Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1918)

Get a Gun He can join the Army now, having eased The World onto Gradwcll. WILLIAM A. ATLAS, the bearded old gentleman who has had The World on his back since the earliest days of Grecian mythology, is now available for military service with the Allies: one Ricord C.radwell has eased the load off the Atlasian shoulders. "What," asked Mr. Gradwell of Photoplay's reporter, "does the public care about the fellow in overalls, back in the factory? They're interested in the product, not in the foreman." To which we replied that the public would be interested in anybody who had made The World Film corporation quit revolving more rapidly than Russia. You'll remember that it used to be the noisiest sector and most uncertain on the film front — then, rather suddenly, it became quiet as Verdun after the Crown Prince advanced backward so rapidly a couple of years ago. World Film used to be an experience. Now it's a business. Gradwell, president of a Chicago typewriter concern, effected the transformation. Campbell Studio Ricord Gradwell was once the president of a Chicago typewriter concern. Gradwell 's whole career is only a paragraph. He has had a habit of sticking where put — at least until he has worked out his problem. He was born in Virginia, and attended the University of Virginia. Then he became a short-hand reporter in the days when rapid-fire stenography was an unusual achievement. Eventually he went to the Chicago typewriter concern, and remained there for years. He put it over. At the death of Arthur H. Spiegel he came to World Film as sales manager. He is now president of the corporation, and the executive head of every department. Here are a few of his observations on the isinglass industry in which we are all interested: "When any individual gets a mere salary many times greater than the salary of the President of the United States, there is something rotten about the trade that pays it." "Producers are willing to pay such salaries because they are not handling their own money." "Make no mistake about this: the theatre is and will remain the criterion of the drama. The Photoplay is a new and individual expression, and one of the greatest mistakes is to regard it as an illustrated novel or a wordless drama. If I want to go to the theatre I go where there are real actors — talking. If I want to read a novel I go to a bookstore and buy one. I don't try to find a substitute for either at the movies." "Picture people have rather enjoyed the recent discomfiture of the theatre by the war, which, with high railroad rates and the general high cost of living, has. made it almost impossible to send companies out through the country. But when you think it ove'r, that means only one thing: a general revival of the dramatic stock companies of twenty years ago. With a stock company in every town let the actor who comes in all wound up on a tin reel look to his laurels!" "We ought never to forget, but we are forgetting, that the universal appeal and influence of the moving picture lies in its ability to bring art, beauty and diversion to every man, no matter how small his resources. Personally, I do not believe in the high-priced picture show." "The great original fortunes — the only ones that have really been made out of pictures — piled up on the strict five-and-ten-cent basis." "The first question I ask about any story intended for World is: 'Is it clean?' When one considers that pictures are an affair for families and adolescent children as well as for the casual grown-up their moral tone becomes as grave a responsibility as the patriotism of a government official." "I do not think that any story for pictures today is worth $2,000." "If you go to the heart of studio efficiency you will find that the average director does not waste time on his own business: he wastes it on the property man's business." 71