Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1919)

Romance of the News Reel significance, or picturesque qualities of the event. The pitturf of a regiment of American soldiers marching into battle in France loses nothing of its interest to the audience through the fact that this battle was won weeks before, but actually gains interest through the fact thai the audience now knows that the soldiers won the battle, that many of these splendid men. swinging along the road, gave their lives that the battle might be won, that that magnificent fellow who is singing as he strides on. is perhaps one of those who were decorated with roix dti Guerre, tor gallantry in that battle. The development oi the , news reel to its present status, where the ex (\f(\ hibitor no longer looks upon it as a tiller, ^M^ • V '1ut as a necessary part of his program, *>^\ _y^1/ 's l'ue t0 l^e working it "la-ted (|uiik." \ iths later Universal issued the Animated Weekly, which has continued without interruption ever since. Gaumont came in in [9x2, and has oeen handicapped principally by the absence of consistent distributing machinery. January 2, mi,;, the .Mutual Weekly was bom. The following year Hears! discovered the movies, and in toil joined with William Selig in issuing the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial. The work of entertaining the public through the Hearst Selig New Pictorial was turned over to a clever newspaper man, E. B. Hatriek. Until then, the general theory of the news reel had been that anything which took place in the sunlight was a lit subject for the celluloid journal. Hatriek disagreed. He took the stand that anything which was of mere local interest, however spectacular or sensational, could out of this principle — that interest in the picture of an incident is in direct ratio to the impression the incident made originally upon the mind of the public, and not until the event has lost its significance in the public mind will the screen representation cease to interest the spectator. Charles Pathe, who started pretty much everything in the picture business, commercially speaking, was the first celluloid newspaper publisher. In 1907 he issued the Pathe Journal in Paris. One year later the idea was reproduced by the American branch of Pathe in the Pathe Weekly, the date, to be precise, being August 1. Through various evolutions and combinations this feature of picture production has developed, until with the first week of 1919, the race has narrowed down to three entrants. The Pathe Weekly remains, name and ownership intact. The Gaumont weekly, established in this country in 1912. having passed through various vicissitudes, remains also. All the other news reels have been accumulated by the Hearst organization, at a cost of about Si, 000,000, and will be consolidated into the International Film Service. This embraces the two Universal weeklies (the Animated Weekly and Current Events), the Screen Telegram issued by Mutual, and the Hearst International, which has been dodging about from firm to firm for years. The combined concern will issue three releases a week. In the ten years that the news circulated in America Ej'REQUENTLY promoters of big sport■*■ ing events such as automobile races, world-series baseball games and the like, sell the picture rights in their entirety, and try to keep news-reel photographers out. For such contingencies one editor has invented a concealed compressed-air camera. It is pumped up like an automobile tire and is carried under the operator's arm in an innocent-looking package. The holder touches a button, releases the air, and the camera runs itself, the cameraman meanwhile looking on with the arch expression of the cat who has just eaten the canary. pictures have been there are few concerns which have not been attracted at one time or another, by its possibilities. It was Vitagraph. in 191 1. that first challenged Pathe's monopoly of the field with a monthly release of Current Events. In the parlance of the boulevards, not entertain spectators not interested in the fact itself. The unveiling of a monument to a politician who had donated a park to Squaw Corners, the parade of the Iowa State Convention of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Hedgehogs, the destruction by fire of the grain elevator at Prairieville, appealed to him not at all. He decided upon a policy of interpretation of news, and to this policy the news reel of today owes much of its interest. For example, Congress was considering the literacy test as an amendment to the immigration bill. The newspapers were full of it. This gave the matter the necessary advertising to make it a public issue. But how are you going to show a picture of the literacy test? Hatriek sent a cameraman to Ellis Island, and photographed hundreds of immigrants, their eyes hungry for freedom. These were they who would be barred from the privileges of American democracy, if the literacy test were adopted. He sent a cameraman to Washington and photographed congressmen prominent in the discussion. These were they who would bar the victims of European poverty and persecution, from America; these others were they who took the view that there was welcome here for rich and poor, for toiler as well as for savant. It was not propaganda, except as the fact spoke for themselves. It entertained. Confronted for the first time by competition that carried the news films into a new phase or development — for the Universal service, while vigorous and popular had followed the established lines — Pathe countered with a daring move, and established the Pathe Daily News Service. This was in the spring of 1014. What made this service possible was a special (Continued on page Q4)