Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1932)

E. B. Luce, courtesy Davis Press "And here's another who says he wants to make shadow films" THE technical consultant of the Amateur Cinema League sat at his desk, gazing out of the window. Yes, gazing, star gazing, perhaps, although the only constellations visible in the city's evening sky were those of this earth — galaxies of brilliant electric lights, clusters of lighted windows denoting late stayers in some tall buildings. For these are the only stars by which New Yorkers may chart their course. As the dusk falls over the city, the great buildings, huge and stolid in the day, suddenly begin to gleam, as it were, with an inner radiance, a thousand points of light. These are the city's stars and moons, this its milky way. The technical consultant sighed; his had been a busy day and he was not yet finished. His own office that night seemed one of the city's smallest stars — just a point of light from the street, beheld as an atom, a molecule of brightness. He recalled the busy day with its many visitors from far places. A line of W. S. Gilbert stirred in his memory: "Patagonia, China, Norway . . . Till at length they sink exhausted on the movie League its doorway!" he concluded, in a lame paraphrase. Well, perhaps not visitors from those identical places but letters answered from still farther places — India, Penang, Australia, Japan. He felt, thereat, rather cheered and, at once, the glow from his office window through the night seemed to take on somewhat the aspect of a beacon light. After calculating absent mindedly the exposure that would be required to shoot the night scene on supersensitive film, he turned to his typewriter and to an unfinished News of the industry description of a new gadget he had inspected that day. As he turned, he suddenly became aware that the office contained another occupant. He leaped to his feet in consternation and in some embarrassment at his daydreaming for there, calmly seated in the office chair, was no one other than Doctor Kinema ! It was plain that the good Doctor was not altogether displeased at the sensation he had created. He'd been an infrequent visitor to the office of late and had been wondering just how far he had been missed. So that, when the technical consultant had sufficiently recovered from his surprise to speak his pleasure at the unexpected visit, the Doctor's eyes twinkled merrily and, through his trim, graying Van Dyke you could see the suspicion of a grin. "Well, well!" said he, "Glad to see me, eh? I suppose you thought the Doctor had forgotten you all over here. But I don't forget so easily and when I had this opportunity of flying over to the city, I took advantage of it and here I am!" "Really, Doctor, you flew all the way from your home in . . ." "Exactly! And don't adopt that surprised tone about my flying." The technical consultant saw that his natural surprise had taken rather a left hand twist in the old gentleman's mind. He reflected on the Doctor's thoroughgoing "uptodateness" in movies and everything else, and was slightly abashed. "Well, Doctor," said he, reaching for the top letter of a pile on the desk, "that's just the subject taken up in this letter. Look here. It's from Europe; the chaps over there do a lot of flying and they know their stuff, too, but this member has acquired a filter which he wants to use from a plane, and doesn't know its factor." "And he expects you to tell him that at long distance, of course," said the Doctor, mollified, as he adjusted his glasses and reached for the letter. "Not exactly," replied "Tech." "But speaking of that, Doctor, you'd be astonished at the number of my correspondents who, apparently, credit me with occult powers. It's all very flattering, of course, but a mere description of a filter's shape and mount, especially a foreign one, is not enough to determine its factor." "What are you going to do about it, then?" asked the Doctor. "Seems to me I've seen something in the Clinic about determining the factor of an unknown filter. Are you going to refer him to that?" "I would if I hadn't had a bit of luck in this particular matter. The filter in question, as you see, is described as having a ring mount bearing a single initial letter. This didn't give me the factor but I rang up a well known firm here in New York City which has a [Continued on page 216] What transpired on an unheralded visit to the A. C. L office BY CYRANO Dr. Kinema pays a call 198