Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

Investing in the Mm ies 121 time when it was growing so fast its < lothes did not fit. When one considers that the motion picture business is, commercially speaking, only a little over a decade old, and that it has grown to its present gigantic proportions in so short a time, it is not surprising that it should be full of weeds. The steel industry, which is now highly alized, 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 transition. There are a lot of people who believe that the time to make money out of a business is to get in when things are bad — buy a store when it is not paying profits, then von can get it cheap : buy a farm that is run down, buy stock when the markets are \ n \ low and hold until the} rise in pi There are doubtless several motion pi< ture companies that will paj handsomely nvestments made at the present time, but you might have a great deal oi diffi cult) in selecting the companies thai will emerge from this depressed condition in good shape. The conservative investor will hang around on the side line to See what happens in fore parting with am Large roll real dollars. 1 am reasonably sure that the same thing will happen in this industry that has happened in all greal industries, that out of today's chaotic condition will develop a Strong Motion Picture Industry thai will he made \\\> of companies whose storks will he good business risks. No Gloaming Slumber First "Inflated" Salaries \TOT long ago "The Birth of a Na*" turn" was showing in a certain city in the Far South. As the film play deals largely with the Reconstruction Period, and as this particular town in this particular stale had an especially severe taste of carpetbaggery in the years immediately succeeding the Civil War. the editor of the leading local paper decided to get the views of a number of prominent citizens, of an age sufficient to have remembered the actual event, on the question as to whether the film version correctly portrayed history. Some he saw personally : some he reached by telephone. In the latter group was included a charming elderly lady of outspoken tendencies, whose husband had been a distinguished officer of the late Confederacy. "Mrs. Blank." asked the editor over the wire, "have you been to the theater yet to see the moving-picture play called the Birth of a Nation?" "I have not." said she. "Then probably you wouldn't care to give an opinion of its merit and its educational value for publication?" continued the newspaper man. "I'll say just this much." stated the lady: "I passed through the Birth of a Nation myself. And — believe me, young man — it was no twilight sleep!" — Saturday Evening Post. DACK in the pioneer days of '09 when '-'Griffith was producing Biograph thrillers with the aid of Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, Florence Lawrence, the late Arthur Johnson and others who have since won fame and fabulous salaries, the regular emolument for principals was $5 a day. Doesn't seem true, but it was. One day in the old Fourteenth street studio, Griffith was directing a picture and somehow or other, there wasn't enough "pep" displayed by the company. The scene called for a group rendering a college yell and the director announced that instead of the usual "five-spot," the actors showing the most spirit would get double that amount. The announcement created a sensation, as may be readily imagined. There was a brief conference by the principals, according to "Billy" Bitzer, Griffith's head cameraman, who has a memory, which at times is embarrassing to some of the present stars. Then they got together and here is the yell that was yelled when Griffith ordered Bitzer to "shoot :" Biograph ! Bio graph .' 1 1 ah! Hah! Hah! Ten dollars! Ten dollars! Rah! Rah! Rah! All got the double pay and it never went back to $5.