Motography (Jul - Dec 1915)

788 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XIV, No. 16. "Legit" Stage Doomed by Films HODKINSON PREDICTS ITS END THAT the best of the world's literature and drama, accompanied by the finest music, brought to the people in film at prices they can afford to pay, will mean the survival of the "legitimate" theater only in the largest centers was the statement of W. W. Hodkinson, president of the Paramount Pictures Corporation, the man who first conceived the "photo opera," when soon after the premiere of "Carmen," in which Geraldine Farrar made her screen debut at Symphony Hall, Boston, on Friday evening, October 1. "Motion pictures have come to say," he said, "and, because they can control the market of writers and actors, motion picture producers will soon control the spoken play, presenting their stars on the stage as well as the screen. The future of the film will be in shaping public opinion, just as the printing press does now. In fact, the two are so closely allied that it is hard to tell where the publishing business stops and the motion picture business begins. That is why the Paramount producing companies are striving for the best. Because of ridiculous censor conditions in some sections, they are often forced to give only as much of the best as they are allowed to. By all means, there should be some restrictions, but they should be administered by people who not only know literature and art, but really understand films and the aims of the better companies. "The tendency to sensationalism shown in some quarters will kill itself anyway. Those who make cheap, sensational films will either exhaust their material and stop or they will educate their peculiar public to a point where it will be impossible to get anything 'raw' enough to satisfy it. "Today the motion picture is a universal language. It has proved its worth, and under the constructive guidance of what in the past has been the minority which knows what will come, does not guess and plans to meet developments, it will go on to further victories. "The time has come for this fourth largest industry in the United States to adopt definite policies and principles which are known from personal experience to be right, and since the whole trend of the business has turned this way since the formation of the first company which stood for bigger and better pictures, bigger and better theaters, longer engagements, fine music and all the accompaniments of the best form of entertainment, it is only reasonable to suppose that its future will be greater than its past. "Theories which I have advocated for years, undoubtedly instilled in the minds of some of the biggest motion picture men the firm belief that I was crazy, but companies which they head have since adopted them, and I sincerely believe them to be right. "When it proved impossible for him to convince the company with which he was associated that long pictures made from good plays and operas with big stars and fine supporting casts would come in the logical sequence of events, Adolph Zukor, thinking along the same lines, and Daniel Frohman, organized the Famous Players Film Company, presenting James K. Hackett in "The Pirsoner of Zenda" and Sarah Bernhardt in "Queen Elizabeth." It was only natural that those men should become associated and the alliance of Famous Players, Lasky and Morosco brought Mary Pickford, Marguerite Clark, Ger aldine Farrar and many others together as Paramount stars. "It is our ambition to bring to the people of the smallest towns, unable to see good plays, the best of everything," Mr. Hodkinson concluded. "The same motive inspires our stars, who reach a far greater public on the screen than they ever could on the stage. We do not believe in charging $2 for motion pictures. As we are selling films and not stock, we don't mind saying so. They are essentially for the great public, and so far as we can, counting on 10 per cent of the population as our patronage, we will bring them to that public." An Interior "Exterior" A picturesque woodland scene, complete to the smallest detail, was staged this week inside of Essanay's Chicago studios for a scene in "The Raven," the six-act feature from George C. Hazelton's romance of Edgar Allan Poe. First a huge wall painting of a forest glade, done by Essanay's staff artist, was put up, and in front of this was constructed a grassy clearing with a stump of a tree and a rock in the foreground. The rock is just at the edge of a pool of water, which also was constructed especially for this scene. Taken "close-up," the ensemble appears on the screen to be a real spot in a woods, and it is so realistic that the spectator, unless he knows the scene was "built," does not detect the deception. In this scene Henry B. Walthall, Essanay's leading man and conceded to be the best emotional actor in motion pictures, sits on the rock with Warda Howard. Mr. Walthall is the Poe of the romance, Miss Howard is Virginia. There is a love scene, and, in glancing into the water, Poe sees a skeleton where Virginia's reflection should be. Startled, he draws back, and the skeleton fades into the reflection of Virginia. The scene is a remarkable illusion, and the photography is perfect. Sigmund Lnbin at Universal City, with wife and party. Director General Henry McRae is the party eying the lion.