Moving Picture World (July-Dec 1909)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 751 Moving Picture World Founded by J. P. CHALMERS. Copyright, 1908, 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. Post free in the United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Advertising: Rates: $2.00 per inch 2%-inch col.; $3.00 per inch 3%-inch col. Classified advertisements (no display), 3 cents per word, cash with order. Time discounts: 5% two or more insertions, 10^ three months order, 15 7o six months, 20% twelve months. G. P. VON HARLEMAN, Western Representative, 913-915 Schiller Building, Chicago, 111. Telephone, Central 3763. Entered at the General Post Office in New York City as Second Class Matter. Vol. 5 NOVEMBER 27, 1909 No. 22 Editorial. A Note of Warning. In the licensed releases for the week ending November 20, there are no less than seven subjects of about 1,000 feet in length. To be strictly accurate, they vary from 930 to 1,030, so that we might average them at 1,000 feet. Now a thousand feet of film when passing through the machine at a normal speed takes up from fifteen to twenty minutes of the audience's time. In that fifteen or twenty minutes man}' things may be told, as experience proves. You can illustrate the progress of a war, as has been done ; you can condense a three-volume novel, which has also been done ; you can run up and down the entire gamut of comedy and tragedy, which has also been done ; you can present a Shakespearean production or one of Scott's romances or one of Hugo's or one of Tennyson's poems — in fact, there is hardly a subject, except, perhaps, the Wagner unaccompanied opera, which cannot be, or has not been, shown on the moving picture screen by means of a thousand feet of film. In other words, into that thousand feet of film you can condense all the dramatic action that, ordinarily, on the talking stage, takes up about eight to ten times the same amount of time. For when we go to a theater we generally take our seats round about 8 o'clock and quit at about 1 1 o'clock, with a consciousness of having had a full evening's entertainment. It will therefore be seen from this that a thousand-foot subject is, from the public point of view, a very important item, supplying as it does for five or ten cents in twenty minutes what at an ordinary theater it would be called upon to pay 75 cents or $1 plus two or three hours' time. That being so, the public have got to look upon these thousand-foot subjects as eggs that are full to the shell with meat. But are they? Are they always full ? We are forced to admit that they are not. and also that the public is occasionally showing signs of disappointment thereat. From the film manufacturing point of view, a thousand feet of film is a great undertaking, usually costing a large amount of money in the production and passing into the domain of the feature film. Your Pathe thousand-footer, with such a subject as the "Prodigal Son," "Rigoletto" or "Drink" has demanded a wide stage, for it is not to be done justice to in maybe three or four hundred feet. And herein lies a fallacy into which we think some of the other manufacturers are falling. They are sending out thousand-foot subjects with not enough subject, that is, not enough action in them. We referred to this matter somewhat generall) last week; now we come closer to it because observation that we have made since our last article on "Linked Sweetness Long Drawn Out," has convinced us that many of these thousand-foot films are not satisfying the public. The public at large does not quite know why, but there is a feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction. In other words, they have been asked to attend a subject for twenty minutes without getting in return the requisite number of thrills, excitement, or whatever other emotion an audience goes to a moving picture theater to have aroused. They have not been interested. On the other hand, we have noticed that the shorter subjects, what we might call the 600-footer, the 530footer, to strike an average, usually goes better with the public. We noticed this fact only one day this week where the success of the afternoon was won by a 700-foot subject, whereas a subject of considerably greater length seemed to weary the audience. In the latter case the interest was not maintained at the highest tension throughout. We think this point is deserving of the serious notice of film producers. Whenever a thousand feet of film is taken, it is desirable to insure that it has plenty of action and, moreover, that the dramatic interest is sustained and cumulative. Then a powerful motive should be visible all through the story, otherwise the interest of moving picture audiences will relax — a very dangerous thing just now. Nothing kills public entertainment so much as flatness. A week or two's flatness in the moving picture theaters of the United States will kill the business as dead as a door nail, and we. who are daily, almost hourly, in touch with moving picture audiences, warn manufacturers as we have warned them before, that they must keep up a very high level indeed of dramatic quality if they want the business to last. Franklv, during the last few weeks a certain indefinable dullness has stolen over the picture theaters which is having its effect upon the public. A public, by the wav, one of the most fickle in the world, easy to attract, easy to repel and always difficult to recall to a form of entertainment which it has once rejected. For that is the American public, and this is its attitude towards the movingf picture. Moving Pictures in Public Schools. There seems some ground for the belief, or rather the rumor, that the public school authorities of New York City will adopt the moving picture at the evening lectures which are such agreeable features of the Winter months. We hope that this is the case. From time to time announcements appear in the newspapers (and we quote one this week from the New York "World") relative to the highly educational value of motion pictures, but too much importar.ee need not be attached to these deliverances. The fact of the matter is that the advantages of the moving picture for educational, scientific, and industrial purposes are not yet appreciated to the extent of their worth. This form of illustration is, roughly speaking, only some thirteen years old. We know that in the life of an invention, or any advance, this is a very short span of time, indeed. It took many years before steam, elec