CHAPTER X
MOVIES OF TO-MORROW
Whatwill the movies be like ten or twenty years from now?
Recently a very beautiful photoplay, made by a famous French director, was brought to New York. It told of two boys and a girl, a foundling, who grew up together on a French farm. One of the boys was a farmer, and the other became a sculptor, and the story concerned their love for the girl, and which of them should marry her—the artist who made beautiful statues, or the farmer, who tilled the soil and produced the crops without which there would be no artists or any one else.
A good many people saw that picture, in private projection-rooms. One New York editor who watched it said it was the most beautiful photoplay he had ever seen. Most of those who saw it were deeply moved by it,and called it “tremendous.” But no motion-picture distributor cared to handle it, or show it to the American public.
The man who represented the producers of the picture, himself a prominent artist and musician, explained why such an exceptionally fine film had gone begging around the New York market for months and months, while infinitely poorer pictures were being released every week. “It’s ahead of its time,” he said. “Five years from now, such a film will soon become famous.”
That is interesting.
If you have been reading these pages about motion pictures carefully, you have probably by this time been impressed with two things: First, that the movies are tremendously important—enormous, fascinating, influential, popular forces, capable of improving, or injuring, our entire American civilization; and second, that in spite of tremendous advances already made, they are still, in the opinion of those who ought to know, far below what they ought to be.
Taken by and large, motion pictures, whilealready tremendously powerful, are still amazingly poor.
What are the changes that they will have to undergo, to become really uplifting, instead of perhaps actually degrading, influences in our lives? And what will bring those changes about? What must you and I do, to play our part in bringing about a betterment, and what will that betterment be, when it comes?
The first thing that will make a difference is knowledge. As soon as you and Henry Jones and Dug McSwatty know enough about the movies to avoid going to the picture shows that are not worth seeing—and know how to tell whether or not particular pictures are worth seeing when you see them—the picture makers will give you more of the sort of films you’d really like to see.
That may sound a little like a dog chasing his own tail—but it is not. You and I, and Dug and Henry, in the last analysis, are the bosses of the whole motion-picture industry. The movies are made for us. If we do not like the kind that is shown, the movie people will try to please us by showing another kind.
But with reservations. For there will always be more pictures made than you and Henry and Dug and I—all of us after all representing only one class—can pay for.
There will always be cheap pictures, and poor pictures. They will be made for the fellows—millions of them—who don’t know any better.
That means—since before very much longer you and Dug and Henry and I will pay to see better films, that not so many years from now class pictures will be made.
At present, almost every film is made with a dim hope at the back of the producer’s mind of pleasing everybody. Or at the very least, of pleasing the greatest possible number. Moving pictures cost so much to make that they have to go, each of them, to hundreds and hundreds of thousands—yes, millions of people, to pay back mere expenses, let alone a profit. But just as soon as certain people, who like a certain kind of picture, know where to find that picture when it appears, and go to it, and pay to get it, pictures will be made for them, and for them alone. Adventure stories, perhaps,for you and Henry and Dug and me, and sentimental love stories for Minnie Cooty and her friends, and so on.
Just as among the magazines, you find the so-called “highbrow” magazines and reviews, and the romance magazines and the adventure magazines, and the detective or mystery-story magazines, you will be able to find the movies of the kind you want, under the label that will enable you to recognize them. That will be one of the important things—the label.
Suppose for a moment that all the magazines were published in blank white covers, and when you went to a news-stand to buy reading-matter, you had to pick at random, hoping that after you had bought the magazine “sight unseen” you would find it contained the particular type of story or review you wanted!—That is almost the way it is with motion pictures now—except that, because of the queer existing situation, each movie man tries to put into his picture something for everybody; as though the owners of magazines published in blank white covers should try to please grown-upsand children and boys and college professors and law-students and hoodlums and scientists with a single volume of reading-matter.
As soon as this change comes about—the division of movie audiences into the proper groups or classes—we shall see a big change in the whole industry. Then it will be possible to show such a film as that French peasant story, profitably.
And it will not be long before that change comes; it is on its way already.
