Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

120 Photoplay Magazine headlined in the papers, there are hundreds of excellent motion picture actors and actresses who are not only out of regular positions but who are very glad to take jobs by the day as supers in the studios that are working. I recently heard of one company on the Pacific Coast that fired one hundred and fifty of its actors in one week. In New York I know of four concerns that within the last two months have stopped practically all of their producing. Throughout the country there are numerous studios that are dark. There is a big scramble at the present time to get hold of big stars. When the motion picture business was an easy one no effort was made to corral the men and women who had made themselves famous on the legitimate stage. The ordinary screen actor was able to draw all the public's attention. Now, however, it takes an unusual personality or name to put a film across. The scramble to get stars, if a scramble were made in a sensible way, with the salaries in keeping, would be a sign of progress, but I am inclined to believe that at the present time it is a sign of the motion picture business. The earlv settlers of the motion picture game, men who started in the business ten or fifteen years ago, have for the most part ''cleaned up" and, having their bonds stored away in their safety deposit box, are not so anxious about rent and spending money as they use to be. I doubt if the old-timers are on the job in the way that they were in the early part of the game. Many of these men have not developed younger blood to take their place and, with the passing of the old school, many of the admirable qualities of the administrative end have been lost. During the last year there has been a very decided overproduction of films. This overproduction has been due in part to the open market, which appeared to let down the bars for the little fellows both good and bad, has been in vogue and in part to the change from regular program films to features. A lot of the reels that have gone to make up an overproduction have been trash, but nevertheless they have increased the supply of stuff for sale and have diminished the profits in the business. During the past two years there has been The steel industry, which is now highly specialized, was once in about the same condition that the film business is in today. You doubtless have watched the automobile industry pass through the same kind of a transition. weakness on the part of the larger companies. . You doubtless have noticed that during the last few months there have been fewer promotions of new film companies than at any time in the last two or three years. The promoters, against whom The Photoplay Magazine have hurled many wellaimed bricks, are realizing that the general condition of the business is such that it is not so easy nowadays to hoodwink the public into believing that profits are sure things. When a business gets to a point where promotions are difficult it means that the business is either in exceedingly good condition or else in a critical condition. With the movies I am inclined to believe it is the latter. There are several reasons that might be responsible for the present indigestion in an overstimulation of the public taste. People have had so many thrills, put across in so many different ways, by so many different headliners. that their taste has become jaded, making it difficult for a film made by anyone at any price to get over. Most important of all has been the management of the companies. The motion picture business, being a hazardous proposition, dependent upon public taste, does not lend itself to such systematizing as do most other lines of enterprise. It has been impossible for the heads of the concerns to lav out any definite concrete policy and stick to it. In many instances this has led the companies into loose ways of doing business. The time is at hand when a producer can scarcely make a profit on his investment. Every great industry passed through a