Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

January 8, 1927 The Unsolved Mystery of Moving Pictures (Continued from page 100) was the first to appreciate the importance of using flexible film. His patent application mentions ‘insoluble gelatine coated with silver bromide,’ and Mr. LePrince, Longley and Mason have stated that he used ‘celluloid films’ before his last journey to France in September, 1890; (4) that he was the first to use the method of registering the moving of the pictures by perforations and sprocket wheels, as shown in the patent ■ drawings in 1888 and (5) that he was the first to appreciate the possibilities of coloured moving pictures. Mason, who worked under LePrince, in Leeds, asserts that LePrince began to use celluloid films about 1889. This was a film made by Blair. LePrince recorded pictures of his mother-in-law, by means of his camera. These have been reproduced in “The Photographic Journal” (August, 1923). Mrs. Joseph Whitley died October 24, 1888. In September, 1900, LePrince accompanied Mr. and Airs. Richard Wilson, of Leeds, on a visit to France, the inventor having planned a long tour and a complete rest, hen in Bourges, LePrince parted with the Wilsons, explaining that he was intent on visiting Dijon, to see a brother, and he left the Wilsons on a Friday morning, arranging to meet them in Paris on the following Monday. When LePrince did not appear in Paris at the appointed time, the Wilsons decided that he might have gone on to London in advance, to join Mr. Whitley. When the Wilsons reached London they found that LePrince was not there. Lengthy investigations were undertaken by the London and Paris police instantly, and a little later by the New York police, other cities taking up the case when notified. “It was surmised by some,” Mr. Scott asserted, “that LePrince had been kidnapped by agents of the American inventors, who were then hard at work on the same subject but had been forestalled by him.” * * * * Will Day, F.R.P.S., F.R.A.S.,, has praised the work of LePrince (The Photographic .Journal; July, 1826), and Henry V. Hopwood, in his valuable book, “Living Pictures” (London, 1899) describes LePrince’s camera in detail. MOVING PICTURE WORLD Why Picture Scripts Aren’t Used “As Is ” (Continued from page 101) closely the outline of the book. The action must be condensed into comparatively few locales and held in these locales for specified periods. When the same Cecil De Mille produced the colorful “Male and Female” from William Gillette’s stage play “The Admirable Crichton,” there were few who recalled that this was the second screen version of the story. The first had been made several years before, following closely the stage play and presented in two-reel form by the old Kalem company. It made so little impression that it promptly was forgotten, but we venture to suggest that few have forgotten “Male and Female.” One director followed the story as closely as he was able. The other made it into a glorified picture with the sumptuous “Babylonian episode” and achieved something far more lasting. Another instance that probably will suggest itself to those who both read the novel and saw the play of “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” will further amplify the idea. Here the mysterious figure of the Russian radical who comes prominently into the play. In the novel he is merely a dreamer, in the play there is a suggestion of Christ, working to the striking finish in the cemetery where the great punch of the play is given in the words : “I knew them all — I loved them all.” The scenarist dared visualize what the author could not so subtly handle in words, and Aliss Mathis, through this change, not only heightened the general interest but achieved a wonderfully effective fade out. We sympathize with our correspondent. It may be hard to see old and revered friends twisted and distorted to make a pictorial holiday, but we think that as a manager he will admit that the alteration of the classics is not without its justification : surely as much justification as playing Hamlet in modern dress for the benefit of the box office. 145 The Stuff That News Is Made of Today (Continued from page 103) Democrat mentioned it with a ring of local pride. The house was packed for every performance. News is a commodity that has never yet been defined. An editor was credited with the remark that when a dog bites a man that isn’t news, not when a man bits a dog, it is. However, what is one man’s news is another man’s hokum. Anything that has a bearing on the community in which it appears is pretty apt to be news. The human race has never overcome its clan instinct. A schooner built in New Bedford goes down by the head off Cape Hatteras and it’s a local story in New Bedford. A motion picture written in New York and produced in Hollywood, with a title mentioning Fort Wayne, Indiana, is a local story in Fort Wayne and it’s worth extra mention in Indianapolis. It is up to the exhibitor to dig out that local angle and play it up. In the large cities the motion picture theatres employ their own publicity writers and these chaps, usually clever newspaper men, get every slant on every picture. They overlook nothing. They even originate stories and now and then, fake them. Not so many years ago, it was the concensus of opinion in newspaper offices that only a press agent could be elected president of the Ananias Club. Gradually, that stigma is being wiped out and legitimate news now takes the right of way. More newspaper men are becoming press agents and they are carrying with them into the new field some of the fine old traditions and something of the code which governs reporters. But the problem for the small town exhibitor is to ascertain the stuff that news is made of and then to use it to the mutual advantage of himself and his newspapers. The city editor never remained long on a desk who was not eager for local news. It is the elixir of his life, the air he breathes, his food and his drink. When an exhibitor gets a reputation for bringing in publicity stories with human interest and the local angle, he’s going to be as popular in the city room as the cashier on payday. THIS IS FRANCE’S YEAR IN PICTURES (Continued from page 102) hind the French producers and the reaction against American pictures is increasingly acute, due largely to the fact that French pictures are getting better and the American program pictures aren’t. “The French believe that American pictures are made in series like Ford cars, all of the same pattern, and are giving their own producers every incentive to supply their theatres with French pictures. “As you know, the French film theatres, like those in all the rest of Europe, are far inferior to ours, in fact, bear no comparison at all to our own, but when American pictures are shown here, they suffer for this very reason. “We don’t notice their defects so much, on account of our palatial houses, fine organs and orchestras, prologues and presentations. “Over there, where they have none of these things, a picture must stand on its own merit and quality as entertainment and ours suffer accordingly. “Also, just as most foreign films when shown here, seldom are properly edited or titled, or tempoed as to story development, so the American picture over there gets the worst of it. “My thought on the subject is that unless a more intelligent spirit of co-operation is shown by American producer-distributors to the French film makers, we will one day see a heavy “quota” imposed in France, just as it has been in Germany and as it is threatened to be in England and Italy. “French producers are steadily making more and better pictures, which their own market and that of the rest of Europe can even now absorb at a fair profit. But they also would like to receive consideration here in America, and with the French theatre owner and the French public feeling as they do, the day is not far off when they will make it difficult for any but the best and biggest American productions to reach the screen in France, unless the American industry opens its doors to friendly competition. “The same situation exists all over Europe, but because France is the pre-eminent producer just now, it shows itself most acutely there. . “American companies cannot invade the European theatre field to any appreciable extent because of building conditions, restrictions and local antagonisms. “France s surely on the high road to achieving this position. It is only a question now of making enough productions and two or three years will see great advances in this direction. “Personally, I hope long before that time to see American and French producers all pulling together, with an open market here for every good French picture.”