Motion Picture News (Oct 1915)

“When You See it in ‘The News’ It’s NEWS” LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 427 SO. FIGUEROA STREET HAS THE QUALITY CIRCULATION OF THE TRADE NEW YORK. CITY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY WEST FORTY-SECOND STREET “The Exhibitors’ Medium of Communication” CHICAGO. ILLINOIS HO SO. DEARBORN STREET Volume XII OCTOBER 30, 1915 No. 17 And Again IT is a striking fact that among twenty-five reviews of feature pictures in last week's issue of Motion Picture News, only two mention the author’s name — as, apparently, being worth mentioning. A very few give any praise at all to the story and that faintly or apologetically. Four plots of the twenty-five are dismissed briefly as trite versions of the “eternal triangle.” AND the leading features of the week carry such criticisms as : “A plot containing much fat and little meat” ; "the story is almost negligible” ; “the plot is not new”; “the story is not exactly new” ; “the plot is commonplace,” etc. Yet the reviews as a whole give very free commendation to scenes, settings, and photography. A brief reference to previous issues will show that about the same tenor prevails with the reviews of pictures as far back as one cares to go. The recurrence of the phrase : “The photography is excellent,” is so very common that one questions the need of referring to photography at all any more. JjC 5-C JUST so we have progressed, or, at least, we are aiming with tremendous ambition and blind extravagance to progress, in other essentials to the better picture. To attain atmosphere nothing is allowed to stand in the way. If it exists — or even is believed to exist — in Texas, Alaska, the West Indies, Martinique — an entire company is sent to get it, and the big burden of expense cheerfully assumed. Is a single railroad scene needed? All right! It’s had; and here’s the bill : $558.35 for nine cars for forty-five miles. >jc >jc IF the proper setting can’t be found, or can't be found A easily, it is built. An entire street is not an uncommon enterprise now in the way of sets. The lumber bill in the Los Angeles colony comes right after salaries ; and undoubtedly, it runs well into the millions annually. Stars? Well, we simply get them, that’s all. We accept their figures, and their services, even though the latter may be devoid of picture technic, even though the star’s attitude toward pictures is the contemptuous one recently expressed by an actress, who said : “motion pictures permit me the luxury of acting — on the stage.” >-c ;jc TAIRECTORS? We are paying from one hundred to a thousand per cent, more for men in this new occupation than they ever received before from the older and more tried professions. All this is excellent. To give realism, artistry, technic, enthralling spectacles to the picture is a splendid achievement ; it is a fine enterprise, too, provided only the theatres -The Story return the money that will make possible and stable this huge outlay. ^ >|C UT amid all this efifort — what of the story? Or rather, where is the story, the unfolding of which in pictures holds the spectator, makes him feel, think and talk afterward in direct proportion to its grip upon him? IT is the story that makes the million-circulation magazine. The fiction editor is constantly on the alert for plots and treatment of originality and strong appeal. Thousands of manuscripts — of the very kind that find their way into every week's releases of motion pictures — are rejected withou-t second thought. If they were printed the magazine would lose its circulation. * * * 'T'HE newspaper wants the stories of the day’s happenings— news served up with all its possible elements of human interest. Star reporters are the men who can make stories out of dry news facts ; newspapers of widest circulation are those whose columns are widest in human interest appeal. The show that “goes over” on Broadway is always the one with a story — a real story — for its basic appeal. Stars, costumes, scenery — all have failed time and again to save from failure the play without a plot. * * * I— I ERE we have the oldest forms of expression and of entertainment, the technic of which has been refined by years of effort. Yet neither the press with all it can call into play through the printer's art and through vast organization, nor the stage with its subtlety of acting and speaking can, nor hopes to do, what the picture is commonly attempting — namely, to attract and hold the modern public icithout a story. THE motion picture is competing and must continue to compete with the magazine on one hand and with the stage on the other. It has in its favor the newness and wonderful elasticity of motion photography. But it must compete with stories; and it must begin to compete nozv. * * * 'T’HE fact of the matter is that we are not competing. 1 There is no question about it. We are relying upon every other means to put the punch into pictures, except through the story. All credit to these geniuses who have made the picture the spectacular triumph it is today : but also a word of warning. The novelty of this will wear off. The novelty of the good story unth its appeal to human minds and emotions never has, never will wear off. ( Continued on page 48.) Table of contents will hereafter be found every week opposite inside back cover.