Moving Picture World (Sep-Oct 1925)

78 MOVING PICTURE W O R L U September 5, 1925 What’s Next in Motion Pictures? “Wedding Song” Formula By CECIL B. De MILLE THE purely mechanical side of motion pictures has about reached its apex. We are near the limit of the great advance in the technical lines of trick photography. strange lighting, unique sets and startling effects. We still have far to go, however, in the development of deft, new, subtle ways of transferring thought to the screen; of inventing ■unusual methods of driving home situations and ideas of especial importance. In the next three or four years there will be registered with more surety and less effort, of screen translation. Every day directors and writers are discovering new points of “technique” whereby a thought or an emotion will be registered with more surety and less effort. It was only a few' years ago that if we wanted to have a man do one bit of action in his home and another at his office dow'ntown we saw him go out of the door, out of the house, enter his car, get off at his office building, enter the elevator, etc. Now we simply go from one scene to another with no tedious, footage-wasting, intermediate steps. And, because of this “tightening up” tendency, our stories will condense in action and increase in interest. The day of the purely butterscotch girl and peppermint boy love story is gone. The “theme” photoplay that has something to say; something to add for the general good of the world, in addition to its entertainment values, will continue to advance and increase in popularity and importance and as my production of “The Ten Commandments” was decidedly theoretic, so does my present picture, .“Tne Road to Yesterday” search for drama in the great theme that w'rong is punished — “even to the third and fourth generation.” I do not think We will have any great revolutionary changes in film, cameras, or in effects, but I do think that all these technical elements will be brought to finer points. That color photography, talking pictures, stereoscopic pictures— all of these will go hand in hand w'ith the developments on the thoughtful side to enable the motion picture to fulfill its destiny. So far as stars are concerned, we will have A BATTERY OF FOUR BIG GUNS John C. Flinn, Marshall Neilan, P. A. Powers and Cecil B. De Mille at the De Mille Studio after the signing of the new contract that makes Neilan a contributor exclusively to the program of Producers Distributing Corporation. Ingredients Given for Making Exciting Screen Material In answ'er to a request for a description of "The Wedding Song,” the De Mille studio wired the publicity department of Producers Distributing Corp. as follows : “Take half a dozen metropolitan crooks and one unsophisticated boy in his early twenties, possessing fabulous wrealth in pearls. Mix thoroughly on an uncharted island wffiere law is an unknown quantity, season well with romance and comedy, and stir in plenty of action. The result is Leatice Joy’s second starring picture, ‘The Wedding Song.” Such active ingredients should ferment into some real exciting screen material ; and the manner in which they have been mixed by Scenarists Douglas Doty and Charles Whittaker has enthused Cecil B. De Mille to the point of surrounding Miss Joy with an exceptionally capable supporting cast that so far includes Robert Ames, Ethel Wales. Rosa Rudami, Charles Gerard and Gladden James. them just as long as personalities arise of sufficient strength to hold public interest. Such individuals are rare, however, and always you will find “star” pictures supplemented by productions made by a number of clever players on the merits of the specific story. "The play’s the thing” ; and if the star can adequately carry the play, splendid. If not, then we will have the all-star cast,. But whether a story have a star or be without a star, the success depends entirely on the strength of the tale. Completes “Flaming Waters” Fred Kennedy Myton, w'est coast scenario editor of F. B. O., has completed the scenario of “Flaming Waters,” an original story by E. Lloyd Sheldon, which is shortly to be produced by Associated Arts Corp. for F. B. O. It is a melodrama of the oil fields. ALTHOUGH “Madame Lucy” wTas adapted from a French farce by Jean Arlette, it should be stated that in its transition to the sensitized celluloid it has undergone a process of “naturalization” which makes it as American in spirit as the N. Y. Giants or the subway crush at supper time. In filming this piece of comedy material, the Christie organization’s primary object was to make a funny picture, and secondly, to present players of recognized box-office draw', such as Julian Eltinge and Ann Pennington. Then with a plausible enough background for the basis of the plat, the “gag” men were allowed to go to practically any length with sequences of funny business. As reason is not essential in farce comedy, and the public and even the high-brow critics will laugh heartily and excuse lapses into “slapstick” situations, such situations all purely American have been employed to cause a hilarious reaction in the laughing glands. For instance when Eltinge, in skirts, having just retrieved his wig from wffiere he flung it in the corner of the room, believing himself free at last from the pursuit by John Law, a moment later at the sudden entrance of the policeman, giddily indulges in a game of leapfrog with the servant, Tom Wilson, supposed to be his husband. This strange indoor pastime is certainly a peculiar way for normal American folks to take their exercise but it is very funny and comes in the category of laughprovoking oddities conceived in the gag man's brain. This is only one of many wrays in which “Madame Lucy” has been Americanized in its screenings. “Hokum” in this case is especially applicable and of great value in making this production, a sister to “Charley's Aunt.” Henry Victor, an English actor, recently signed to appear in forthcoming MetroGoldwyn-Mayer productions, has arrived in Culver City. “Madame Lucy ” an American Farce by Christie Scenarists