Reel and Slide (Mar-Dec 1918)

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WITH THE REEL OBSERVER By Henry MacMahon (Special Correspondence of Reel and Slide) NEW YORK.— The four weeks' moration of feature production illustrates forcibly the ephemeral character of the amusement-film industry. For four weeks, from October 14 to November 9, inclusive, so the official announcements ran, not a scene set was to be built, not a sprocket wheel turned, not an actor nor actress po«ed nor a director directed within the numerous studios of the twenty leading companies; in the same period there wasn't a new film released by the aforesaid twenty companies ; they handed out the old stuff at their distributing exchanges, while they themselves stayed dead or played 'possum in their production departments. Cause, Spanish influenza. It reminds one of the, old story of the man "that kicked the dog that killed the cat that bit the rat," etc. The "influ" closed the picture theaters, the exhibitors couldn't afford to pay film rentals, the companies couldn't afford to produce witfiout their weekly revenue, the studios, and the production staffs couldn't work without pay, so practically the entire amusement-catering industry went to sleep until such time as the grip bacilli could be gotten but of America's system. Of one company it was said that it faced a loss of $200,000 a week in film sales ; the only thing to do was to lay off all the workers and cut studio overhead to the bone until the trouble blew over. Now, for the sake of comparison, imagine, if you can, Macmillan or Harper or Putnam "stopping cold"' because of some temporary condition that closed the bookshops of the country for a month ! Really it is almost inconceivable. The reason thereof is that the publishing houses do noU build for a week or a month or a year. While it is true that they handle "best sellers" and quick turnovers also, the foundation of their business is permanently valuable books that enjoy a steady market year after year. No great publisher is dependent on the weekly or monthly revenue. The life of a good book extends over twenty-five or thirty years. With a good list of titles in ample stock and the approximate pubhc demand forecast for a term of years, the successful publisher isn't the creature and sport of transient business conditions. He can weather almost any storm and continue production withal, because his product is permanent. SOONER or later the film men, too, must awaken to the need of permanent worth in their enterprises. The hand-to-mouth method of conducting an industry is obviously faulty. D. W. Griffith told me three years ago that the life of a film was but a twelve-month, hence the hurry-up methods of marketing and realizing on productions. Mr. Griffith's own successes have since disproved that— "The Birth of a Nation," "Hearts of the World" and "The Great Love" are fiction classics that will long abide in the affections of the American people. Screen fiction classics of high quality can be permanently marketed just like book classics. So can instructional classics. That's the lesson, as I see it, of the film industry's interregnum. Let the manufacturers bend more of their energies to the worth-while stuff and less to the immediate "best sellers." Let them consider the school educational field and the general-instruction field as equally important with the fictional field. In each of the great houses a permanent film library will be accumulated, the steady sales from which will tide over the business through periods of occasional depression. Moreover, the bonanza era of film "best sellers" isn't going to last forever. Remember when the "story paper" publishers were waxing fat and the Nick Carters and Deadwood Dicks were sold by the miUion? Came the time when the Sunday newspaper, with the fiction supplement thrown in free, encroached on the story papers, and the popular illustrated magazines, the .Saturday Evening Post in the lead, took the other. A better public taste was inculcated, and a lot of the "story" publishers were left high and dry. The same thing may happen in the world of films. When the change of public taste comes, it is likely to come very quickly. Almost overnight (as one may say) the wild westerners, the vampires, the sex heroines, the clumsy comedians, the insipid, impossible heroes of current picturedom may go to join the limbo of the forgotten Jack Sheppards, Dick Turpins and languishing ladies of the past, . ONE thing is certain: If the manufacturers don't act in due season, the Government will. What is the meaning of the vast organization built up by the Division of Films, Committee of Public Information? Will it have after-the-war uses? Or will it be dismantled, timber from timber, when the war need has passed? It seems reasonably safe to predict that the Government, having discovered and exploited this great vehicle of popular instruction, won't throw it in the scrapheap. The states and state institutions will follow the example of governmental production. The educational-producing companies will come into their own. The manufacturer who has diversified, who has sought to cover the field of knowledge, as well as the field of fiction, will be in an impregnable position. For the service uses of the motion picture are bound to displace or dwarf its toy uses, just as the real service now performed by motor transportation has relegated to a secondary position the pleasure automobile. I was privileged to see the other day some of the new Mexican topicals that George D. Wright has recently brought back from Mexico City for issue by the Educational Films Corporation. There will be about six units of the new series, each a thousand feet in length. Added to Wright's previous "Mexico Today," twelve one-reelers, they constitute an important work of real school value. When Central America and the South American countries shall have been similarly covered, it will be entirely practical to teach the physical, political and industrial geography of the Western Hemisphere by film. Bringing this great ideal a little nearer, local motion picture companies are organizing in Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and we may look for a great crop of South American scenics and industrials directly, the business is furthered by the establishment of world peace. The necessary material for North American geography is now in hand or (in the case of Canada) is now in the course of making by a governmental agency. ETHNOLOGISTS will be especially pleased by what Mr. Wright has done in the study of types. As China is not fairly represented by its coolies, so neither is Mexico summed up by photographs of its peons and bandits. George Wright's topicals afford a comprehensive view of all classes : the prosperous, Europeanized business man, the "mixed-blood" skilled artisan or mechanic, the half-Indian vaquero or cowboy, the pure Aztec farmer, the Nomad Indians, the pelados or hoboes and the peons or landless serfs. Mr. Wright shows that most Mexicans of whole or part Aztec origin are tireless workers, but still subsisting in the homesspun stage of civilization, wherein each village is a self-sustaining unit and the local primitive industries take care of all the needs of the people. Modern culture has been grafted upon this ancient Aztec trunk in the large cities only, or in the mines and factories here and there operated by Americans or Europeans. Into the backward nationality German influence penetrated by the characteristic German methods. A Teuton, General Klos, is commander-inchief of the Mexican army. Many of the newspapers became proTeuton not only through the might of German gold, but even more because of the insidious lies spread by the German propaganda bureau. The pictures show, among other things, the efforts of Ambassador Fletcher and of the Mexico City branch of the Creel Committee in combating this campaign, which, if unchecked, would have made Mexico openly hostile to us. At the same time they evidence a desire on the part of President Carranza and Secretary of State Aguilar to be seen and known of North Americans. The executives virtually handed Wright the keys of Chapultepec — a carte blanche permission to picturize everything he desired in the political life of the Republic. He availed himself of the permission in a thorough-going manner. The heads of the State, the Congress, the diplomatic corps, the military and the officials pass in close-up and birdseye review, much of the footage, including striking scenes of the Mexican Independence Day. A work like Wright's Topicals is in a sense an international document. By replacing ignorance and misunderstanding with accurately pictured knowledge, it promotes comity and indirectly suggests many ways of the United States helping Mexico without detriment to the latter's pride of race or sovereignty.