The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal (Nov 1904-Oct 1905)

i7o THE OPTICAL LANTERN AND CINEMATOGRAPH JOURNAL. in a most effective manner by the views. Mr. Charles Urban deserves every praise for his enterprise, and Messrs. George Rogers and Joseph Rosenthal have evidently been the right men to secure the photographs. It is the second year in England of Mr. Burton Holmes' Travelogues, and we trust his splendid entertainment will now be a regular visitor to our shores. It is a varied programme, illustrated with magnificently coloured views and films. The fact that struck us most was the clearness of his slides and the steadiness of his films. Nothing harsh or unnatural is to be found in the slides, the tones being blended with delicate and artistic touch, which make them a head and shoulders above the average slide. In his description of the scenes there is nothing pretentious ; no hard and dry-as-dust lecture, but a calm and interesting statement of facts which appeal to the audience, and give them a ready grasp of the subject and a large interest in the views portrayed. We have time after time advocated moving picture lectures, and if Mr. Holmes' Travelogues are taken as a pattern, the revival of the optical lantern would quickly be at hand. Again, at Earl's Court, where West's entertainment is being well received by hundreds of visitors to this splendid Exhibition, novelty and interest are brought to bear at the living picture descriptions of " Our Navy " by the cries, music, and effects which the orchestra use. We have heard it said that the figures in moving pictures are so lifelike that we can almost hear them speak, but West's score tremendously in their attempt to go still further ; for we hear the feet patter on the decks, whilst the figure is dancing a hornpipe on the screen to the accompaniment of a violin, apparently played by a sailor ; the splash of diving ; the cries for help ; the tread of marching soldiers ; the rattle and boom of cannon and the hundred and one scenes which make the pictures highly realistic and twice as interesting. We should like to see more of this kind of enterprise thrown into the shows given at our halls. It is true the so-called " Lantern Season " is over, and yet a glance at the papers will show how much the projecting instrument is still in use during these summer months, indeed, it is difficult to find a time of the year when the lantern is not an indispensable adjunct to commercial and educational enterprise. Doubtless, a practical way of making the importance of the lantern felt by the community at large, would be to sweep out of existence every instrument for a period of one month. The theatres and halls would then be without their eagerly looked for "Living Picture turns"; the learned societies would be divested of the only means of demonstrating the various advances and progress made by thenresearches and organisations, whilst the commercial man would lose the income derived from the manufacturing of apparatus, slides, etc. «#* All these are acknowledged in the "Lantern Season," but, after the above reflections, when may we say the lantern is " Out of Season ? " The fact is there is not one day in the whole year in which it can be dispensed with. If this be the case, it follows that, with the using of the lantern and its accessories during the summer, there are also unceasing interests to be looked after which are best served through a journalistic medium. Hence, to those of our readers who have thoughtlessly, perhaps, assumed surprise on learning that The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal is going strong in these lighter days, we suggest that if they think a moment or two on what we have said, we are confident that their verdict will be with us. When we say we are going strong, we wish to infer that we are growing, not, perhaps, with the rapidity of Mrs. Scott's plants upon the cinematograph screen ; nor with the suddenness of mushroom contemporaries, which have come and gone within our own experience; but with a growth of natural development, based on a certain and an ever-increasing support, not only in Great Britain, but from all parts of the world. We do not wish