Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

REEL and SLIDE The Film Abroad MORE than 90,000 picture shows were given in France alone between August, 1917, and April, 1919, to audiences that aggregated 50,000,000 men. Not a cent of admission has been charged. These entertainments have dispelled the dreary evenings of homesick boys and have done much to maintain their normal mental condition. These movies are given in every sort of building and in the open ; anywhere and everywhere that they could possibly be given, including abandoned chateaux, underground chambers of forts, hospital wards, village theaters, aeroplane hangars, leave-area casinos, transports, and Y. M. C. A. huts. The scope of the pictures is very wide ; whatever is virile and inspiring, helpful and wholesomely entertaining, as well as sheer fun and nonsense, so long as it is clean ; and educational films where they can be used to advantage. Over 4,000,000 feet of film have been sent to France and shown over and over again. The number of showings in the first week of April, 1918, was 368. This has grown steadily week by week, until in the first week of April, 1919, the number of showings was 4,216. The number of projection machines in operation is over 800. There are 965 motion-picture men and soldiers giving all their time to the Y. M. C. A. cinema work. In addition to this, over 500 Y. M. C. A. secretaries give part of their time to the Avork. * * * Motion Picture Stories THE extent to which literature and the drama have been drawn upon to furnish the themes of picture plays is strikingly brought out in the new "Garden of American Motion Pictures." This catalogue lists 970 films selected because of their suitability for the family program or especially fine adult entertainment. Excluding educationals and short comedies, there remain 585 films composed of feature picture's and a few shorter dramatic subjects. The sources of these 585 films are indicated wherever known, and a little reckoning yields the following figures : Total number of pictures passed upon (as below), 190: stage plays or operas (standard or otherwise), 59; poems, 4; other literature, classic or unquestionably standard, 17 — novels, short stories, classic themes like "Cleopatra" ; modern novels not included in previous classification, and magazine stories, 121 ; total, 201. The discrepancy between the total is due to the fact that The Universal Language I AM the Universal Language. I call every man in the world Brother, and he calls me Friend. I have unlocked the riddle of Babel after fifty centuries of misunderstanding. I am the Voice of Home to Democracy's lonely sentinels on Liberty's frontier. I am a chorus of Eagle and Lion and Cock, crying "Shame!" to the Bolshevik Bear. I am the rising murmur of repentance on lips in the Kingdom of Sin. I am California, springing a funny story on Constantinople. I am a Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, singing gently in Chicago. I am a salesman purveying harvesters, tractors, overalls, oil stoves and hog products to the Siberians. I am a vertical and eternal Peace Table, and my Conference has five hundred million delegates. I am a tenement doctor, telling mothers of twenty races how to wash their babies' milk-bottles. I am the rusty tongue of Rameses, thrilling Broadway with the sun-bright story of my lotus-columned temples on the Nile. I am the voice of Christ in the country of Confucius. I am the remembrance of Old Age. I am the chatter of children with blue eyes or almond eyes. I am the shy confession of Miss and Ma'amselle and Senorita. I am a Caspian fisherman, visiting a coffee planter in Santos. I am the Apostle of Kindness, the Orator of Tolerance, the Minstrel of Love. I am the greatest StoryTeller of the Ages. I am the Universal Language. I am the Motion Picture. — Julian Johnson, in Photoplay Magazine. in all cases the motion picture is indebted for its story to both a stage play or opera and to work of fiction or some other department of literature. Assuming that these figures afford a fair index for all photoplays produced in the same period (approximately the year 1918), then it will be seen that nearly one-third of the pictures are founded upon stories represented in the classifications given above. It will also be observed that classic and standard literature supply only a small percentage of themes — 8 per cent — as against 60 per cent for modern or current fiction whose literary status cannot yet be agreed upon. This is to be expected — we are more interested in the world today and what is being written today than in what is past. But it prompts the question : Are motion picture producers really so hard up for good plots as is often claimed? Or rather are scenarists capable of adequately translating the great works of literature to the screen? * # * Film and the Church THE audience at the motion picture conference to the Centenary Convention of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Columbus in July was far from a unit in believing that motion pictures should be shown regularly in church buildings for entertainment during the week. Most of those who opposed believed that the churches should be used primarily for religious instruction and for inspiration. It is inevitable that the line will be more sharply drawn when films are used more generally and that exhibitors will have support from many church people in their contention that they should have the right of way for the exhibition of films during the week. Attention should be called, however, to the importance of increasing co-operation between the exhibitors and church leaders in cities and towns, so that at certain times ministers will feel the value of endorsing dramatic subjects of high moral character appearing in the theaters. Many exhibitors have neglected cooperation with the churches and have therefore failed to win this strong element of the communities for many of their productions. It is interesting to note that many leaders among the ministers and laymen of the Methodist Church attended motion pictures for the first time at the Centenary Celebration. The prejudice arising from lack of knowledge was rapidly broken down and many of them became enthusiastic movie fans, and spoke publicly in favor of the dramatic pictures "exhibited three times a day.