Moving Picture World (Jan-Jun 1910)

462 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD A WORD OF GOOD CHEER TO ALL FRIENDS OF THE MOVING PICTURE. By W. Stephen Bush. Let us not forget our good nature or suffer loss of temper just because they are once more hurling stones and sticks in our direction. Let us rather rejoice and be well satisfied with the place wc hold, well up in the van of God's great parade of civilizing forces. Looking at and talking to those who would malign us, let us not call back names at them and let us cheerfully give to those who seek it, the copyright of such expressions as "recruiting stations of vice" and "dens of iniquity." Calling names has never in the history of our race affected our destinies in any way, and to-day billingsgate is less of an argument than it ever was before. Nor let us be alarmed because the sticks and stones fly at us from the editorial sanctum or from the bench of what, for want of a better name, is generally known as justice. From our friends the newspapers we may then hope for better treatment, when we help to fill up the advertising space devoted to the public amusements, and not till then. In the days of Horace Greeley and Raymond Jones and Charles A. Dana the editorial ethics was not formulated in the counting room, but these are not the days of Greeley and Dana, but — well, never mind, we all know the names, anyway. In the meantime, let our journalistic crusaders point to the name of any objectionable picture that has been made by the leading makers of films. I have in the last six months looked at more than ninety per cent, of all films made, and while I have seen much that was imperfect, in bad taste, foolish, inaccurate, cheap, or stupid, I dare anybody to show me a film that was objectionable because of its immorality or viciousness. We are told that some boys, who recently planned to derail a train and then rob the victims, were induced to go into this enterprise by looking at moving pictures. For the sake of truth and justice, name the pictures. I look through the list of Edison and Pathe and Biograph and Vitagraph and Essanay and Selig and Gaumont and Urban-Eclipse and Kalem and even Lubin releases, and there is not one that would suggest even to the most impressionable mind the idea of wrecking a train or engaging in any sort of crime or mischief. The quality among the independents may not be so high, but there is nothing degrading or demoralizing in any of them. There is, it is true, a tendency to cater to the craze for Indians and cowboys, and the judicious are grieved by having a lot of virtuous cowboys, wicked Mexicans and depraved half-breeds and fighting Indians parade on the moving picture screen in endless and monotonous succession, but most people, who are above the age of messenger boys, newsboys and bellboys, see these things without any desire to cross the ferry to Hoboken and strike the Western trail. When the moving picture is arraigned as a criminal it ought in common fairness to be informed of the nature of the charge. Let our criticising friends study the lists of the releases of the past six months and realize that the percentage of educational, scenic, classic, religious, industrial, historic and generally instructive pictures has increased more than a hundredfold. There is not a comedy that is not clean, though some of them, it must be confessed, are dreadfully stupid. Our leading film makers draw for their subjects upon the Bible, upon the best creations of literature, upon the classic and legitimate drama. Do you, friends and critics, realize that the moving picture has taken its inspiration from Shakespeare, from Tennyson, from Robert Browning, from Longfellow, from Balzac, from Hawthorne, from Victor Hugo, from Goethe, from Cervantes, from Zola, from the two Dumas, from Mark Twain and .1 galaxy of other names, illustrious in the annals of mankind? It has taken from the pages of secular history such splendid epochs as the glories of mythology, the glories of Rome, the brilliant days of the Republic of Venice, and the days when the Bourbon Kings were first in their glory and then in their fall and sorrow. It has shown us episodes from such instructive periods of human history as the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the events in our own country from its colonization to the Civil War. I could fill this column with fine religious subjects, such as "Saul and David." "Solomon's Judgment," "Jcphtha's Daughter." "The Daughter of the Sun," "Pagan and Christian," "The Birth of Christ," "The Blind Man of Jerusalem," "The Monk's Mother." "The Golden Lily," "Joan of Arc," "The Prodigal Son," "Christian Martyrs," "The Way of the Cross," "The Holy City," "The Cloister's Touch." "The Baby's Shoe." "The Salvation Army Lass," "Joseph Sold by His Brethren." "Samson and Delilah," "The Last Days