Look at Goldwyn, for instance—and Universal, and Metro and Vitagraph.
Universal was one of the first to begin to make distinctly “class” pictures. I don’t believe that they even knew quite what they were doing—consciously, I mean. But they began to make good “cheap” pictures, that were distinctly not for the “exclusive” audiences. Their pictures were for the people who wanted clearly “popular” entertainment, as distinguished from “highbrow stuff.” The result was that, with honesty and sincere effort, they soon came to occupy a place as leaders, producing thrillers of “Western” action, where cowboyheroes would ride up at incredible speed in the final feet of the last reel, and save the lovely heroine with a six-inch gun in each hand. Gunpowder, adventure, excitement, and love—that was the formula, served in large doses for those audiences that were not too particular about the plausibility of their stories, so long as they contained those ingredients.
With Metro and Vitagraph it was more or less the same, with this difference: that they both tried to reach a little higher grade of audiences with their melodramas.
They tried to get on the screen a little more of artistry; the heroine didn’t need to be quite so truly good and beautiful, or the hero quite so noble and brave and quick with each of his guns. But after all there was not so much difference, and in some way Universal, perhaps seeing a little more clearly just what they were doing, had something of an advantage.
Later, Metro tried still harder to please more discriminating audiences—with varying results. “The Four Horsemen” is a film of fine qualities, for audiences with a certain kind of grown-up mind. It tells of how a boy from theArgentine, and his friends and relatives, were drawn into the Great War, and gives a wonderful, complicated picture of human nature, and war, almost as impressive and confusing as life itself. On the other hand, “Turn to the Right,” equally well done, and by the same director (Rex Ingram—the name is worth remembering) is almost childish in the way the story is handled, with the crooks and the innocent hero and the girls and the misunderstandings that go to make it all up.
And with Vitagraph, “Black Beauty,” one of their most pretentious films from an artistic standpoint, mingles the beautifully told horse story with a brand-new tale of utter melodrama, that the horse is supposed to tell. “Black Beauty” was all right as long as he stuck to his own story; but when he came to telling the story of the human beings around him for Vitagraph, I am not so sure whether he really had good horse sense, or not.
Goldwyn, and Famous Players, and later on, First National, definitely went in for better-class films. With Goldwyn, the effort, while not altogether successful, was so sincere thatit more than once came close to endangering the future of the entire organization, through putting out “class” pictures ahead of their time. “Milestones” is an example of the kind of picture that as yet has not really found its own audiences, and so presented a pretty big problem to its producers from the box-office standpoint. It tells three stories in one, of how, in three successive generations, the young people follow up their own ideas with new inventions, and marry as they want to, before they find themselves growing old and conservative and advising against the very things they made a success of when they were young.
Of the existing companies, Famous Players has done even more to bring along the day of class pictures and divided audiences, and has so far remained far ahead of Goldwyn in the actual number of truly artistic pictures produced.
But let us get a step closer to this business of putting out “better pictures,” such as we may expect to have in larger proportion to-morrow. We can do so by noting what particular “better films” have done.
“Humoresque,” made by Cosmopolitan Productions, and distributed by Paramount, may fairly be classed as a “better picture.” It was also a popular picture. The returns on the film ran to tremendous figures—said to be well over a million dollars. It told the story of a Jewish boy, the idol of his mother’s heart, who gave up his opportunities to become a great violinist to enlist when the United States entered the War. People really wanted to see flesh-and-blood characters on the screen, instead of just noble heroes and beautiful heroines. Dug and Henry and I—and likely you, too,—enjoyed the little boy and the little girl and the big little family where on birthdays there “came a meanness” into the house.
“Humoresque” made a big step towards the “better pictures” day that is coming, by showing such queer things as the real-life little slum girl finding a dead cat in an ash-barrel and loving it—because the producers made a big profit on the film.
Wherever better pictures make money, other producers will imitate them; again, that’s where it is for you and Henry and Dug andthe rest of us to keep away from poor films and find and pay admission to those we really like.
