Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1919)

248 Motion Picture Newm What the General Public Wants William L. Sherry Gives His Opinion WHAT is to be the future trend of motion picture production, speaking in the more or less immediate sense? I confess a certain diffidence in discussing this aspect of the picture industry, for the more intimately one becomes associated with film production and distribution, the less inclined one becomes to dogmatic preachment concerning its whys and wherefores. My views, therefore, as to the probable trend of public demand in pictorial drama for the coming year are given merely for what they arc worth as opinions of an individual intimately associated with the industry, whose interest it is to observe the signs of the times as accurately as may be. To begin with I think there is no dearth of good dramatic material on the market, and that the complaint we hear of a scarcity of worthy scripts is due rather to the narrowness of the channel through which such offerings are forced by preconception and prejudice on the part of producers and directors than to any general inutility of the material offered. I do not refer in this to the volunteer contributor whose name is legion and whose product is for the most part of doubtful value, but to that great and growing class of professional writers for the screen whose more intimate mixing in the councils of the producers is essential, in my belief, to the sound development of film drama. For the present at least, and I think for a long time to come, we have done with the war plot and its inevitables of spy, diplomatic intrigue, Red Cross nurse and gunpowder. The American people have had the war brought to their own doors in severe actuality and today we have with us too many thousands of wounded and crippled men who fought the nation's battles in France, to find much glamor in fictional presentments of such great events as Cantigny, Chateau Thierry or the other bloody fields of France and Flanders on which Americans fought and died. In fact, not only is the war drama passe but picture fans are more and more inclined to look askance at the pictorially tragic in whatever guise. The heartrending story will always maintain a certain vogue, I take it, since a large element in *Jie population is wont to take its pleasures sadly, but if I am any judge of the immediate need of the studio it is for comedy drama of the sort that depends for its appeal upon natural strong situation and plot complication rather than upon any mechanical claptrap. We in this country are in the throes of a tremendous nervous reaction following the Hohenzollern holocaust. We have scrimped and saved and worried and wondered at the amazing intrigues of our enemies on and off the screen. The national revulsion is toward a lighter, happier vein. We have been surfeited with sadness. Now we crave something that will set us laughing. So it strikes me that the arodur.er who W. L. Sherry, of Sherry Service is fortunate enough to procure comedydrama, of the sort that moves in swift transition from grave to gay, will find himself for some time in a position to tickle the public palate most profitably. The present tendency toward pictorial presentment of famous books and plays of the talking stage is one that has certain distinct drawbacks. There are so many instances in which the interest of a popular book depends almost wholly on its dialogue, and in which actual dramatic situation and climax are quite rare, at least from the pictorial viewpoint. The resultant picture play is too often utterly alien to the book story, its connection therewith being confined to the title and author's name, which carry with them undeniable advertising value, but which do not compensate for the disappointment, not to say disgust of those, who, being familiar with the book story are quite unable to follow its pictorial version. I am reminded, in this connection, of two recent instances in which large sums of money were paid by producing corporations for the rights to a pair of popular novels. These, having been duly done into scenarios by high-priced writers at an additional heavy cost, at last found their way into the hands of directors who began production with misgivings that proved quite justified. These unfortunate directors found themselves confronted with the necessity for improvising practically every situation right on the studio floor — situations, forced and unnatural from the very method of their creation — having nothing to do with the book story. In fact they destroyed whatever original resemblance to the book may have existed in the scenario writer's manu Commerce Department Thanks Universal Harry Levey, manager of the industrial department, Universal, is in receipt of a letter from the Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C, thanking him for his co-operation with that department in stimulating a demand in foreign countries for American-made goods. The letter in part follows : " We will turn our entire organization over to you to help in your work of acquainting other countries with Americanmade goods and manufacturing methods through motion pictures." Mr. Levey pointed out that Canada had successfully employed the screen in calling attention to the Dominion's great resources and predicted that shortly after peace was officially certified the motion picture will be used by all the great manufacturing countries to promote the sale of their wares. He emphasized that the United States, the home of the motion picture, should at once take steps to exploit our export products. He said that Universal's industrial department has for months been working along these lines with this contingency in view, and replied that he would be glad to place Universal's fund of special knowledge and other resources at the disposal of Washington. " Sis Hopkins " Rings True to Life An old-fashioned country' store plays a prominent part in " Sis Hopkins," the Goldwyn picture, starring Mabel Normand. It is such an emporium as can be found nowadays only in the smallest villages, and it is such a place that New Harmony is. Down to the smallest detail, the store is a replica of the kind everyone knows. Hams and gingham, soap and shoes, mackerel and bay rum crowd the shelves and floor. Needless to say, a large stock of stick candy, lollipops and molasses " kisses " are in the glass showcases. Miss Normand said that not since " Joan of Plattsburg ' had she enjoyed herself so much. Most people remember the army canteen, around which important scenes in the comedydrama were played. And the same thing happened to the stock of sweets in "Sis Hopkins " that befell other candies in the former play. Director Clarence G. Badger and his assistant had their hands full — or rather. Miss Normand had her hands full — of candy. script. It is needless to say that both productions are foredoomed to failure in case they are ever released, which I regard as unlikely contingency, because previews have made the fact evident that they are as empty of merit as a brace of addled eggs. To insure a greater measure of certainty in the success of film plays it seems to me that greater care must be exercised in the future in selecting vehicles. Spending large sums of money on the production of books and plays that do not possess intrinsic picturability, merely to make available the name and fame of the author, is a folly that has hpsn too frequently perpetrated.