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

THE MOVIE IMPROVES ITS MORALS 111 proposition by replacing, to their own advantage, the old salacious and nonsensical picture plays by screen dramas of a much higher type he would not acknowledge. His mind is of that pessimistic kind that despairs of the republic — and of civilization as a whole — because Tom, Dick and Harry, Fritz, Tony and Ivanovitch for a whole generation patronized unprotestingly the sort of mixed sentimental slush and moron-made melodrama which he, and his kind, served out to them. He failed wholly to realize that, despite the high percentage of illiteracy in the United States — nay, on account of it — it was his sacred duty to endeavor to raise the average of intelligence in our country instead of sending out photoplays that dragged it down to a lower level. And "the play's the thing!" as Shakespeare remarked long ago. The screen idol, like the old matinee idol, has been exploited and advertised and flattered, foisted upon an easily-misguided public, at the expense of the drama itself; and more than one short-sighted producer has lived to regret the day when he hitched his wagon, containing all his worldly goods, to a movie star instead of trusting his welfare to his scenario-writers. That there is light in the darkness a close observer of the present tendencies of the screen, so far as drama is concerned, must admit, but it will be a long time before photoplay