Moving Picture World (Jan-Jun 1910)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 419 OBSERVATION!?!! >BY OUR MAN ABOUT TOWN, One of the interesting tid-bits of comment in the moving picture field the past week was the partial transformation ol a Chinese theater in New York City into a moving picture house and the accomplishment of this by one who is not only not a Chinese, but is a star in the White Way string of theaters. This particular person is Raymond Hitchcock, and he has made a hit of it. He does not personally conduct the place, but is its promoter and backer. It is said that Hitchcock has a peculiar hankering for anything in the Chinese line. It is a hobby with him. He heard the Chinese theater on Doyers street had remained closed for several months and decided to invest some of his spare funds in it. It was the last place any investor would hit upon for the picture business and for this reason Hitchcock is given credit foi rare foresight and keen business tact that few of his friends thought he possessed. The program at the place the past week, its first, consisted of moving pictures, song and dance act and a Chinese opera rendered by a troupe of Chinese people in their native tongue. Business has been good and promises to continue so. The patrons are almost wholly Chinese. Sightseers help to swell the audiences and, as the admission price is fifteen cents, their patronage is worthy of attention by the management, William Cavanaugh is the manager. All the others on the payroll, with the exception of the operator of the picture machine, are Chinese, which include the ticket seller, ticket taker, scene shifters and the orchestra. The pictures are supplied by the American Vitagraph Company. The Chinese call it "Vlitaglaph." * * * Well, the first round of the fight between the Motion Picture Patents Company on the one side and the Laemmle and Pantograph Companies on the other has been fought and the Patents Company get the decision, as will be seen by the report of the cases appearing in another column of this paper. The Independents scored but one point, the court refused to grant an injunction against Carl Laemmle personally, but this advantage is tempered to an extent by the deciding Judge declaring that the injunction is denied with the proviso that the Patents Company may ask for an injunction against Laemmle personally at any time it can show personal infringement of the patents. The case was heard in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, the decision being given by Judge Noyes. Before the case was heard and while the decision was awaited the Independent companies seemed to pin a great deal of faith on the defense they made to the effect that the Patents Company had no standing in court becuse it was illegal in itself, inasmuch as it is a combination in violation of the ant-trust laws. Judge Noyes dismissed this contention with an opinion that, even if true, it did not constitute a defense in an action for infringement of a patent, nor did it show a defect in the title claimed to the patents by the Patents Company. * * * Another interesting view taken of the cases by Judge Xoves is that referring to the Levison and Greene inventions, both of which have been very much relied upon by the companies interested in opposing the claims of the Patents Company. The defendant companies, in the case just decided, presented papers to show that in 1888, before Edison made his invention, Wallace G. Levison, of Brooklyn, invented and built a motion picture camera in which pictures were taken on seoarate dry plates, which were carried on a wheel and exposed intermittently; and that in the same year he made known in a lecture in Brooklyn a film camera much like the camera now in use. It was also argued before the court that William Friese-Greene, of England, invented in that country a motion picture camera long before Edison built his first film camera, and before Edison built that camera he the idea from Greene. The attorneys for the defendants strongly contended that had these matters been presented to and considered by the court that rendered the decision upon which the Patents Company relies, the decision would have been different. Judge Noyes decided against the defendants on this point, saving there was not sufficient evidence to convince him that had these matters been introduced in the former case there would have been a different decision. The month of May will be an important one to the film manufacturers on both sides of the fence. It will be the sequel, and an important one, to the decision just rendered by Judge Noyes, who has practically declared that if his decision is to be appealed from it must be brought up for a hearing in that month. All eyes will be turned upon the appeal, for it cannot be disputed that its result will be looked upon by both sides as a pretty safe bet for the future. The Laemmle interests have turned to advertising use the canard that was foisted upon a St. Louis paper to the effect that Miss Florence Lawrence, an actress who has posed for some time in moving pictures, was killed by an automobile in New York. The result is Miss Lawrence finds herself receiving more press notices than any other actress in the moving picture business. Well, to the credit of Miss Lawrence, be it said, that she did not require a hoax to draw attention to her. She is a mighty clever woman in pictures and her work had excited much flattering comment before she left the Biograph forces. I take this opportunity to express my sincerest gratification that the automobile did not get her. * * * That was an awful scare (?) some of the moving picture news writers gave the film renters. I refer to that $2,500,000 New Jersey corporation article. It was really funny to see how some of the film renters took it. "Lead me to it," said one of them when I asked him how he would like to have a part of the vast sum. Another said, "I am glad that the capital is a good-sized one. It shows that if the incorporators intend to gobble us up they realize that what we hold is worth something. If the capital amounted to only a few thousand I, for one, would have felt hurt at being held cheap." * * # I overheard a discussion over this gigantic scheme in a hotel lobby the other night. One of the parties was arguing that the reports in circulation were all bosh, the quoting of Lubin, the Philadelphia licensed manufacturer, as authority notwithstanding. "Why," said the speaker, "I'll bet Lubin is getting a heap of fun out of it. There isn't a more shrewd man in the country and I will not believe that when he gave the quoted interview he did not know what he was doing, and this being the case he would not do anything that might bring the wrath of the Patents Company upon his head. I have always contended, and I still contend, that reports circulated as to what the Motion Picture Patents Company is doing, or contemplates, must be accepted cautiously until they have some color of official sanction. The Patents Company is neither a bureau of information nor a news distributing agency. It is an incorporated company for the conducting of a certain line of business. Its affairs are private property and they are jealously guarded as such as in the cases of all other concerns, and nearly all the mad dog stories set afloat are originated for the purpose of drawing from the company some statement as to what it intends or does not intend to do in connection with some particular matter. Thowing aside all feeling and prejudice, the Patents Company must be given credit for being the most adept concern in the country in keeping the people guessing. I don't pretend to know the object of the New Jersey corporation, or its bearing upon, or connection with, the Patents Company, but common sense tells me that, even if the buying up of the film exchanges and dealing with the exhibitors is one of its objects, there is no danger of the plan being put in operation for some time to come. If it comes it will be a gigantic undertaking and the most difficult part of it will be the arrangement of the details. I know the matter has been talked of for some time, but take this tip from me — most of the talking is done outside the Patents Company by people who are only speculating." * * * "If they don't intend to gather in the exchange business, why is it they are so careful not to disclose anything about the intentions of that New Jersey concern?" asked one of the listeners. "Search me, I can only answer that by asking a question: Whv did the licensed and the Independent film exchanges hold their last conventions at the same hotel in New York and at the same time?"