Screenland (Oct 1923-Mar 1924)

Screenplays Need Two Theaters Mr. White and the Cripplewits Popularizing a King NLY the other day William Allen White, the famous editor of Emporia, Kansas, announced that "the movie crowd is a bonehead crowd." And he continued: "The movies, speaking generally and allowing for those who go to the movies only three or four times a year, attract as habitues only the cripplewits, lame-brains and half-heads." Then, to prove his assertion, Mr. White puts forth, as Exhibit A, the result of a recent ballot by a motion picture firm, made to find out the favorite authors of screen audiences. The ballot selected Gene Stratton Porter and Mary J. Holmes as the movie literary favorites. Mr. White went on: "Until the movie makers segregate their theaters — putting the lowbrows in a theater by themselves and putting on pictures in one theater in each town which are too 'deep' for the dumbbells, the intelligent people in the country will avoid the movies and leave the movie theaters to the dubs of every community." All this has been received with the customary wails of anguish from filmland. Yet, if we're honest with ourselves, there is a lot in Mr. White's remarks. The ultimate future of the screen will lie in two distinct and separate film theaters — one for the popular movies and the other for the screenplay stories striving for imagination and vitality. The Return of the Magic Film R EMEMBER the old French magic films, with a knife moving in mid-air apparently without a hand to guide it — and yet slicing a loaf of bread? The vogue of the magic film will doubtless return with Doug Fairbanks' Bagdad. An interesting episode has just been filmed. It shows Doug donning a magic coat and vanishing forthwith. Then you are permitted to see the heroine struggling with three Orientals. Suddenly one of them is lifted shoulder high by invisible arms and tossed aside. Another is knocked down by an invisible fist and the third is thrown bodily through a window. Then the girl is lifted — still by the transparent hero — to the magic carpet, which transports her across the housetops of old Bagdad. Then Doug re-appears beside her. All of which ought to be highly effective. If it succeeds it will bring down the usual avalanche of imitators. So you can pretty nearly count upon a return of magic — and the requisite trick photography. Manufacturing Another Star r r^yp*=^HE movie magnates never seem to give up. Since the very first days, they have been trying to manufacture stars without any real measure of success. The path of the screenplay is studded with Mary Miles Minters. It can't be done. Audiences are attracted by the personality that interests — and a mere name hung in lights outside a theater is no real bait these days. Every year or so these audiences nominate a star of their own, as Rudy Valentino, and all the forces of the screen can't stop stardom. Just now certain screen interests are grooming Colleen Moore for electric light fame. We can't help but admire such superlative optimism. N the other hand, the screen can do a lot for any person in the public limelight. The time may come when success in a presidential election may depend upon which candidate has the most ingratiating film personality. Once the speaking voice played just that part. Consider the case of the Prince of Wales. He is probably the most popular member of a royal family anywhere on the globe today. And all because he has an odd but sharply defined boyish charm. Indeed, the British Government very wisely has utilized the news reels to build his popularity. Here is an instance where a celluloid personality has furthered considerably the life of a royal family in an increasingly democratic land. A strange commentary upon the biggest weapon of democracy. When Players Were Unknown ■ TILL, star building is really a development of the motion picture since 19 13. That is, on the part of the producers. Screen audiences were putting their idols on celluloid pedestals before that even though their names were unknown. For instance, in looking through a file of the old New York Dramatic Mirror, we find this quaint statement, dated July 2, 1910: "There is a difference of opinion between manufacturers as to the policy of publishing the names of players in the pictures. The Biograph company holds that no good can come of it, and the names of their players are strictly withheld. Other companies are commencing to pursue a different policy, although to a very limited extent." On March 19, 1913, the Biograph company succumbed to popular opinion and gave the names of their players to the waiting world. The Dramatic Mirror reproduced a picture of the Biograph players and gave the complete roster as follows: Chrystie Cabanne, Harry Carey, Claire McDowell, Lionel Barrymore, Bobbie Harron, Mary Pickford, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Alfred Paget, Blanche Sweet, Henry Walthall, Dorothy Gish, Charles Mailes. As usual, the producers were several years behind the public. Mary Pickford had been an idol for a long time simply as "the little Biograph blonde." Discovering Mr. Shakespeare "Y"OW that the films have discovered Shakespeare and particularly his love tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, we may look for a long series of film adaptations. The screen always acts upon an idea en masse. We can not forsee the successful presentation of Shakespeare on the screen. His beauty of line will become nothing but awkward sub-titling and nothing will remain but a series of screen tableaux. A Scandinavian company once made Hamlet screenically entertaining by building it from the legends about which Shakespeare had written his drama. And Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish are-going to go about their Romeo and Juliet in the same way. Herein lies the only opportunity of the films to'do Shakespeare with any degree of success. A Shakespearean avalanche! We shall see.