of Pompeii," "The Life of Moses' and dozens of others. The spirit that produces pictures of this kind need fear nothing from abuse, and it is not the spirit that would promote what the writers on the daily press and the learned judges are pleased to describe as "juvenile depravity.' Our friends of the quill and the ermine will yet realize that the moving picture of to-day is one of the most potent forces for the progress of the race, for the dissemination of useful knowledge and for the promotion of all those things at which the good theater aims. The moving picture reaches thousands where the theater reaches not even hundreds. In every drama that I have lately seen in moving pictures there was not even a vestige of anything prurient, suggestive or demoralizing; on the contrary, each pointed a strong moral and pointed the moral in a forceful way. The newspaper, the pulpit and the bench are, and of right ought to be, not enemies but friends of the moving picture, and let us, fellow-exhibitors, do our share to bring about this co-operation. We can do this by deluging our friends with tickets and prayers to come and see our show, and when it is over we will all be shaking hands and wondering why we did not get together long ago. WHY NOT DO THINGS RIGHT? F. H. Richardson. Sunday evening, March 6. I paid my fifteen cents and entered the Bijou Dream Theater, on Twenty-third street. Sauntering down the aisle as though I owned the whole works, I pre-empted a seat and settled myself to enjoy the show, observe its excellence or silently roast anything not up to the mark. The Bijou is a nice house and, in the main, the show was creditable, but while the films were excellent and the operator doing pretty well, considering the difficulties under which he worked, the management of the house had made it utterly impossible to project a really first class picture. The light was good and quite well handled, but the machine is set so very close to the curtain that a wideangle lens is necessary, and, as we all know, the results, where they are used, are not the best. Possiblv it is not practical to set the machine further back, but if it is, a far better projection would be had. But the thing utterly without excuse was this: at the rear of the main floor was a cluster of white lights in ground glass globes. The light from this cluster struck the lower half of the curtain, illuminating it sufficiently to kill the picture's brilliancy. Shading the lights would be a very simple matter, and that such an important item be not attended to is inexplicible. The public is entitled to the best possible show and the manager who deliberately neglects to perform so simple an operation as shading a cluster of lights, which greatly detract from the effect of his picture, is not doing justice to his patrons. It is just such things as this that cause the public to tire of motion pictures. They are unsatisfactory. The public does not know what is wrong, but they do know the picture is "nothing extra" in the way of excellence, and they say, "Oh, yes, moving pictures are all right in a way, but !" and the "but" represents poor projection, caused, too often, by just such things as I have spoken of. With modern projection mechanism, under proper conditions and with modern films, it is possible to put on a really magnificent show. A show far ahead of the ordinary cheap vaudeville stunts one sees in moving picture theaters. To accomplish this, however, great care and intelligence must, absolutely must, be used at every stage of the game. A first class operator who not only knows how, but applies his knowledge, is a prime essential, of course. Then neither ignorance nor carelessness must be met with anywhere or the result will be spoiled, just as it is spoiled in the case I have cited. In naming this instance I do it not only for the good of the individual house, but for the good of the business as a whole. It is quite possible the manager of the Bijou does not know the light is spoiling the effect of his picture, but if so it was the duty of the operator to inform him of the fact. ABSURDITIES IN THE PRODUCING FIELD. By A. Klawhammer. Motion pictures are popular because the -ublic believe, to a large extent, that all seen on the screen is taken from real life and is free from the exaggerated and unnatural situations represented on the stage. If we wish to maintain this popularity for the moving pictures our manufacturers must endeavor to increase the quality of the productions, before increasing the quantity and pay more attention to the details. "On a Racket" is a production which should have never passed the Board of Censorship, as it is demoralizing, to say the least. If the censors believe that they can cure drunkenness by showing vile scenes of men under the influence of liquor, they are sadly mistaken. Such a film could find