Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

Why Stories Are Changed direct conflict and to keep them there until the time of the dramatic and historical court-martial, the scenarists had recourse to dramatic license. They inserted Bvam into Blisrh's amazing voyage to the island of Timor. The trip covered three thousand miles in an open boat. This kept dramatic cohesion between the two and gave cumulative point and force to the final trial in England. As there was no way to bring Christian into these relations, the picture, unlike the book, does not take us to Pitcairn. It relieves Christian of the dramatic burden, placing it upon the other two. The author questioned five booklovers who had read the story and then seen the photoplav. He asked them to name the differences between the book and the screen play. All picked out one or two minor changes, but only one saw that portions of the second book of the Bounty trilogv, Men against the Sea, had been worked into the picture, and that Bvam had been transposed into the open-boat voyage. But to photoplay experts these changes will alwavs stand as conspicuous examples of how, when deftly done, alterations can add dramatic values to the new art form not possible to the old. Our second generalization deals with the plav. In most stage plays changes have to be made. These usually do not affect the central theme or the main dialogue, but thev provide the necessarv connection by means of which the screen avoids the scene-change interruptions of the stage. One of the best ways to tell the difference between stage and screen technique is to see an early talking picture. In the first days of talkies, before this medium [63]