CHAPTER VII
WHAT MAKES GOOD PICTURES GOOD
Motionpictures are not yet nearly so good as they ought to be. Not so interesting. Not so funny. Not so artistic.
People who know what they are talking about—teachers and artists and editors and preachers—say so. Indeed, it’s an almost self-evident fact.
One of the main reasons is that you and I and the others who watch motion pictures, millions of us every day, don’t know enough about them. So we can’t demand better pictures, and refuse to make poor ones profitable. Taken by and large, we don’t know whether or not the movie stories are well told, or how they are made, or what sort of people make them. We simply go in and watch what appears on the screen, and perhaps wonder whether we really liked it or not. We takewhat is set before us, unable to praise or criticise intelligently, because we know so little about the matter.
It is true that whole articles are written about the dresses and automobiles of lovely Lotta Breeze, the popular star, and we see pictures of directors, and actors, and even an occasional producer. But that is about all. No real public ability to judge movies accurately has yet been developed.
Almost any teacher can tell you why theAtlantic MonthlyandCenturyandHarper’sare better than some of the cheaper magazines; almost any teacher can explain, as well, why the circulation of those magazines is smaller than that of many of their competitors, and why you and I prefer, possibly, stories of the forest or the forecastle. But so far there has been no one to point out what brands of pictures are the best and why they are the best, and where they must be improved, and how it can be done.
We have got to learn—you and I and the rest, now that the movies have come along to claim our time and attention—something aboutstory-telling, and a lot more about how movies are made, and who makes them.
Fortunately, it is mostly very interesting.
Let us look at some facts about story-telling.
Whenever we watch motion pictures, we see somebody doing something, somewhere.
It may be a young fellow from the country, who has come to the city to make his fortune, and finds work as a truck-driver, hauling piano-boxes that are filled with rifles for shipment to the Soviet. It may be a girl who decided to wake up “Ellum Center” by putting in a real live department store. It may be an old man who sails away to the South Seas to try to locate his runaway grandson, and finds a pearl island as well. But always it is somebody, somewhere, doing something.
Those three things are the foundations on which all story-telling is built. People—the things they do—and the places they do them in. Characters, action, and locale.
It may happen that the people in our picture are merely travelers, looking at strange scenes in Siam. In that case, we call the picture a travelogue; the emphasis is neither onthe people, nor what they do; instead, it is on the place they happen to be—Siam. We watch for elephants or queer bullock-drawn carts and odd houses and think nothing at all about whether or not the lady with the parasol is going to marry the man who feeds the elephant.
Frequently we find more or less conventional heroes or heroines engaged in death-defying feats and adventures, with all the emphasis on what they do, and little enough on what they are. That is the usual trend of melodrama.
More rarely, we find really interesting people—children with a slant of ingenuity that makes the old folks sit up and take notice—a man with a temper that gets him into trouble until he finally manages, when the big test comes, to control it. Such films are usually of the better class.
Mostly, we see a blend of all three things. In “The Three Musketeers” Douglas Fairbanks gives us a little more of characterization than the average hero has (we can feel his wit, his audacity, his resourcefulness and loyalty)and shows us as well the thrilling episodes of a fast-moving plot, in the alluring setting of romantic France, a century and more ago. In Charles Ray’s pictures we find still more of characterization, in a winning personality that usually has humor, modesty, ambition, sincerity, and naturalness; but there is a lot of interest that attaches to his trials and tribulations in the small town where he lives. With Bill Hart we feel real character again—cool courage, restraint, a fine spirit of fair play—and always interesting doings against the fascinating background of the cattle country.
Now it is in the excellencies or defects of these three things—characters, action, and locale—that we find good or poor photoplays.
Don’t be afraid that, to learn to be able to tell good pictures when you see them, you have got to watch tiresome pictures. To be really good, photoplays must be interesting. Emerson, I believe, lays down somewhere three rules for reading books—never to read a book that isn’t a year old, never to read a book that isn’t famous, and never to read a book that youdon’t like. With photoplays, we might perhaps say: never go to a photoplay that hasn’t somewhere at least a good criticism (that is, real praise from some one you know or whose opinion you can respect), and never go to a photoplay of a kind you don’t like. Whether or not it is the kind you like, you can tell by noting the stars, the director, and the producing company or brand.
