That marvel - the movie : a glance at its reckless past, its promising present, and its significant future (1923)

MOVIE AND CONTINUITY WRITER 97 at one period it seemed as if the screen were stubbornly endeavoring to perform this miracle. A picture-play, whatsoever might have been its origin, succumbed, as a rule, to a tendency to underrate the general intelligence, the power of memory, and the knowledge of life and human nature possessed by the average movie audience. But times have changed. Continuity — that is, the spinal-column of a picture play, — manages, for the most part, to keep the cervical, dorsal and lumbar vertebrae of the narrative in a normal juxtaposition, with the result that dramatic monstrosities are gradually disappearing from the screen. It is still possible to fool some of the people all the time, but it no longer pays, so far as movie audiences are concerned, to throw common-sense into the discard when the screen essays to tell a dramatic story. Recently in a small city within a hundred miles of New York the proprietor of a motion-picture theatre spoke to me of a great change that he had observed of late in the attitude of his audiences toward the silent drama. They won't stand for many things they overlooked a short time ago. They demand both logic and accuracy in our pictures. South Sea scenes must be taken in the South Seas and African wild beasts must be filmed in their native habitat or our patrons revolt. At the present