Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

PH0T0P1 \n MaGAZINI ADVERTISING Si i ["ION 119 in New York, going into production M .ui«! going on the w reen tor ■ trade showing at Hammerstein's the week oi M.i> »s [t was ;i five reel production, offered to itate's rights buyers through the General Film Publicity <v Sales Company. The nameoi this independent concern was obvioush an effort to capitalize ■ certain phonetic similarity t<> the name oi the great General FUm Company. II A Spanuth was credited with being the prime mover oi this enterprise. "Rip Van Winkle" in 50 Peel H one is to seek the first famous player in a famous play for the screen, turn back to [897 and the American Mutoscope & Biograph's little nf t>-tcK>t presentations oi Joseph Jefferson in •• Rip Van Winkle." They were trivial indeed, but all embryos look trivial. They were the dino-.iur eggs of screen evolution. And the ten year patents war that followed was tin glacial interruption. In this history we have seen the motion picture begin with the little episodic fragments of action and grow lengthwise from subjects of forty feet to subjects of many thousands of feet. It took the motion picture sixteen years to make that growth. The picture continued highly limited in length and scope for years because the men who made pictures had nothing to tell, and because the creative minds with something to tell were not aware that the motion picture offered an articulate language and medium. Mechanically the motion picture was capable of the equivalent of "The Birth of a Nation" or "The Covered Wagon" in 1897. Hut the machinery had to spend a decade and a half finding men and mind-. Step by step, the long motion picture drama with the scope of a play or novel approached down the years. Competition for profits, battles for a foothold in the new industry simultaneously forced and impeded progress in the screen art. Pictures became better only when they had to be better to get the money. The Motion Picture Patents Company and the established independents were already getting the money in 191 2 and they held that the pictures were good enough. Adolph Zukor, among others, saw a prospect that better pictures might open a way into a stiare of the profits and possibly increase the said profits. Out of such situations every inch of motion picture progress has come. An Early "Vanity Fair" Closely contemporary with the formation of Famous Players, another pretentious feature venture besomed forth in the Helen Gardner Pictures Corporation, destined to a short and uneventful life. Miss Gardner was a teacher of pantomime when she went to Vitagraph early in 191 1. She played minor parts for a time and first came to real attention in the role of Becky Sharp in "Vanity Fair," one of Yitagraph's successes of the day. Inspired by the urge toward bigger pictures, Charles Gaskill. a scenario writer, and Miss Gardner formed their independent company and established a studio at Tappan-on-Hudson. Eugene Mullin, then a member of the Yitagraph scenario staff, went along as a member of the organization. Mullin was then well near a veteran in the young art of the scenario, with three whole years of experience behind him. He was a youngster of a ticket agent in an office on the Long Island railroad in 1909 when he became inspired of a notion that Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake" should be done in motion pictures, and forthwith sent a scenario to Yitagraph. Yitagraph accepted the idea and sent for the aspiring Mr. Mullin. "The Lady of the Lake" was made with Edith Storey in the role of Ellen. It ran to the amazing length of four reels, released one at a time on the General program. The Helen Gardner Corporation stepped boldly forth with a six-reel version of "Cleopatra." 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