Moving Picture World (Jul-Sep 1911)

6l2 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD The Ever Potent Moving Picture. A LTHOUGH the vogue of the motion picture has brought -^*-about the erection of more than ten thousand theaters, varying in seating capacity from 200 to 5,ooo, in the last decade. the managers and owners of legitimate theaters in this country cannot truthfully claim that this condition has conspired to reduce the patronage extended to the higher priced stage offerings. It is fairly estimated that fifteen million new theater-goers in the United States and Canada have been created from a public originally attracted through the lure of the camera man, and fully one-half of these had never been inside of a playhouse before, while the other half, having become accustomed to visiting the moving picture resorts, have contracted the habit of theater going from a desire to see in the flesh, players and singers whose portrayals have been reproduced for them through science and artifice in the picture theaters. The phonograph, also, has played a vital part in solving the problem of grand opera. Thousands of persons to whom the inside of the Metropolitan Opera House was an unknown spectacle, have found their way to the box-office through having heard the arias of popular operas as sung by the world's greatest singers, whose vocal records have been preserved through the various phonograph devices. This is so true that impresarios and theatrical managers are no longer found resenting the procedure by which the players and singers under engagement to them add materially to their incomes by posing and singing for the film makers and phonograph inventors. One would suppose that the world's greatest artists would refrain from temptation in this respect, but it is a fact that Enrico Caruso's income from his vocal records is quite as large as that which comes from his grand opera achievements, and, undoubtedly, he is solaced during his prolonged period of inactivity on the operatic stage by the knowledge that his royalties from the phonograph companies will go on perpetually, though there are those who believe that his present vocal incapacity is greatly due to overtaxing his voice in the effort to preserve his vocal records for future generations — a declaration that will be confirmed by any one who has ever been present at the seances, nerve-racking as they are. The spectacle of such exalted players as Rejane, Jane Hading, Mounet-Sully and the younger Coquelin posing for the French film makers is not an unusual one, and all of the distinguished secretaries of the exclusive Comedie Francaise have capitulated, in view of the enormous sums paid in an effort to raise the level of cinematography. The plans of the foreign film makers are truly tremendous in scope. Some of these firms are capitalized in the millions and not all of them have repute in this country. In Italy, particularly, the artistic film is featured; the manufacturers have complete stock companies equal, if not superior to those of the subsidized theaters. The equipment is always lavish and an outlay of $50,000 to evolve a single series of pictures is common enough. These Italian films are just beginning to arrive in this country, and they have indeed created a furore. Recently an English film company paid $25,000 for the privilege of reproducing the ballets presented in a London music hall. As these terpsichorean productions have always been regarded as too costly for transportation to this country, one may understand why so large a sum was willingly given, for in no other way would it be possible for American play-goers to view the entrancing spectacle which all privileged persons pronounced unapproachable. The Messrs. Shuberts have been offered a still larger sum for the right to reproduce the Hippodrome spectacles. The idea of the film concern making the offer was that, as the Hippodrome offerings were too large to be presented in other cities, an effort to reproduce them for the public not available to the New York institution would not only pay them handsomely, but also would be regarded as a public spirited enterprise. Right here let it be said that such a thing as public spirit among the film makers is not to be ridiculed. Thomas A. Edison's hobby is a desire to evolve educational films. He spends the greater portion of his leisure time in the picture houses, always endeavoring to conceal his identity, but this procedure on his part is so well known among his employees that they are instantly provided with an incentive for great effort. Mr. Edison is firm in the belief that the moving picture theater of tomorrow will be a tremendous factor for the public good. Moreover, he thinks that the day is near when the workingman will be able to lay down his dime at the box office and witness a performance fully as good as that which is now seen in theaters where two dollars are paid for seats. At no distant date, "the wizard" prophecies a complete and perfect synchronism between the cinematograph and the phonograph, by which it will be possible to produce artificially complete plays, and even grand operas, with vocal sound, action, enunciation, and even color absolutely and scientifically reproduced — a veritable conquest of the arts of music and the drama. Already it has been possible to witness the spectacle of a popular stage idol appearing in a theater where high prices of admission are charged, while, but a stone's throw away, a counterfeit presentation duplicating voice and action was on view at an admission price of five cents. It has also been possible to hear an act from Donizetti's "Lucia de Lamermoor" sung by Caruso, Sembrich, Plan^on and Hosmer. The pictures depicting the stage action were perfect, but the synchronism with the phonograph was faulty; and it is this phase of the problem which Mr. Edison is now coping with, promising perfection at an early date. An inventor in Holland has perfected a device along somewhat different lines, which reproduces the action, color and sound but not the voice vocally, merely the instrumental accompaniment. With this device an effort is shortly to be made to reproduce the Oberamergau Passion Play. The vita! achievement in this instance is the conquest of color. Mr. Edison believes that others than himself, investigating as they are the problems yet to be solved, will achieve astounding results which within two years will revolutionize the art of entertaining and which will result in moving picture theaters of prodigous size, where the masses will witness tremendous spectacles, operas and plays; even making it possible to bring to the picture screen Wagner's Trilogy as rendered at Bayreuth — with vocal, instrumental and orchestral effects synchronized with motor-color pictures — the whole forming a perfect counterfeit presentation of the great Cycle, to hear and see which it has been necessary to undergo a pilgrimage to the Bavarian city, at a monetary cost prohibitive to ninety-five per cent, of mankind. What will be the effect on the singer and player in the flesh when science and artifice combine to make unnecessary their utilization for the portrayal of the great masterpieces of music and the drama? This is a phase of the problem which has yet to be reckoned with. As a rule, population has provided a public capable of absorbing the problems created by progress, but it does not require any great wrench of the imagination for one to marvel as to how it will be possible to reconcile a public accustomed to pay $5.00 for its seats in an open house when the compelling forces of the attraction are duplicated for ten cents. Of course, the very rich will not be affected by even so revolutionary a change, for with them opera is a social fad; but in the last few years there has come into being a vast public whose incentive for opera-going has been the strictly musical — not the social side — the phonograph being a factor in the creation of this new public, will be likely to sustain the tenability of its position when the day comes for it to combine with the cinematograph in a bid for the patronage of the musical world. The moving picture has by no means proved a menace to the theatrical profession. In fact, the spectacle of hundreds of idle actors and actresses, congregating in the "Rialto" because of disastrous tours, and other misfortunes, has been greatly mitigated through the great demand for their services from the film makers, who no longer can supply the demand for films through what are called "actualities," this has resulted in the photoplay, and there are no less than twenty complete and fully equipped stock companies in the vicinity of New York alone, each employing from twelve to twenty players. These are not always composed of the rank and file; some of our best known stage favorites have been content to avail themselves of the benefits to be derived. The producers for the picture theaters are selected from the best known stage directors of the country. Charles Kent, producer for the Vitagraph Company, has been a Frohman star, while Francis A. Powers, who was producer for "Powers Picture Plays," (the similarity of names being a mere coincidence) is a distinguished author-actor whom Charles Frohman brought here from California to stage his own play, "The First Born," a work that created a sensation in New York. Thus it will be seen that with the people of the stage intimately affiliated with the inventors of cinematography and the phonograph, no great upheaval will come to the rank and file in the event that Mr. Edison's optimistic prophecy is fulfilled. As to the stars and the thousand-dollars-a-night songbirds, undoubtedly there will always be a public prepared to rave over great individuality and to worship at the shrine of a great name.