Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

2508 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 14. No. 16 HAS THE QUALITY CIRCULATION OF THE TRADE | MOTION PICTURE NEWS EXHIBITORS' TIMES Published on Tuesday Every We»k by mMm 729 SEVENTH AVENUE, COR. 49TH STREET, NEW YORK. WILLIAM A. JOHNSTON President and Editor HENRY F. SEWALL Vice-President :E. KENDALL GILLETT Secretary H. ASHTON WYCKOFF. Treasurer and Business Manager WENTWORTH TUCKER. Asst. Treasurer R. M. VANDIVERT. . i . Advertising Manager THEODORE S. MEAI?.. .,7 Chicago Manager T. C. TESSEN Los Angeles Manager LESLEY MASON Managing Editor W. R. ANDREWS News Editor The ogice of the company is the address of the officers. Entered as Second-Class matter at the New York Post-Office. Subscription $2 per year, postpaid, in the United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto 'Rico and the Philippine Islands, Canada, $3. N. B. — No agent is authorized to take subscriptions for Motion Picture News at less than these rates. Have the agent taking your subscription show his credentials and coupon book. VOL. XIV October 21, 1916 No. 16 Booh These Pictures of President Wilson and ' ' ■ Candidate Hughes EXHIBITORS will do well to book the news weeklies carrying pictures of the two Presidential candidates which were secured at Shadow Lawn and the Essex County Country Club last week during the interviews with representatives of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry. * * * /"THE pictures are excellent. The cameramen state , ^ that they are the best thus far taken of each candidate, It is our understanding that all the news weeklies will have these pictures. The Shadow Lawn pictures of President Wilson were taken only by the Animated Weekly, but we learn that the Universal Film Company is loaning the negative to the other weeklies and not requiring that credit be given. CUBTITLES are to be inserted, dealing with censorship. Exhibitors who run these pictures can rest assured they are acting not only in their own best interests but also those of their audiences. The Presidential Candidates and Federal Censorship THE week past has been one of great profit to the industry in its opposition to official censorship. A very clear light seems to be breaking through the clouds at last. * * * PRESIDENT Wilson and Presidential Candidate Charles E. Hughes have indicated, to the complete satisfaction of the motion picture men who heard them, their presumption against the principle of censorship and its legalized application. * * * V X-GOVERNOR HUGHES made very clear two very important points in his informal treatment of the subject last Saturday. We have talked a good deal within the industry about censorship on one hand and regulation of films on the other. Evidently Mr. Hughes construes regulation as police control. Also he indicated, in the minds of his hearers, that local control would exist whether or not we had Federal Censorship. He questioned outright the need of the latter. * * * /^NE might quote the speaker still more definitely on these points except for his request in the matter. But there is much food for thought in his straightforward declaration and coming as it does from a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, its weight and meaning are not to be questio^,^d. . 'T'AKING both men by their measure, one is inclined to be very confident that there will be no Federal Censorship laws whichever heads the coming administration. Plea for Single Reel Interest in Multiples — " Simplicity and Shadowland " IN line with the foregoing editorial on " The Small Theatre and the Short Picture," the attitude of the layman is very well set forth in the following editorial from the Omaha Daily News, entitled " Simplicity in Shadowland " : * * * **T F a layman might be permitted to make a suggestion with regard to the movies, we would humbly submit for the consideration of the film magnates the statement that they are seeing too big. " On the legitimate stage there has been a reaction against the large, costly productions overloaded with tinsel and froth and short on plain, straight sense. The ' little theatre ' is the result of this reaction. With its simplicity of equipment and its physical restrictions upon the size of both audience and company, the little theatre places the accent upon the ideas of the play itself. **T T seems as if there were a hint here for the film play — which is none the less drama because it is silent and which is therefore subject to the same canons of criticism and the same necessity for making good with its patrons out in front. * * * ^'C* VERY Omaha Daily News movie patron has had the ^ experience of going to see a heavily advertised star in a feature film and of extracting more enjo}Tnent out of a little one-reeler thrown in without announcement to fill out the program. There has been so much of imposing ' purpose,' such a heavy accent upon the moralizing, such an obvious striving for a ' lesson ' in some of the big productions, that it becomes a strain to view them. *<T N contrast, the little one or two-reeler, with its straightforward naturalness and simplicity, seems as welcome as the singing of birds after a thunderstorm. * * * " We suggest, still as a layman, that the next profitable development in the multi-reelers will take account of the charm that the single reels have never lost."