Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

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THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS 23 and H. E. Vestal, of Ada, a Democrat, and an exhibitor of motion pictures. Here are some of the things that will come under the ban of the Ohio Censorship Board, according to recent announcement: Murder, suicide, harrowing deathbed scenes, violent death in all forms. Intoxication, use of liquor, gambling. Use of firearms for other than show purposes unless in battle scenes. Indecent or suggestive situations or actions, love scenes that tend to disgust and cruelty to animals. Mrs. Miller is quoted as stating: "A cowboy can carry a revolver at his hip, but we have decided that he must not shoot anyone. In fact, we will bar discharges of firearms except in scenes depicting battles. Even in battle, though, a soldier must be careful how he dies. If he simply topples over, he will be passed. But if he takes up time by struggling and writhing about in his last moments, off the film he must go. We must look at a film with the eyes of a child, and in eliminating scenes we must cut out all that would have other than a good effect on children." The Cleveland Local of the Motion Picture Exhibitors' League has passed resolutions calling on film companies to test the constitutionality of the Ohio law. In the meantime, it will be well for photoplaywrights to work with an eye to the requirements of the Ohio law, for the manufacturers, from a business standpoint, will endeavor to try and observe the requirements of this new Board of Censors. On the Other Foot In advice to photoplaywrights, Marc E. Jones, in the Photoplay Magazine, writes the following: If you must use a clip, do not use one that permanently clips the sheets together, as most editors read by taking each sheet off as they read and placing it on the bottom, and practically all the professional writers send the scripts out undipped. Then along comes to us a plaint from a very successful script writer. Win. A. Corey: "Will you kindly use whatever influence you have with our masters, the editors, to correct the pernicious habit a few of them have of fastening the leaves of rejected manuscripts with paper clips? Every clip thus used leaves a deep crease, and is a sure earmark of rejection that goes with the script to the end of its travels. One editor recently was so extremely 'careful' of a manuscript of mine that he used two clips, one fo fasten the leaves together and another to hold in place the rejection slip. Th's particular editor needs somebody to put the 'punch' in him. Will you do it? I don't dare, for his comoanv recently bought a play of me." We know this particular studio, and must say "tut tut," three times, to the offending reader in question, for it is a script reader who persists in this work. This One Pleases Us Here is a little article written by Karl von Kraft for The Photoplay Author. We think it worthy of reprinting: "There is a class of photoplaywrights who think that the only strong plays are those which smell to heaven. They believe that the only useful function of a censor is to swing. But you and I, whose photoplays need not be fumigated, naturally take a different attitude toward the censor and his work — we are more interested in meeting our own ideals than in escaping the condemnation of those argus-eyed authorities, the members of the 'boards'; consequently, when we consider their demands we do not 'view them with alarm.' There was an old farmer once who delighted in his ability to evade the board of health — that was the height of his achievement. He is dead now — the germs got him, on a day when the board of health didn't. Really, if a man hasn't sufficient sense of what is wholesome for young people to see, how can a set of rules help him? Of course, all this is not to argue that censorship is needless, for we know better; but it is to urge upon every photoplaywright to ask himself four questions about each script he writes or plans to write: 1. If the play deals with wrongdoing, will the spectators be taught, even indirectly, to admire the wrong act? 2. If mercy toward wrongdoing is shown — as it may well be in many circumstances— does the exhibition of mercy tend to make the spectators think lightly of the effects of crime? 3. Is the intentional wrongdoer made to suffer a just retribution before he is restored to the favor of honest men? 4. Is the final effect of the play uplifting, or does it leave the spectator with a twisted view of right and wrong? The great novels, the great poems, and the great plays of all ages have uniformly been written by men and women whose teachings through their art have been in harmony with the universal conceptions of what is truly good and what is really bad. To produce works of this character, they did not go to official or non-official critics for their standard^, but they studied what I may call the public conscience, which in a thousand ways comes sooner or later to the judgment seat and passes upon all questions of right and wrong. Be sure that the tone — the general moral tendency and final effect — of your photoplay is in harmony with this great universal feeling of right, truth, decency and justice, and you will have become your own safe and sane censor." Kinemacolcr Treatment Writes an Oakland, Cal., author: "Kinemacolor recently made me an offer of $10 for the idea of a pictureplay, saying that the idea was all they could use. They sent another one back with the suggestion that it be rewritten and again submitted, which I did, thanking them for the suggestion." Thanks were coming to Kinemacolor and you did the correct thing in expressing appreciation. Ten dollars is fair pay for an idea, also. If this author had developed his idea properly he would have received three times $10. Schools and Schools Mr. Arthur Leeds in the August number of The Photoplay Author, published at Springfield, Mass., discourses upon "Teaching Photoplay Writing by Correspondence." He correctly quotes us as being antagonistic to fake correspondence schools for pictureplay writers, but unlike certain others conducting correspondence courses, he concedes that the trade journal editors have had much material on which to base their arguments. Mr. Leeds approaches the question in a dignified and able manner, devoid of personality or innuendo. He says regarding the Home Correspondence Course: "I feel that I am working on honor; that I must do my part; and added to this is the knowledge that to do otherwise than give my very best and most careful attention to mv pupils, leaving nothing undone which will tend to help them toward success in the work they are taking up. would deservedly bring me the reproaches and criticism of every decent-minded and conscientious editor and writer." Arguing consistently that pictureplay writing can be taught by mail. Mr. Leeds continues: "It is VILMA WHITMAN Leading Lady, Lubin Western Stock Co., in " The >Mate of the Schooner Sadie."