Motion Picture Magazine (Mar-Jul 1918)

Photodrama in the Making A Department of General Interest to All Readers, Showing How Photoplays Are Plotted, Written, Submitted and Sold conducted by HENRY ALBERT PHILLIPS Staff Contributor; Lecturer and Instructor in Photoplay Writing in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; also in the Y. M. C. A. of New York; Author of "The Photodrama" and "The Feature Photoplay," and many Current Plays on the Screen, etc. A COMPLETE PHOTOPLAY SYNOPSIS NOTE— More than half the inquiries STILL received by this Department ask HOW and in WHAT FORM Photoplay material is submitted and sold NOW in this year 1918 The following Photoplay SYNOPSIS is a fac-simile copy of a play which I sold. Furthermore, the form and style are identical with the plays I am writing and selling TODAY. This play was bought by the World Film Corporation and produced by that Company in 1917, Alice Brady taking the part of the widow. Hence this is the SALABLE FORM. This is the sixth instalment of the serial publication of this Synopsis. A SELF-MADE WIDOW By Henry Albert Phillips SYNOPSIS— (Continued) Part II — To the Depths of the Sea — (Continued) * * * * * Sylvia is a changed woman. She proceeds to a mourning store and buys an elaborate outfit for a widow, with the money that remains She is triumphant and majestic as she hastens to the wharf. She secretly places the coat with the note still pinned to it near where she found it and boards the river-boat with a solemnity that attracts all eyes. Incidentally she forgets all about the affair only insofar as it concerns the development of her own little Blue Bank Romance. A women's Committee has just come for the showing up of Sylvia when she sails in. The Committee is awed to silence. Its attitude changes and she freezes them with her dignity. She then produces her marriage certificate and throws herself weeping into the arms of Mrs. Tootle, who scowls at them. Then the more bold of the women ask timidly where the husband might be, to which Sylvia replies, with a sigh: "HE COMMITTED SUICIDE WITHIN A FEW HOURS OF OUR MARRIAGE." Part III — To. the Ends of the Earth Butts and the family attorney are informed of the sad news of Fitzhugh's untimely death, and they hasten down to the city. The coat and the handwriting are identified unqualifiedly, and these facts, coupled with the information that at the spot of the drowning the victims never reappear at the surface, Fitzhugh is pronounced officially dead, and Butts returns and closes the mansion and the household assumes mourning. Lydia, too, out of respect, assumes deep mourning, and Fitzhugh is forgiven, altho the girl hardly feels complimented in the possible fact that Fitzhugh committed suicide rather than marry her. Sylvia in Blue Bank has become the REAL heroine of her own weird Romances. She carries her grief and widowhood with an air and grace that none can dispute and has put her disbelievers to rout and confusion. Mrs. Tootle enjoys the triumph with her and luxuriates in the fragments of the facts that she manages to catch thru her ear-trumpet. But the unusual character of Sylvia's Romance has been too good to coop up within the narrow precincts of Blue Bank. An enterprising reporter gets hold of the spicy bit and it is forthwith printed and copied thruout the entire country's press: "YOUNG MILLIONAIRE COMMITS SUICIDE AN HOUR AFTER MARRYING A BEAUTIFUL STRANGER." Then follows an account of the whole affair just as Sylvia retails it. It is but natural that the mention of this event, coupled with the name of Fitzhugh Castleton, should come to the attention of the Castleton family attorney. With Butts he decides that it is his immediate duty to go down to Blue Bank and investigate it (To be continued in our next) BOUQUETS AND BRICK-BATS I've got an attack of the Why's-its? In the first sneeze I'll ask WHY'S-IT that everybody outside of Motion Pictures who are dislocating something in their efforts to find something inside of Motion Pictures, with few exceptions, sigh that Screen Plays could be only a little worse if they tried? In the second spasm I'll query WHY'S-TT that the Motion Picture people who are inside seem almost to have forgotten that there is such a thing as the Public, the Perfect Story and the Piper who MUST be paid? Are you a Foto-Fan, who wouldn't peach on your old pal, the Movie, if it stole your last dime, or lured your servant girl from you, or made a cowboy of your only che-ild ? I'm not going to ask you to commit yourself by uttering a single word — just THINK. But say — honest, now — isn't it SELDOM that you see an all-around good Photoplay? Haven't I the right to choke out a WHY'S-IT? But, I hear the goats say, on every hand are improvements! Opera alone can vie with the palatial grandeur of the new Rivoli Theater. The luxury, the lightings, the color schemes, the orchestra of fifty pieces, posters actually painted by well-paid artists, incidental music ! But this is all glamor. The house was built for Motion Pictures, the people come to see Motion Pictures. And what is a Motion Picture? Why, it is the New or Screen Drama, which we know better as The Photodrama. And what is Photodrama? Oh, it is a STORY of LIFE, interesting, logical and true to Human Nature, made real, convincing and appealing because it conforms to the constructive laws of Drama, which involve Plot, Technique and Craftsmanship. All we have to do is to tell the Children of the World a STORY — a story they KNOW — a story they may have lived in the Flesh or cherished in their Dreams, or one they have feared in their Apprehension. That is all Photodrama is. You cannot say it is anything less. For almost a year I have been in the welter of the making of the Motion Picture. I wish I could give you but an inkling of the vast sums wasted annually in this field, to no purpose. For instance, one Company that has arrived at a critical stage in its production by losing a Big Man at the head of that department, replaces him by a newspaper man. What on earth should a newspaper man know about making Picture-plays? Another Company recently placed a magazine editor at the head of the Scenario Department! Editing magazines or newspapers is a long, long way from the making of Photodrama. Another Company has engaged the services annually of a world-known painter to scrutinize, arrange and pass on their sets and locations ! Their Pictures are the pink of interior decoration, but one I saw a few weeks ago was the punk of Photodrama. Let each of them tell you the woes they have with their Stars, who receive salaries that railroad magnates never got half of in quantity. There are Stars that would shine to greater advantage in the antithesis of heaven. I know of one who gets $20,000 per picture. The Company contracted for eight pictures in a year. She insists on changing all stories to suit herself and claiming part authorship at least. She stays away from the studio when she wants to do so. The work she has done has been atrocious — all posing, little story. Ft 114 AG£.