Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1928)

Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section IJ^ eware -the CbatedTongue EVERY physician since the days of Hippocrates has regularly examined the tongue of his patients. For a white, furry tongue is the first and unfailing index of disturbed bodily processes. It is a sure warning of intestinal stoppage, the underlying cause of many, many ills of life. To correct the condition of stoppage signalled by a coated tongue, take Sal Hepatica— the standard effervescent saline. Sal Hepatica sweeps away accumulated food wastes promptly— /««tf//)' with'nt a half hour. When you take Sal Hepatica you have taken the simple, basic step to avoid the headaches, and all the other enervating physical troubles due to stoppage. Sal Hepatica corrects stoppage, relieves acidity and gently flushes away the poisons of waste. Oal Hepatica contains the same health-giving salines as are found in the natural spring waters of the noted European spas. Like these health waters, Sal Hepatica is efficacious in the treatment of indigestion, disorders of the liver and kidneys, hyper-acidity, rheumatism and many other ills. Dissolved in water, Sal Hepatica makes a bubbling, sparkling drink, refreshing to the taste, invigorating in its effect. The best time to take it is upon arising or a half hour before any meaL Keep yourself physically fit and mentally alert with this bracing saline. Look at your tongue every morning. If it is coated — if you av/ake tired and depressed — make yourself internally clean by taking Sal Hepatica at once. Send for the free booklet that tells you more fully how to relieve the headaches and other ills traceable to self-poisoning. -;-r Please adUnss BRISTOL-MYERS CO. Dept. G 28, 71 West St.. N. Y. C. Sal . _ Hepatica How the Screen Hypnotizes You [ CONTINUED FRO.M PAGE 41 ] lady who took a particular dislike to a wroiight-iron chandelier which adorned the living room of a new house she purchased. The chandelier got on her nerves so much that she finally had it replaced with an expensive crystal affair, selling the iron one to a junk dealer. " I simply could not stand that hideous decoration," she said. "I took five dollars just to get rid of it." About a month later the lady attended a picture in one of the scenes of which an iron chandelier, almost identical with the one she had scrapped, played an important part. It appeared in a luxurious and harmonious setting. THIS upset her considerably. She now saw her old iron chandelier in a aew light. Her feeling-tone toward the fixture had been completely changed by the picture. The more she thought of it the more keen she became to ha\e it back. In the end, to pacify herself, she bought back the chandelier from the junk man for thirty dollars. "Some of my friends think I've gone mad," she confided to me. " But I could not help myself, Doctor," she went on. "Once I saw that chandelier in that beautiful setting, it transformed itself from a thing of ugliness to a thing of entrancing beauty. "Is anything wrong with me, do you suppose?" I could, to be sure, quickly reassure her on that score. It was merely a case of a perfectly normal suggestibility streak being enhanced and augmented in a moving picture thea AND here is another interesting fact about the suggestion power of photoplays. \ ou may not be able to make this experiment under perfectly ideal conditions, but you may be able to come somewhere near it. Observe the difference between the force of the suggestion when you are alone in a motion picture theater and when the house is crowded and every seat has been taken. I say, you may not ha\-e the opportunity o.*^ being alone. \'ou may, however, by going very early, when the doors open, achieve almost the same result. Note, then, that the picture does not hold your interest as much alone as when others are seated all around you. What you miss is the "collective mind," the minds of a few hundred persons which, miraculously, tend to blend into one. You feel their presence in a vague yet idling way. It is a mysterious composite effect. When you are in a crowd you lose your indi\iduality. Your cultural taste and standards are lowered. You become more primitive and animallike. You let yourself go, you laugh, weep and are emotionally stirred in ways you would not be if you were alone. When your mind merges with the collective crowd mind you step down a peg. I have seen refined men and women laugh at the most \ulgar kind of slapstick comedy in a motion picture house who, when confronted with the occurrence afterwards, have felt positively ashamed of having exhibited their feelings in this way. Brutal killings, such as might appear in a wild animal hunt, have, in a picture crowd, called forth responses of admiration and fierceness in the most gentle and tender sort of human souls. A crowd always augments our suggestibility tendencies. Undoubtedly this is one of the chief reasons why motion picture palaces are forever growing larger and larger. A FRIEND of mine told me once that he does not enjoy pictures as much when he sits in the balcony as when he occupies an orchestra seat. You can understand why that is so. In looking down at the screen when sitting in the balcony we do not assume the position of eyes looking upward, which is the ideal one for hypnotism. It is no exaggeration to state that you are hypnotized to a degree when you attend the movies. To be sure, if the screen subject does not interest you, the hypnotic element is reduced to a minimum. On the other hand, the picture story may fascinate you to such an extent the resultant hypnosis amounts to a definite trance state. TAKE a look around at the faces of your neighbors sometime. Observe the peculiar staring look in their faces. They are completely lost to themselves and their surroundings, completely absorbed in what is passing before their eyes. They look for all the world like the subjects in an hypnotic trance. Because motion pictures have such o\"erwhelming suggestion power is the very reason why they can have such a tremendous educational value. Many a boy and girl has been inspired through pictures. The lessons learned through a picture stick in the mind and last longer than lessons learned through any other medium. Undoubtedly it will not be many more years before the movies will play as important a role in our pedagogical system as the blackboard, spelling and arithmetic books. Make the experiment and find out how strong the suggestion power of pictures really is!