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Wkat Do Since the production of
Th W t > motion pictures is even more y ' a manufacturing business than
the preparation and presentation of stage plays, those who hold the purse strings are continually saying," We give them what they want." "They," in this instance, being the ultimate consumers, the public.
There are a good many false ideas abroad as to what the public really wants. Most of these false ideas, let us hasten to add, are. held by the public itself. That is to say, it knows exactly what it wants, but it is utterly incapable of telling what it wants. If you ask, you get a wrong answer, because the public doesn't know what to say, and the producer is, more often than not, wrong in his inference.
There is a suspicion abroad that the primary requisite is a love story, for the main theme. A love story that must come to a happy ending.
Hardly less positive is the notion that the American people, who set the photoplay taste of the world, demand lively and incessant action. The paramount interest must be continually dramatic and continually in conflict or motion.
Sugar and speed — these are primary ingredients you would put in if you, or almost anyone else, were to write the prescription.
As a matter of fact the theme of the great screen successes has been neither of these things, but the same thing that is the theme of stage or novel triumphs : human characterization.
Come as close or go as far back as you like, and you will find that this statement will stand any test of statistics or reminiscence. Love is, indeed, the dominant emotion of the human race, and action is the very breath of life to drama; but the quality that makes a play either the whilom diversion of the moment or a living document that enthralls the nation is a lack of human characterization, or human characterization in truth and abundance.
Pick out your successes where you will and you will see that this is absolutely true.
What made these pictures ? Plot ? Love interest? Action? These contributed, but the spark, the fire, the breath of life, was humanity.
Show us a director, a scenarioist or an actor who is persistently human, and we will show you human materials who are as bound to advance themselves and their profession as one and one are bound to make two.
Movie A director who is known as a mar-»«• 1 tinet rather than as a Puritan was JViOraiS. talking a company up into the San Bernardino highlands for a week's location work in the mountains. He had a rather gay
crowd, and the gayety started in an innocent rough-house and good time on the outbound train.
He addressed his company: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going on a picnic. This is a trip for business purposes. I want no swearing, no sky-larking, no card-playing, and as little cigarette smoking as possible."
A dead and terrible silence.
Then a timid male voice rose: "Pardon me, sir— would there be any objection to the boys occupying their evenings with a little plain
sewmg.*^
1^
The Loneliest It's Harrison, N. J., where
Town on Earth the Common Council has
passed an ordmance making the cost of a moving-picture license $10,000.
Mayor Riordan introduced the ordinance, and stated, frankly, that the purpose of the exorbitant fee is to prevent that pernicious little influence, the movie, gaining a foothold in his hitherto highly respectable town. He didn't exactly call the movie a pernicious influence, but he indicated as much in other words.
We wonder what the people in Harrison do with their evenings. The town of Kearney and the city of Newark are not far away, and both are places in which the aforesaid pernicious influence is hopelessly and popularly establishedThe commutation service between these places and Harrison is said to have had a very large recent increase. Whittling at the corner grocery has come back into vogue, and may become a fine art. Backbiting one's neighbors, in numerous parlor scandal-fests, can also be resorted to as an uplifting and edifying evening influence. Pool rooms and back-room gambling are of course much better for young boys than an hour in the photoplay theatre. For other entertainments for the young — if the things mentioned are not sufficient — we might ask Mayor Riordan to consult "Spoon River Anthology."
Six Prima-DonDa After the Big Four
Directors. ^°"f ^ '^^ ^'^ .^^^^ r
I he combmation or
Griffith, Pickford, Chaplin and Fairbanks has
been succeeded by a sextette composed of
Messrs. Neilan, Ince, Sennett, Tucker, Dwan
and Tourneur.
Both these alliances owe their origin to a belief that too much picture profit has been going to the business end of the industry.
Now there is no combination or organization, in business, in the army, or in politics without a head. To be explicit, one head. One executive mind, one man who is at least chairman of the board.