Well, then, supposing we are going to try to see only photoplays that we can genuinely enjoy—enjoy more than has been the case with most of those we have “just happened” to run into in the past—let us get back to our three main ingredients.
First the people. Because in the end they’re the most important of all three. What sort of a chap will we find in a really worth-while movie?
One who, to begin with, is genuine. A regular fellow.
Mostly, photoplays don’t have them. If we want to find regular fellows playing the big parts in a picture we have to make up our minds to pass by a large proportion of thefilms that come along, except in the pretty big picture-theaters. Actually, the men making photoplays hardly seem to know, as yet, what regular fellows are. In pictures you don’t often see the real thing—yet. But it is coming. Every now and then a regular fellow gets on the screen.
In 1921 a preparatory school story, “It’s a Great Life,” came a little closer than most pictures do to showing what real boys may do or think. And even that was pretty far from the mark in some things.
On the whole, Charles Ray and Bill Hart, and in one way, Douglas Fairbanks, have probably come closer, so far, to showing men who are “regular fellows” than any one else. Will Rogers is another, at least in a good many of his pictures.
Not long ago a picture was turned out that hits the nail right on the head; “Disraeli.” It happens that the “regular fellow” in that particular film is an old man, and the story is one that will be enjoyed mostly by rather quiet-minded grown-ups, for it concerns the purchase of the Suez Canal by England, through theforesight of the great man who was premier of England at the time. It may not be the sort of picture you or I happen to like best; but we must not forget that it is the real thing, and shows what can be done.
Another picture that showed real people was “The Copperhead” released in 1920. It was a tragic story, but exciting, and all the characters, from Abraham Lincoln down, were convincing. “Humoresque” was another.
Whenever you find a picture that has regular fellows in it, whether they are young or old, encourage it. If they have the stamp of genuineness—if they do the things that you or I would do, and think as you or I would think, the people that produced the film are on the right track.
But when, if you stop to think, the old men in the pictures are not natural, and the women are not natural (young girls playing the parts of married women of thirty or forty and so on) and the men and boys are not doing what everyday men and boys would really do, we can classify the picture as a second-rater at the best.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.Drama on an Aeroplane.The use of aeroplanes has become almost commonplace in movies on account of the opportunities they provide for hair-raising stunts. Note that, as usual, there are two cameras on the job.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.
Drama on an Aeroplane.
The use of aeroplanes has become almost commonplace in movies on account of the opportunities they provide for hair-raising stunts. Note that, as usual, there are two cameras on the job.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.A Gruesome Aeroplane Wreck.Of course all carefully posed. When “blood” is needed for movie wounds, catsup and glycerine make a great combination.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.
A Gruesome Aeroplane Wreck.
Of course all carefully posed. When “blood” is needed for movie wounds, catsup and glycerine make a great combination.
You may have seen the Charles Ray film called “The Old Swimmin’-hole.”
The story concerned schoolboys and schoolgirls; the incidents were taken straight from boyhood in the country, and were at least passably true to life. The scenes were well planned, the photography was beautiful.
But for me, there was one tremendous defect, that marred what would otherwise have been an exceedingly fine film.
It was this: the boys and girls of the story were—oh, say twelve to fifteen years old. Certainly not more. But the actors who took the parts were nearly all of them nearer thirty than fifteen, and showed it.
Now, boys in a swimming-hole, purloining each other’s clothes, or ducking to get out of sight of some one hunting for them, and all the rest, may be funny enough, and interesting. But when you see a man doing those same things, it is entirely different. And Charles Ray never at any time in “The Old Swimmin’-hole” looks enough of a boy. The result is, that the film, instead of being a knockout, is “almost” the real thing.
Or take “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” It is a fine picture. But Mary Pickford is playing a boy’s part—and we are never quite able to forget that she is a girl. Result: the photoplay isn’t quite right.
We have a right to insist on reality.
Now, when it comes to what the “regular fellows” of our photoplays (men, women or children, it makes no matter which, so long as they are real flesh-and-blood human beings, with real characteristics to distinguish them from everybody else)—when it comes to what they do, we have the chance to see if they are worth while or not.
If the picture is an out and out fairy story, say like “The Little Princess,” or “Rip Van Winkle,” or “The Golem,” we can take our choice. Occasionally, a Douglas Fairbanks comes along and escapes from thirty-nine bloodthirsty villains by jumping over a house, and we like it because it is pleasing nonsense. But mostly, when photoplay folk do quite impossible things, they might as well “get the hook.”
