Moving Picture News (Jan-Jun 1912)

i8 THE MOVING PICTURE NEWS boasting of the reliability of their advertising columns, permit such misleading advertisements to be published. Hundreds of dollars have been taken from the unsuspecting through advertisements reading like the above. The moving picture trade journals will help the struggling author at the price of a year's subscription. The majority of these schools do the beginner more harm than good. "No experience needed," "$50 weekly in spare time," "$100 for single ideas," sound tempting. Such statements are not only misleading but are false in every respect. TOO LONG A "STRING" "I am not at all discouraged by not selling my scripts, I know one writer who has one hundred on his string," writes a New York contributor to this journal. There is too much haste in getting a string of stories started and not enough time and thought spent on the scripts. We believe that is one important reason for the many impossible plots and plays that have been flooding editorial offices lately. It is better to have one script, carefully and thoughtfully developed and written, than to have a hundred crude efforts making the rounds and eating up postage. Some of the authors having the longest "string" of scripts out, are the very ones who are putting up the loudest howls about "favoritism," '"lack of careful consideration," etc. One script weekly or monthly, written and then sold, is more profitable than one hundred hastily written scripts unsold, some of them probably salable if sufficient time and brains were put into them. SUDDEN ILLNESS OF MR. CHARLES URBAN. We learn with great regret that Mr. Charles Urban, famous in every part of the civilized globe as the pioneer of kinematography in the actual hues of nature, and proprietor and producer of the delightful "Kinemacolor" entertainment now running at the Scala Theatre, was on Monday evening last (which by a grim coincidence happened to be his birthday) overtaken by a serious illness while at his studios in Wardour street. Though to all appearances in the best of health, he was suddenly prostrated by violent internal spasms, and the nearest medical man. Dr. Jehan Barlet, of the French Hospital, unhesitatingly pronouncing it to be a case of perforated gastric ulcer, ordered Mr. Urban's immediate removal to his residence in Ashley Gardens, whither he also summoned two English specialists. Dr. W. H. Clayton Greene, of Queen Anne street, and Dr. Ernest Miles, of the Cancer Hospital. These gentlemen promptly confirmed Dr. Barlet's diagnosis, and an immediate operation to relieve the peritoneal cavity was performed before midnight by Dr. Clayton Greene. Though Mr. Urban can scarcely be said to be quite out of danger at this early date, all his present symptoms are favourable to his recovery, a matter to be devoutly desired no less by his hosts of personal friends than by the whole of the scientific world interested in the wonderful "Kinemacolor" which has entirely revolutionized the art of kinematography. THE TIGER BANDITS OF PARIS. A Film Scoop. The American Eclair offices have just received a cable from their Paris studio that the thrilling capture of the auto-bandit gang which culminated in a siege by the police, artillery and detectives in Choissy, one of the Paris suburbs, has been filmed in a startling three-reel feature. The cabled accounts have mentioned the gallantry of the moving picture men who had advanced in the hail of bullets, to take close-range pictures of the terrible adventure. But it was a delightful surprise to the Eclair people to receive the word that it was their own camera squad who had performed the feat. The Bonnot gang has been terrorizing Paris for over a year, murdering, maiming, robbing with the most dreadful impunity in the heart of the city. From the cabled report, the camera men have been following up the work of the police in the various steps of rounding the villains up, and every detail has been "scooped" by the enterprising Eclair directors. An unusual feature of the advancement of this history-thriller is that Maurice Le Blanc, brother-in-law of Edmonde Rostand, and the author of the sensational "Arsene Lupin" stories, is cabling a 10,000 word story of the desperate battle, with a description of the cinematographic operators' daring work, as well as the secret history of the terrible gangsters. The Eclair people have made arrangements to distribute this remarkable story to their patrons. Eclair has been stirring up things with typical American strenuosity during the last few weeks: "Poe's Raven," "Dorothy Gibson, the Titanic heroine, in a shipwreck play of her own, "Sherlock Holmes" in a two-reel exclusive feature, and this final sensation, the two latter being announced by cable as the News goes to press. INSURE YOURSELF BY MOVING PICTURES— IS THE NEWEST STUNT Animated Weekly Management Espouses a Scheme that Is Meeting with Nation-wide Favor Life insurance by moving pictures! That is the latest — something new under the sun at last. It remained for the fertile minds of those connected with the Sales Company's Animated Weekly to evolve a scheme that not only has wondrous intrinsic merit, but which, for novelty of conception, has hardly been equalled, and it will give the public a lot to think about — and more to talk about. James J. Hill, the railroad magnate, and hundreds of industrial kings, have taken to the idea. George Beban, the well-known actor, with hosts of others prominent in histronic circles, are espousing the Animated Weekly's latest efiforts at progressiveness. The scheme is simple. Have moving pictures made of yourself, and at death your estate benefits by the income. The arrangement, as it is made, is this: the Animated Weekly takes moving pictures of men and women prominent in business and social circles. The subjects are intimately gone into — characteristic poses — in business or pleasure — at office or home — on yacht or automobile. The pictures, when completed, are shown in private for approval by the subject. Then they are sealed, and put in fireproof vaults. A condition of the agreement made by the Animated Weekly is that they will never be shown publicly except under one of two circumstances. The first — by express and written consent of the subject during his lifetime, or after his death. The latter phase concerns the insurance element. After the death of, for instance, a prominent man, these pictures, one set of them, is turned over to the family, the other is released for showing. From the revenue of the pictures, the estate of the deceased derives a certain percentage. Other than the angle of life insurance, this project of the Animated Weekly offers inducements of a world-wide interest. For instance, future generations one hundred or five hundred years from now, will know the world and its principal factors as they exist to-day. Had the science of yesterday developed motion photography, we of today would have been able to look upon Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, Wagner, Columbus, Mahomet, or, even going back further, we might have been privileged to sit in awe and worship the sacred images of the Apostles and the Savior. All this would have been possible had science been advanced in the particular lines of motion photography. Coming to a more recent incident — the Titanic disaster— but few, very few of the noble hearts that braved a heroe's death in the catastrophe remain to us, except in inanimate pictures. The Animated Weekly has worked out in its details this latest innovation in picture history. The undertaking is gigantic, involving an expenditure of a million dollars or over — but the Sales Company is willing to foster the project, which eventually will result in a genuine benefit and blessing to humanity to this, and in generations to come.