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22
A Girdle 'Round the Earth
denly confronted with the gigantic task of supplying film amusement for the entire world. This, mind you, not only the trade of which she had enjoyed and been producing less than half — in itself a considerable task — but the business vastly swollen with the increase in demand made by war conditions. More people were going to the movies for reasons directly or indirectly traceable to the war than ever before. The very poor, growing prosperous through work in the munitions factories, were now able to afford picture shows and those who had been better off now substituted pictures for the theater perform a n c e s w h i c h they used to atPeowent t h e
tend, pie t o movies to forget the war. People went to the
Theda Baras, where the fine art of "vamping" is as important a part of every young girl's education as arithmetic is in the United States, it flourished as mushrooms would in fine black loam. By the way, film men agree that the big question is whether this country will be able to hold this trade after the war. The serials also were popular among these people — but then a first-class serial is popular and a money-maker everywhere. Take the Orient, for example. The increase in film consumption began to be evident in China, India, and especially
Bill Hart is another American film favorite who is popular the worldover.
movies to remember the war and to see pictures of the European struggle.
American producers were quick to feel the pulse of the new trade, and, feeling it, to provide for it. With that capacity for feverish activity and colossal business enterprise which characterizes the American business man, they plunged into supplying the deficiency. Nor did it take them long to find out what the South Americans and other Latin peoples wanted. Melodramatic films with intense, emotional acting began to appear by the hundreds, and at the same time the foreign trade hitherto inaccessible began to progress by leaps and bounds. As for the vampire plot — well, in a nation of
Japan several years ago, and has been steadily rising. The Orientals like quick action— always to be found in a serial, likewise plotting and conniving and the mystery that surrounds a charm or talisman. Unlike the South Americans, they are not especially interested in the triangle plot. They simply don't understand it, because Western civilization is as yet new and strange to them — an unexplored field.
In the Eastern countries, where women have far less freedom than they do here and are kept more or less subject to their husband's wishes, the audience simply cannot comprehend a picture based on the woman's anger over her husband's love affairs. In Japan the film kiss is censored, being misunderstood and considered immoral, and some time ago it was the boast, repeated with pride, that the princeling of that country had never been debased by seeing a kiss — film or otherwise. Think of the storms of protest that would resound over this country if such