The Moving picture world (November 1921)

December 3, 1921 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 523 Distinguished Novelist Says it Is Easy to Throw Stones, and Anyone Can Do It which decided what the end of "The Right of Way" should be, for the Metro made two endings, a happy and a so-called unhappy ending — that is, the ending of the book — and the exhibitors insisted on the book ending. I only mention this to substantiate my point. I can indicate a hundred films within my own knowledge where there is a main idea carried out with power and simplicity and fidelity to the author's text. What about the plays that have been dramatized ? Have they all been mangled? We know they have not. Was "Madame X" mangled? Statements Contradictory After a long and malevolent attack — no doubt honest — on the motion pictures, the author of the article says : "American motion picture producers have shown excellence in only two fields, that of satiric and farce comedy, and in exploiting the beauty and health, the freshness and naivete of American girlhood." This is in strange contrast to "a collaboration of hack fictionists, illiterate continuity writers, vainglorious directors, simpering flappers, and strutting pomade addicts," of which he speaks in his earlier paragraphs. In the first part of his article be says : "The outlook, indeed is dim. Everything makes not only for the statically uncompromising condition of the average man but for his actual debasement. . . . His narrow and material predilections are not only recognized for what the are ; they are systematically exploited and debauched." It is plain to be seen that the writer cannot be judged fairly by his own statements. They are contradictory, badly argued, and dangerous — dangerous to people who do not know the motion picture world and who regard it as a "sink of iniquity." He says that no distinguished actors or actresses have joined the film-stage. What about John Barrymore, Elsie Ferguson, George Arliss, the Farnums, Pauline Frederick, William Faversham, and in England Matheson Lang and many others. Is the film world so barren of artistic talent ? At the end of his article, after stating that there is no art in the American motion pictures, he says : "The German films, 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' and 'The Golem,' and various French and Italian projects show a tendency abroad to grasp the particular problem of the movies and to evolve an art form peculiar to that medium." Does anyone who saw Dr. Caligari" think it shows more art than "Broken Blossoms" or "The Whispering Shores" by Cecil B. De Mille? It shows some wonderful effects in lighting and distance, but no more than such men as the De Milles and Griffith and others know. The author is rather hopeless of his own country, but I am not. I have given a year of my life at Hollywood studying the film industry. No one influences my judgment. It is independent. I will say this without fear of being proven wrong, that the life at Hollywood compares most favorably with life in all places where industry and art are at work, and I am convinced that even now motion pictures are an industry and an art. Penrhyn Stanlaws, an art illustrator of fame, is now with the Famous Players, and that he would be in a concern which is only an industry does not bear consideration. Zukor Was Right I agree with the author of the article, and I have said it often enough, that seventy-five per cent, of the films are bad, and that the proportion of masterpieces is small, but how old is the film industry? It dates back not more than fifteen years, and what is expected in that time? It was Mr. Zukor, I think, who first proposed the five-reel film, and he was laughed at for his vision ; but he was right. It is only a few years since close-ups were first used, and motion pictures have been developing with marvelous skill and power in the recent past. One need not look for too much all at once. This new industry and art has gone wonderfully ahead since the day of the nickelodeons. I am convinced of this, that the chief film producers are as earnest in making good films as any writer or any critic or any citizen of the country. But no sneers must be hurled at film producers because they want money to develop their work. Money is needed for both industry and art. After all it is the public that decide and if the public demand better pictures they will get them. I repudiate wholly "the fourteen-year-old intelligence" of the average attendant at the films. I look round me at the motion picture theatres and ask myself if the average intelligence is fourteen years. I am deeply convinced it is not. A phrase is so easy to make and so few phrases are honest in fact. It's like that phrase "too old at forty," while the greatest achievements in the world have been made by men well over forty. I have small faith in phrases. As a rule they are manufactured for effects of wit and brilliancy. Looking back at my year at Hollywood, I can say with truth that I am convinced that producers of the better sort — and all producers in the theatres and music halls are not of the better sort — are anxious to produce good artistic films. Take the last two great successes : "The Three Musketeers" and "Little Lord Fauntleroy," are they not clean and good in presentation ? Have they not ideas, and are not those ideas presented on the screen? Is it to be supposed that Edward Knoblock, a famous playwright, would lend his name — he a dramatist and an authority on French history and costume — to a piece of "hokum?" He did not, and "Little Lord Fauntleroy" is as legitimate on the film stage as in the book or Mrs. Hodgson Burnett would not have allowed it to be produced. Douglas Fairbanks invested an immense sum in this picture, against the advice of many who said costume films will not pay, and his vast risk has paid him well as all the world knows. To his credit he has made two great films in one year, "The Mark of Zorro" and "The Three Musketeers," and Mary Pickford, a rare and most talented actress of the film, has never produced an unworthy picture. Modesty and earnestness and fine ambition are the dominant characteristics of these people, and Rupert Hughes' last film, "The Old Nest," is a guarantee of high purpose and domestic truth. Good Films Increasing I can see in the past year a marked increase in good films, and the great film producers mean to give them and are now trying hard to do so. I know the inside and outside of the chief studios As For the Battle of Jutland TO really picture a battle at sea and make it so plain by animated drawings supplementing actual battle ships in action that the every day man can understand it — this is an achievement. The Battle of Jutland which Educational has secured is now in three reels but from material in hand could be made longer. The precise length will depend on the decision yet to be made known to the trade, possibly in the advertising pages. The startling effects secured in the animated work are accentuated by the actual scenes of the great battleships and cruisers in action and the total forms an interesting novelty. At the Rialto Theatre, New York, this week the picture evoked prolonged applause. A. J.