Whether it is scaling precipices that simplycouldn’t be scaled, or rising to heights of grandness that never could be risen to, the trouble is the same. For even when watching pure fiction, we want to have it applicable to life. We want to be able to feel that it really might have happened. And whenever we find a movie hero doing something, big or little, that makes us say or feel “O piffle!”—why—out.
Another thing: our movie people must have worth-while thoughts in their heads.
Take a small thing—the men in a picture keeping their hats on in a house, or perhaps failing to stand up when a lady enters the room, or showing poor table manners, such as would not be expected from gentlemen in the class they are pretending to portray.
Or more important things: In “The Affairs of Anatol” a woman steals a pocketbook to pay back money she has taken from her husband, who is treasurer of a church, and the husband accepts it as quite all right, without making any effort at all to find out where his wife got it.
Apparently, in such cases, neither actors nordirectors knew any better—in the one case good manners, in the other, seemingly, good morals.
But we have a right to insist on something better than that. The people who tell our stories must know more about both manners and morals than we do, or they are not worth keeping on as story-tellers.
How long could a teacher unable to speak correct English be kept in a public school?
If the people of our photoplays don’t do worth-while, intelligent, convincing things,—out with them.
They do not need to be goody-goodies, either.
Last of all, the place where things happen.
Here, it is plain sailing; we want things artistic if possible—but accurate, anyway.
Suppose a boy started to tell you about a game of tennis, and happened to refer to the solid rubber balls.
When a photoplay shows London streets, with all the traffic going to the right, instead of to the left as it really goes there, we watch a lie.
Once in writing a story about a man whohad been in South Africa I referred to the little kangaroos he had seen there. It was a slip; the man was an Australian, and I had confused the little ground apes or baboons of the veldt with kangaroos, in the queer way that we all have of making mistakes sometimes. Kangaroos grow only in Australia. But what a calling down I got from the editor to whom I sent that story! It was his business to see, among other things, that he protected his readers from just that sort of misrepresentation.
In motion pictures, they have not got quite so far along yet. Near-cowboys are apt to seize the pommel of a saddle with their left hand and climb on any untried horse with it, instead of holding the side of the bridle with the left hand, as they usually do. The movies haven’t yet learned that they have a duty of being accurate, and truthful. And we must help them learn that lesson.
To be sure, we may not recognize all the mistakes, or even very many of them; but where we do—put down a black mark. The producer of the picture with that particular lie in it is not playing fair with you.
And now, a final word about how to find the best pictures, and avoid the poorer ones.
First, learn the names of the stars and producers of real ability, who have been in charge of their own pictures so long that we know we can expect pretty good pictures from them. They’re not so many altogether; Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Bill Hart, Charles Ray, Charlie Chaplin, Maurice Tourneur, Harold Lloyd, Marshall Neilan. Whenever you go to a picture made by any one of those people, you know just about what to expect. Of its kind (and you can pick the kind you like) any of these will give about the best there is.
Second, learn to look for praise or criticism of new pictures that are exceptionally good, and whenever you find an unusually strong reason in favor of a picture that seems to be of the kind you like, put it on your list as one you will see.
Don’t go to pictures you know nothing about, made by people you know nothing about. The chances are at least five to one that they will not be worth watching.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.Good Training in Cheerfulness.Movie actors have to learn how to be good sports under any and all circumstances. They have to be able to grin when told to do so, whether they like what they are doing or not.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.
Good Training in Cheerfulness.
Movie actors have to learn how to be good sports under any and all circumstances. They have to be able to grin when told to do so, whether they like what they are doing or not.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.Two Cameras Against One Pig.Animals are nearly always interesting on the screen. They make excellent “actors” because they can never be anything but absolutely natural. This is one reason why dogs and babies nearly always “screen” well.
Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.
Two Cameras Against One Pig.
Animals are nearly always interesting on the screen. They make excellent “actors” because they can never be anything but absolutely natural. This is one reason why dogs and babies nearly always “screen” well.
Third, learn to note the name of the director (or in some cases the star or author or producer) responsible for the picture. Look for the name again.
For instance, among the directors who have become prominent in the last year or so is John Robertson. Go to one of his pictures some time, and see how it proves in all three ways—real people, doing interesting, convincing and worth-while things, in a place that is shown truthfully.