Moving Picture World (July-Dec 1909)

THK MOVING PICTURE WORLD ii5 Moving Picture World Founded by J. P. CHALMERS. Copyright. 1901, by The World Photographic Publishing Company, 125 East 23d Street (Beach Building), New York. Telephone call, 1344 Gramercy. Editors: J. P.CHALMERS, THOMAS BEDDING, F.R.P.S. Subscription! $2.00 per year. Poat free in the United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. ins; Ratest $2.00 per Inch; 15 cents per line. Classitlsements (no display), 3 cents per word, cash with Advertl«li__ fled advertisements order. Transient rates $2 per inch 2 J inch col. $3. per inch 3$ in. col. O. P. VON HARLEMAN, Western Representative. 913-915 Schiller Building, Chicago, 111. Telephone, Central 3763. Entered at tht General Post Office In New York City as Seeeae Clase Matter. Vol. 5 JULY 24, 1909 No. 4 Editorial. Old 'Wine in New Bottles. There is a common tradition that all narrative stories trace their original sources either to Assyrian Papyri, the Pyramids, or a few tablets of antediluvian origin. Solomon, as we all know, said some 3,000 years ago that there was nothing new under the sun. If that was true then, it is certainly true to-day. These reflections have occurred to us when looking at some of the stories that the film manufacturers have recently been adapting and putting out. We do not know how these stories came to be adapted, or who is responsible for their selection, but the fact remains that in several cases we might specify, long popular novels and plays have been taken up in substance and then converted into moving picture form and the films given new titles. In very recent times we have been told on excellent authority that the day when people of the eminence of Clyde Fitch, Augustus Thomas and other noted dramatists would write stories for moving pictures was at hand. Evidently the time is ripe for the change. If the moving picture stage is ever to compete successfully with the talking stage, it must abandon the practice, once rife in theatrical circles, of hashing up and rehashing up old stories and plays that did duty in the days of our grandparents. In other words, the plays must be original in so far as originality can be got in the year of grace 1909. Of course, as practical men, we recognize the difficulty of providing fresh, attractive, novel themes, but, after all, this is the difficulty which confronts every editor in the world. These unfortunate people earn their daily bread by exercising every vigilance in the search for new talent. So do the publishers. And that it is to be found is shown to the readers of the magazines and the publishing houses. A first rate magazine or a first rate publishing house which relied for success on resuscitated, fossilized classics of fiction under new titles would very soon find that the wrong course had been chosen ; for the critics and the public would get wise to the game and circulations would suffer. As we have over and over insisted, the moving picture public is a very critical public, just as critical as the magazine or book reading public, and we draw attention to this practice of putting old wine in new bottles as a very dangerous one. Old wine, it may be explained here, is not necessarily good because it is old ; it may be sour, or too 'potent, or in some other way deleterious. For "wine," if you like, reader, read "beer" or any other commodity of human consumption. In other words and plainer terms : the public will not stand for buying and paying for as new that which is old and played out. Magazine and publishing houses, besides employing editors and the like, also engage the services of "readers," i. e., men whose experience and knowledge enables them to tell at a glance whether a book or a story submitted to them is new and original or only a rehash of what has been published before. Something of the same kind of arrangement seems called for in moving picture houses. If the necessary knowledge were at hand, we are convinced that many stories that have recently been put on the moving picture stage would never have been issued. We are told often enough that large numbers of scenarios are offered and very few of them accepted. We wonder if the originals are rejected simply because there is a lack of ability to recognize what is original. We have also had complaints from those who are writing picture stories, that their best work has been turned down and that that which is accepted is "improved." The object of this article is to draw the attention of film manufacturers to the urgent necessity of paying closer attention to the story end of matters. There is plenty of originality in the world, but all good things want some trouble in finding. If the producers who are employed by the various film houses would only take the necessary trouble, we are confident that they could get all the original work for their films that they are likely to require. The Factor of Uniformity. If order is Heaven's first law, then uniformity must be one of its important rules. We do not know what the first law of moving picture making is, or should be, except to make the best, but we are in no sort of doubt as to the value of uniformity in the work. Uniformity, of course, is only another way of saying that everything at the technical end of matters should be standardized, as was pointed out in a series of articles called "The Modern Way in Moving Picture Making," that finished publication a few weeks ago. 1 This question of uniformity has come into our minds several times lately when we have formed members of the paying public at some of the theaters for the purpose of writing our criticisms. And it arose with the greatest possible prominence only last week, when, in company with a friend, we were examining some of the latest films. The figures in this picture arrested our attention. Or we should say a part of the picture. These figures were so large that they occupied the entire perpendicular dimension of the sheet, that is, the figures that were nearest to the camera. The consequence was that the people in the theater had the idea that the film showed a story that was being enacted, or had been enacted, rather, by a race of giants or giantesses. A little later on in the course of the picture the figures had been photographed at a greater distance from the camera and so were less monstrous to the eve ; while, in even a third part of the picture, the figures were so far away from the camera that they appeared of their natural 'size— an effect which was more agreeable to the audience. Now, here was a total lack of uniformity, due entirely to a want of intelligence on the part of the producer and the photographer, and the effect on the minds of the people who saw this picture was extreme dissatisfaction. There is only one other explanation for this apparent dis