Moving Picture World (Jul-Sep 1911)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 2'73 ftioving picture play carries us back to the boyish age of the great art of telling tales, when stories were narrated nakedly as stories, instead of being "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." One can hardly imagine Mr. Henry James devising a successful scenario for the kinematograph, but the Shakespeare, who wrote "Richard III," and the Homer, who wrote the Odyssey, would experience no difficulty in fulfilling the requirements. It is only very recently that the masters of the art of fiction have made war upon the optic nerve and exalted the subjective over the objective. Our modern interest in those intimate phases of character, which refuse to reveal themselves in action, is certainly sophisticated and excessive. It is therfore with a feeling somewhat of relief that we notice that the newest of all the arts of narrative — the moving picture play — disembarrases its stories of psychologizing and tells them in the free and boyish spirit that vivified the epic, the drama and the novel throughout the centuries before the world grew old." From this, however, it is not to be inferred that the author underestimates the power of. the silent stage in the delineation of character, for he says in another place: Such a farce, for example, as "Le Medecin Malgre Lui" of Moliere could easily tell itself through the medium of the moving picture and would still awaken laughter. Moliere's humor always expresses itself through the situation or the character and never through the mere language of the dialogue; in all his plays there is not a single witty line; and humor which is thus visual, instead of auditory, in its appeal may be conveyed in pantomime. The screen scene of "The School for Scandal"— to choose an instance from high comery — would remain clearly intelligible in all its necessary implications if it were acted without words. The following surely sounds like one of The Moving Picture World's own observations on one of the most gratifying developments and accomplishments of the motion picture. We quote: It is not at all surprising that the moving picture play has driven out of existence the cheap type of popular melodrama. The reason is not merely that the moving picture show could undersell the regular theater and offer a performance for five cents instead of for ten, twenty and thirty. In the whole history of the world, .no art, however cheap, has ever annihilated a more expensive art, which was basically better than itself. The real reason for the triumph of the moving picture play is the purely critical reason that it offered a more artistic type of narrative than the old popular melodrama. In cheap melodrama, all that was worth while was the vividness and the variety of incidents; the characters did not count except as puppets in the plot, and the dialogue, crude and frequently absurd, was more a bother than a help. In abolishing dialogue the moving picture show relieved the cheap drama of its weakest element; it could suggest character with less obvious falsification than the actual popular drama and it could easily excel it in the projection of incidents, both on the score of variety and the score of vividness. The writer concludes his article as follows : The thing that is surprising is that, except in France, the moving picture play has not more fullv availed itself of those artistic opportunities which are open to it and thereby raised itself to a competition with more refined and more expensive types of drama than were set forth in the old ten, twenty and thirty cent theaters. * * * The new art must bestir itself to fulfill more completely than heretofore the high artistic aims, of which it is indubitably capable. It is too good an art for the public to lose and it can retain its popularity if it labors to deserve it. We think that the concluding remarks of the writer are a trifle too severe and scarcely borne out by the facts. On the whole, the art both here and abroad has "labored to deserve popularity" of the best kind, and with the reproduction of Dante in motion pictures it has reached a height with which it may for the present be well pleased and rest a moment on its laurels. "The Day of tlie Dump" By Homer W. Sibley. "The moving picture business is dead." I low often this remark is made by men who ought to know better, and how strange it is that any person m the moving picture business should make a remark of that kind. The moving picture bu iness of today is not the moving picture business of yesterday; it is a modern business and has taken its place among the substantial institutions of the world. True, the "dump" is doomed, and the sooner the cheap, illsmelling, poorly ventilated, badly managed rendezvous for the masher and tough makes way for the better class of popular family theater the better it will be for the business and all concerned. A few years ago, anyone with a few hundred dollars could open up a moving picture show in a store-room, and make money; so many of these places opened up and made money for their owners that they began popping up like mushrooms all over the country, and especially in the larger cities, until one could hardly walk a block in any direction without finding a moving picture show, usually with sawdust on the floor, and under the management of a man totally ignorant of the business, and without any ability as a manager. This condition exists in very few places now, as the larger theatrical interests, realizing the future of motion pictures readily put money into the enterprise, and forced the "dump" manager to improve his place, or give way to a more sanitary and better conducted place. One may liken the moving picture business to any other business, and find that history repeats itself. For instance, a few years ago the neighborhood store in the country village prospered, simply because there was no opposition, and the proprietor of that store smiled when the large department store was built on the corner, and usually predicted that the big fellow would close up in a few months; but the result was always the same — the big fellow prospered and made the old-time merchant improve his stock and brighten up his store, or else put him out of business entirely. True, in some instances, the old fellow plodded along in the old rut, with enough business from his old personal friends to keep his head above water, but his business was gone. And so it is with the moving picture business today. The cheap fellow with the bad service, and a lot of rainy films, poor talent in his place, and an absolute disregard for the comfort of his patrons, stands out in front of his "dump" laughing at the neat little theater that is getting ready to open on the next corner, telling his friend, the barber or confectioner from next door, that the new fellow is a fool to put his money in the moving picture business now; that it is^ a dead proposition, and he will give him just three months to close up and get out, usnally laughs the other way before the three months are over. The new place has attracted the people from the "dump" by its neat front, and once inside, the people have found comfortable seats and a well-ventilated place where their comfort has been as much of an object of attention as the excellence of the show. When they have seen three or four reels of good film in good condition, projected with a good machine by a good operator; have heard a good singer accompanied by a good pianist* who has played the pictures in a first-class manner, they make up their minds to come again. So it is, when you hear that remark, "The moving picture business is dead," if you will investigate, 5-ou will find that the person who made it has suffered a loss of business through the opening of a more modern place, with a better show at the same price; and can see only his own loss — not the fact that the business is now on a more substantial basis than ever before, and modern methods must be employed to insure continued success. Dr. R. E. Distin Maddick, well known in English moving picture circles as the proprieor of the Scala Theater, of London, commenting upon the historic importance of the Coronation, proposes the establishment of a National Film Museum in which the films recording great events should be deposited and used for the instruction of future generations. MORE PATENT LITIGATION. The Motion Picture Patents Company has begun suitson the Pross shutter and Latham loop patents, seeking to restrain unlicensed exhibitors from making, selling or using machines licensed and sold under these patents. This includes practically every make of projecting machine upon the American market. Notice of complaint has already been; served upon two prominent New York City independent exhibitors and possibly in other parts of the country. Elsewhere in this paper will be found the announcement of the Motion Picture Distributing & Sales Company that it will undertake to defend any and all of these actions. Neither of the two patent claims have been sustained, although testimony in a suit on the Latham loop patent is now being taken.