Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1920)

50 Photoplay Magazine of contact with the public and a measure of public approval. Until scenario chiefs are given free rein and producers learn what a small part of United States the city by the Hudson really is, this condition will be more and more aggravated instead of relieved. A Good A certain producer is a great be1 . • liever in advertising, and when he l^ocation ^jgj,j(jgs f}^3(. a player has star talent the sky is the limit. He was impressing this upon a certain film luminary with whom he had just signed a long starring contract. "You're all right as far as your work is concerned," said the producer, "but you must remember that it is going to take a lot of exploitation to make you a big drawing card. I expect to spend three times as much in advertising you as I pay you in salary. You're only an empty lot — I'm going to put up a Woolworth Building on you." The new star considered a moment. "At least," he finally ventured, "you must admit that I am a good location." Autocracy One would think Canada had p J paid a sufficient price to help in L^anaaa ^j^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^£ autocracy, that it would hate the thing in every form. Not so. The Province of Ontario has decided in favor of an autocratic censorship, and has abolished its board of appeal. The censors now have absolute power. The worst criminal unhung has the right to appeal from a verdict of guilty, but a picture which offends in any way the little group of self-righteous souls appointed to judge its merits, is executed summarily. The one thing which made Canadian censorship endurable, if any censorship can be said to be endurable, has been destroyed. This in a country which vaunts its "British sense of justice!" And the excuse! Oh, exquisite gem of an excuse! It is that the board of appeal has been neglecting its duty, and overruling the board of censors. Here indeed is lese majeste! Yet, strange as it may seem, Canada does not wipe out its supreme court when it overrules the judgment of a lower bench. Why not? While we are about it, let's stand the pyramid upon its apex, make the part greater than the whole, turn bolshivik and run amuck. A few such grim jests will do the trick. Give a lunatic enough rope and he will hang himself. •^ The Church and The church is still exirh( TVi«-5ii-r« periencing considerable ine ineatre difficulty in adjusting it self to the moving picture. Speaking broadly, the church has entered its third stage of transition in its attitude toward the films. First it regarded the screen as a toy, then as a menace, but now as an opportunity. A few organiza tions have not yet emerged from the second stage, as, for example, when the entire body of ministers of the city of Mount Vernon, N. Y., waited upon the city council and demanded the repeal of an ordinance they had just passed, permitting the Cunday showing of pictures, although the voters had definitely decided in favor of Sunday opening in a recent election. "The Coast" When people go west to make photoplay:, what is their destination? California? Los Angeles? The Pacific Coast? No. It is simply "The Coast." in the days of Augustus Caesar the inhabitar ts of the world meant only one place when the/ said "the city." They meant Rome. "City" had acquired a grand simplicity that it had not held before and has not held since. The fact that the Atlantic has a fairly wellknown coast'; that there was once a rather renowned coast of France and that there is said to be a coast of South America — and perhaps one or two coasts in the Orient— means nothing in picture language. "The Coast" means only and always that part of the California slope beginning at Santa Barbara and ending at San Diego. It is the one, only and eternal. There is no other, and if they at some future time begin to make pictures largely upon the sea side of the Carolinas they will have to get a new name, for "Coast" has been permanently attached to and incorporated by the orange belt. Pictorially there is that coast, and, in the language accredited by all mimics to Ethel Barrymore, there isn't any more. A Splendid The Metropolitan Museum ot roiiri-*»ci7 ^^^ '^ trying its best to do away courtesy ^^^^ ^^^ ..^^^ ^^ j^^^ ^^ j^,„ page in PHOTOPLAY, at least so far as matters pertaining to historical accuracy are concerned. There is no excuse for any producer within motoring distance of the splendid institution on Fifth Avenue using a Rennaisance chair in a Medieval setting, or an Egyptian tomb in a Persian story. In a recent letter, Richard F. Bach, associate in industrial arts at the museum, says "There is so much here at the Museum that ought to be useful to the motion picture interests, that it is really too bad that they do not flock to the galleries to make use of the vast resources offered." Some producers have used the Museum to secure accuracy in detail — Fox for "Cleopatra," ; Artcraft for "The Avalanche," and others. It is a splendid courtesy that this institution offers to the films — the home of all the ancient and honorable arts and crafts throwing wide its doors to its youngest child. It is time the child stopped playing in the dust, and entered the "lordlier mansion."