the greatest arts that the world has ever seen. The stampede to manufacture Motion Pictures is steadily on the increase, over forty companies having incorporated in New York State alone during the present year. We charge that many, of these promoters are poorly fitted to better the business from an artistic standpoint. It is well known that some of them are merely promoting the sale of their stock, having had no dramatic experience, and that their output is shockingly below the standard required of picture-lovers. This contest desires to champion the artistry and performance of the actors who can make or mar a play by their interpretation of the roles. A part can be made appealing, beautiful, full of delicate shades of meaning, and on the other hand will be merely a series of stock gestures and facial grimaces in the hands of a poor actor. In this light the Great Artist Contest may be judged as an unerring index of public opinion. A few thousand votes might make a poor selection, but the voice of six million 121 will come pretty close to speaking the truth. A glance at the standing of the players shows that Earle Williams, Warren Kerrigan, Mary Pickford and Mary Fuller have shared practically a million and one-half votes and continue to hold their places as artists of the first water in the public's estimation. In the past few months many changes have occurred in the players' standing, noteworthy of which is the rapid rise of the brilliant Clara Kimball Young, of the Vitagraph players, from twelfth place to sixth, and of the charming Marguerite Clayton, of the Essanay Company, from tenth place to fifth. Anita Stewart, whose wonderful interpretation of life's passions in "A Million Bid" brought her into instant fame, has received over one hundred thousand votes since she became a full-fledged star. That sterling actor and interpreter of character, King Baggot, has gradually passed his competitors on the road to fame, going from twentythird place in the column to twelfth, and increasing in popular approval by one hundred and eighteen thousand votes. Nor must we forget Komaine Fielding, Lubin's picturesque and rugged genius from out of the West, who has rapidly jumped over the heads of twenty fellow players and is now in sixteenth place, with over one hundred and fifty-nine thousand votes to his credit. The artistry of Vivian Rich, of the American Company, also is appreciated, with a showing of one hundred and eight thousand votes — an increase of seventy-five thousand in three months. If beauty and winning ways alone were a standard, such sterling actors as Benjamin Wilson,