Screenland (Apr-Sep 1924)

SCMEENLANB a good picture, and the Mayer company purchased it for him. But when Barker and the scenario writers got through tearing the novel down and re-building it to suit their purposes it was again discovered that W. E. Lancaster's story was still intact and the title of the picture was accordingly changed to The Eternal Struggle. So The Law Bringers is on the mar 97 ket again if any producer would like to film it. The moral is: conceding that Ince and Barker both turned out finer films than if they had followed the original story, then what was the use of wasting money on an expensive published work when with the aid of their scenario writers they were able to write a better original story? QEight Dollars a Minute—from page 55. We spoke of The Girl I Loved, Ray's eyes filling with quick tears as I praised it in unqualified terms. "I love it, too," he said huskily. "But God only knows if the public will. I'm not one to condemn the public when it doesn't like my pictures. I think there must be something wrong with the pictures, and not the public. But I know The Girl I Loved is good. So the public must like it. I put everything I have learned in the picture business into it, every ounce of personality and acting ability I possess. And I did not compromise with my ideals, by making it end happily. "That's the reason I have always wanted to be able to make such pictures as The Girl I Loved. But the struggle has been terribly uphill. Certain big interests have made it hard for me to distribute my pictures to the best advantage. One national screen magazine has taken every occasion to knock me and my work, through a personal grudge. I started producing on my own on a shoestring, and costs have mounted beyond belief. Eight Dollars a Minute t & Why, I vv When crazy expert nearly went an efficiency figured that our expenses here amounted to eight dollars every minute of the working day! That almost ruined my acting, for awhile. I dreaded retakes — precious minutes at eight dollars each flying to eternity. Waits drove me frantic. I bullied and hectored until I almost drove my most loyal people away from me. Then I woke up, and determined to forget the nightmare. I would make pictures as efficiently as I could, and let it go at that." I had an uneasy sense of eight-dollar minutes flying past us as we sat in the projection room, and Ray, sensitive as a girl himself, smiled understandingly and reassured me. "They are making some scenes I don't appear in," he said. "Besides, if I were needed, I'd want to talk this thing out with someone who lends a kindly ear. I'm up against it, really. If the public can't see The Courtship of Myles Standish I'm .through. Unless it succeeds big it will be impossible for me to meet my notes. The same thing almost happened on The Tailor-Made Man. I paid far too much for the story and it cost too much to produce. But fortunately it made quite a lot of money. & 6 No More Country Boys Wf hen I made The Girl I Loved, said, and I meant it, 'No more country boys'. To that picture I had given the best that was in me; that was my supreme country boy role. I wanted to get away from them. If the public likes The Courtship, I will have won my freedom, my chance to act something besides the bashful, barefoot boy. If they don't like it — well," he made another of those futile, heart -wrenching gestures with his long hands. "It means back to someone else's lot for me — it means chains again — someone else picking my stories and guiding my picture ethics — " Fine phrases, but Charles Ray meant them. And now the worst has come to pass. The public did not take very kindly to The Courtship of Myles Standish. For Charlie's sake, I am very sorry. But I can't wholly blame the public. In his effort to make a great picture, he made a long and heavy one. He and his staff had done so much research work that it overpowered their picture sense — they wanted to get everything in it that they had learned about Mayflower days. But whatever the reason, the result is the same. Charles Ray is beaten as a producer of his own pictures — temporarily at least. The public has been unusually insistent in Charles Ray's case. He has wanted to abandon country boy roles. The public has insisted that he stick to them. And, begging Charlie's pardon, I think the public is right. Ray is the type of boy he portrays so well. He is bashful, naive, simple, kindly, boyish, inclined to be a little inflated with ego when he has done a big thing, and too prone to deep despair when he has failed — and that is the kind of role the public adores for Charles Ray. Thomas H. Ince discovered and developed Charles Ray. I do not say he made him. No man can make another. But, outside of my personal fondness for Ray and my regret that he had to be hurt, I am glad he is going back to Ince. We will get again the pictures that endeared Ray to his friends, and maybe as Ray and my regret that he had to be the hearts of the public again, a little of the sting will be removed from his own sore heart. NEXT MONTH: Another wonderful story by Anne Austin — about "Our Mary.' Don't miss it. In August Sckeenland, ready July first. Attention! 2nd Edition Revised and Augmented "The little book is a gem." LIFE OF WORLD'S MOST BELOVED STAR Wallace Re id BY HIS MOTHER Bertha Westbrook Reid Heart Gripping Story Trials and Triumphs Smiles and Tears Talents, Attainments, Courage and Martyrdom of this Lovable Lad and Great Genius ILLUSTRATED Delighted Readers Everywhere AMERICA, ENOLAND, NORWAY, AUSTRALIA, FINLAND, CHINA Bound in Cloth, $1.00 Postpaid, $1.10 Sorg Publishing Co. S 48 Vesey St., New York, Tel. Cortlandt 5934 Please send copy of "Life of Wallace Reid." 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