Another picture: “Broken Blossoms.” That was a tragic story of a little girl of the London slums who was befriended by a Chinaman after her brutal father had given her a terrible beating. It ended with almost as many deaths as Hamlet, but it was so beautiful, artistically, that American critics hailed it as the most wonderful movie ever made.
Now, tragedy is never very popular in America. We like to have our stories end at a pleasant turn of the road—an engagement, or a wedding, or a successful culmination of the search for treasure, or what you will,—instead of stopping only when the people of our story finally die, or quarrel, or give up the search for the gold. And because “Broken Blossoms” did not have this popular appeal—the happy ending—Mr. Griffith, who made it, had to take it and exploit and exhibit it himself, in order to secure a hearing—or a “seeing”—for it.
This was the result: The picture was hailedas so wonderful that millions went to see it, because of its reputation. Of those millions, hundreds of thousands, perhaps, were not able to like it, because it was so tragic. Other movie producers, watching the result, noticed this, so that although the picture helped the movies along artistically, it didn’t convert other producers to that sort of effort. “People don’t want that sort of stuff,” they said in too many instances. “Look at ‘Broken Blossoms,’—they really don’t want better pictures.”
Another famous film was “Over the Hill.” That picture helped movies along because it didn’t cost much to make—relatively speaking—but brought in as much for the producers as other films costing far more. The story, of a devoted mother who was neglected or abused by all but one of her children when she needed their help and love, was far better than the average movie, and had a big, and healthy, emotional appeal. Any fellow who could watch it without resolving to be better to his own mother would be pretty worthless.
“The Old Nest,” another story of the sametype, though not quite as appealing, also did well. Such pictures, worth while in themselves, and at the same time profitable, helped along the whole picture industry.
Courtesy United Artists Corporation.Archway from “The Three Musketeers.”A high degree of artistry has been reached in the designing of motion-picture sets.
Courtesy United Artists Corporation.
Archway from “The Three Musketeers.”
A high degree of artistry has been reached in the designing of motion-picture sets.
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.A Mexican Gateway from “Winners of the West.”Simplicity is often the keynote of effectiveness. Here an impressive effect is secured with a minimum of effort
Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation.
A Mexican Gateway from “Winners of the West.”
Simplicity is often the keynote of effectiveness. Here an impressive effect is secured with a minimum of effort
“The Copperhead,” on the other hand, and “The World and His Wife,” two of the finest films ever distributed by Paramount, did not help things along very much, because being, like “Broken Blossoms,” more or less tragic, they failed to find the audiences that might have made them profitable.
A few years from now, when certain brands, names, or concerns have come to have a definite following of audiences that will know what to expect from them, “The Copperhead” or “The World and His Wife” could be distributed, in all probability, with far greater success. “The Copperhead,” in particular, a patriotic spy story of the Civil War, with the appeal that it has through the portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, as well as its stirring war setting, would be sure to please—as soon as it could find the right audience, and a big enough one.
This brings us to another point of improvementthat will be seen in pictures before long: good films will last longer.
Just such pictures as these mentioned, for instance,—“The Copperhead,” “The World and His Wife,” “Over the Hill,” “Broken Blossoms,” and many more, will be watched and welcomed again just as gladly as was Mary Pickford’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” or Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” The day when a good picture will “go” only when it is brand new—only when you and Dug and I have never seen it before, and go to it only because it’s new, is almost over. In the long run you and Dug and I—and Henry, too,—have more sense than that. We shall be just as willing to see and enjoy a good picture a second time—perhaps years after we saw it the first time—as we are now willing to re-read a book or story that pleased us immensely.
As an example, take “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”; any one who enjoyed that whimsical yarn of a Yankee in armor as much as I did will be entirely willing—yes, anxious—to see it again, if it is shown once more, half a dozen years from now.
Never be afraid to go to see a really good film twice; never be afraid to go to see a really good film after it is old or out of date. That will help things along. For the quicker poor photoplays die, the better off we are, and the longer good ones live, the better off we are, too.
Next, to get to another change that will come to the movies very shortly. That is the coming in of a more far-sighted dollar.
