Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1920)

Murdered Bram Children Being a .small portion of the docket in the Great Assize Court, in the case of the Scenario Author vs. the Producer, Director, Cameraman, Scenic Artist, Cutter, et al. By RANDOLPH BARTLETT Decorations by Norman /tnlhony SUPPOSE you were the proud father of a newly born infant. To you it was the mo.^t wonderful thing in the world. It was beautiful, enhaloed in sweetness and light. The least movement of its small hands, the least flicker of its eyelids denoted intelligence of a precocity that almost frightened you. At once you were overcome with a sense ol your responsibility to this splendid oftspring. and were determined that it should be reared to manhood in such wise that all the world should bow to this, your child. Suppose now that you showed it to one whom you had considered a friend, not so much to get his opinion as to permit him to gaze and admire, and suppose he said: "Ugly brat! Why let it live?" Suppose, feeling only contempt for a person so blind and ignorant, you showed the wonder child to another friend and he looked pityingly at you and said: "What is it? The missing link?'' Still the pride of paternity persisted, but one after another those wnom you had long regarded as good friends cast skyward noses at the child. This did not weaken your own love and faith in the infant's destiny, but merely made you bitter toward all the world. And that is why scenario authors become pessimists. Every man, woman and child who has written moving picture scenarios ha? some favorite scene, some delectable brain-child, not necessarily the main part of a plot, nor the theme of a drama, nor the big scene, nor the supreme thrill — but just somefragment of fancy that its mental parent knows is one of the most exquisite things ever given to a waitinf world. It would embellish any picture, fit into any story, perhaps, and so with magnificent persistence the father of the idea writes it into every script, only to sec it foully murdered by one or another of those autocrats throuch whose hands each picture must pass. The producer thinks it is over the heads of the public, and slays it: the stuflio manager thinks it would clog the action, and decapitates it: the casting director says the right type cannot be found, and garrotes it; 80 I .SB — the electrician foozles the light effect and smothers it: the cameraman throws it out of focus and gibbets it: the director decides it would be too much trouble, and stabs it: the star iloesn t like her close-up in it, and strangles it: the editor needs footage and guillotines it: and if, by some twist of luck it should pass all these perils, the negative will be lost in the cutting room. This is the history of, not one, bui many scenes, of which a few have been compiled. Here, for the first time. ;hese favorite sons shall see the light of publicity, and you shall decide whether or not they belong upon the screen. One of the most populous of the private graveyards is that of Charles E. W'hittaker, author of numerous shadow tales for Paramount, Clara Kimball Young, Maurice Tourneur and others. The gem of the collection, the most tearwashed of all the tombs, is this: A French actress, after a terrible tragedy at home, comes to America, and living quietly in the country makes friends with a young American boy, about ten or twel\e years old — a dreamer, not a roughneck: polite, not flip: clear-skinned, not freckled: romantic and decently clad. In the actress" garden is a statue of Pan. and she tells the boy of the love symbolism of the ancient deity and his pipes, giving the lad a whistle which he learns to play for her. She finds her romance, but tragedy again comes to her. and she goes back to her garden, where she finds the bov's whistle, broken. "They told me it was too highbrow,"' moaned Whittakef. as he sketched the fable. Luther Reed, now in the Thomas H. Ince scenario department, tells of the following crime perpetrated by another concern: ".A light woman of Paris, tired of her companion, a wealthy munition maker, is about to leave him for a vulgar liason with an apache, when she meets a blind sergeant, now dependent upon the irovemment for hi< living. For the first time in her life she is stirred by a worthy passion, and she takes the blind man to her (Continued on pa^r io(^) "\Ve see this dream eh and her perfectly-marcelled locks, standin(J in a lacy nightie — but the curl papers and cold cream never get heyond the scenario department.