Far-sighted dollar? Exactly. At present the dollars invested in movies are mostly very shortsighted. At the very best, we can say they are—well, “smart.” They don’t look ahead. They take no particular pride in their work. They are not ashamed if they fail to give value received—100 cents of satisfaction for every 100 cents.
Speaking of dollars in this way is entirely correct. For a dollar is an inert thing, that takes on life and movement and power and individuality in accordance with the ideas and ideals and personality of the man who spends or invests it. The selfish dollar is the coin of the purely commercial business man who merelytries to get as much as he can while giving as little as he can. The intelligent dollar is the dollar of a really intelligent investor, who expends it wisely, and fairly, and in such a way that it will bring him both a sure and an honorable return.
In motion pictures, the average investor, up to the present time, has been either a “sucker” who simply lost his money, or a speculator who took a blind chance, or a “wise guy” who knew the picture business and merely played it for what he could get out of it, with little or no regard for the other fellow, or the public, or American prestige, or anything else that didn’t directly affect his own pocketbook. Of course there are exceptions—but after all there are not so very many of them. The dollar of the average American movie producer to-day is still a rather unintelligent dollar.
Up to this time, intelligent dollars have been a little ashamed to go into motion-picture investments, because with so many unintelligent dollars around they were afraid they would be classified the same way. A publisher, for instance, who has had wide magazine experienceand who now runs more than one New York magazine, was recently urged to go into a motion-picture investment “for the good of the movies.” He refused, because, he said, he had never stooped to that kind of investment. To him, the movie dollars seemed so selfish, so short-sighted, so unintelligent, that he refused to let his own dollars associate with them.
Every time, though, that your father, or Dug’s father, or Henry’s father, chances to invest dollars in any motion-picture scheme that turns out better pictures, that pay by being better,—and such investments are now possible every once in a while—the unintelligent dollars in the movies are crowded a little farther along the bench, and the whole industry, and indirectly the whole country, is that much better off.
The time is now close at hand when motion-picture investments will rank much higher than formerly, so that intelligent dollars may come in without losing their self-respect. When the industry is regarded as quite as honorable a field for investment as in the case with, say the newspaper or book-publishing business, we shall have far better pictures.
And finally, the movies are just now on the edge of invading a brand-new field.
When your sons go to college, they will probably watch motion pictures a good deal of the time.
Just as certainly as the books and the magazines and the newspapers followed the invention of the printing-press, educational films will come to replace some of our present methods of study.
Already we have seen the news reel, and the scenic, depicting the scenes where history is being made to-day, or showing more graphically than any printed words could ever describe it, the rush of water at Niagara Falls. Unconsciously, we are learning geography from those scenic reels right now, more often than not. If you have seen the top of Vesuvius, and the scenes about the top, in motion pictures, you know more about that wonderful old volcano right now than any school-book ever taught you.
Slow motion pictures show how the tennis-player serves, how the swimmer makes his crawl strokes, how the wrestler gets his hold. Scientific films have shown the circulation ofthe blood, with the veins and arteries magnified to a degree that makes them look like brooks, two feet wide, with the pulse-current sending along fresh waves, half a foot high. A camera placed in the best position for observation at a clinic can bring to the screen the most minute detail of a delicate operation performed by the greatest living surgeon—and make that knowledge available for hundreds of thousands of students.
It is through this door, perhaps, this educational door, that the great metamorphosis of the movies will come. For the making of reels that will carry information for students, that will take truth and wisdom to whole generations of scholars, is an honorable and conscientious undertaking. With money profitably invested in motion-picture ventures of this new, and inevitable, kind, the whole motion-picture field will take on a new aspect, and attract the more intelligent dollars, the more honorable dollars, that will in turn gradually lift the character, and the quality, and the products, and the results, of the entire industry.
Well, that brings us to the end of this movie-talk,that you and I have been having together. If you will do your part, and encourage the best films you can find, and try to keep away from poor ones, you’ll help the whole cause of better pictures, that we need so badly, along. I will do mine in trying tomakebetter pictures. Together, you and I and the others who want to see better pictures and the others who want to make better pictures, willgetbetter pictures.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:Blank pages have been removed.Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
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