The Washington herald., 1913-12-05

Recently Miss Gene Gauntier, the ia
nous motion picture actress, appearing
in Warmers Three-Part Features, was
approached and asked to give her opin-
ion of the future Of the motion picture
industry. She replied:
II believe thoroughly in the future Of
the motion picture, but to what heights
it may reach 1 would not dare to pre-
dict-it depends on the manufacturers.
At present We are compelled to give the
audience what it wants-not what is
good for 1t. We may not carry out our
ideals or we would bankrupt our en-
ployers-or so they think. The great,
crying need is for good, original scenarios
not adaptations of books or plays
There is a new field of literature await
ing those who have the unique talent
and will explore. But we need big writ
ers in it-not necessarily those who have
risen to heights in other fields Of litera-
ture,- but those who possess originality
enough to create this new literature.
But how few possess the talent to be-
come great in il! For IT requires not
only a solid technique to stand on, but
vivid imagination that can express In
action without words, all human emo
tons-it requires a fine sense Of dra-
matte proportion, and above all that in
definite quality We call for want of
better name, the picture eye" When
we have masterpieces in the new htera-
ture, when we have producers who are
artists. with ideas, when we have actors
who do not act but are living and
breathing the characters they portray,
then and not till then will the photoplay
become the dangerous rival Of the thea
ter"
William West has been doing another
one of his remarkable bits of character
work as an old darkie in Within the
Enemy's Lines" a civil war drama. West
is a rabid Nortaerner in sympathy, and
Charlie Seay, who is directing the film,
is a violent Johnny Reb. In fact he
doesn't seem to know that the war is
over yet. In one scene West had to
threaten to kill q Northern officer with
a shovel, waving this handy weapon over
the officers head in a most menacing
manner. When he had finished the
scene, Seay roared with glee, and has
taken particular delight in announcing
to everybody at the studio that West
has turned reb.
Tom Moore plays the title role in the
new Kalem drama of the mountains,
Primitive Man" The admirers Of this
popular performer will find It hard to
recognize him in Dan" the rough noun
taineer of Jealous disposition. The play
tells of the unusual punishment meted
out by the mountaineer to his wife
whom he unjustly suspects of a love
affair with a former sweetheart. How
reconciliation is effected brings "Primi-
tive Man" to an unusual climax.
The Players Film Company now has
in course of construction a play of
Roman life under Nero that strikes an
entirely unusual note in subjects of this
kind. It depicts the love of a powerful
gladiator, whose predominating instincts
are those OF the brute, for a gentle shep-
herdess, who is made miserable by the
illness of one of her lambs. Admiring
the gladiator's strength, she marries him.
and one day, following him to the arena,
through a hole in the wall she sees him
kill an opponent in cold blood to the sat
isfaction of the applauding multitude. A
feeling of revulsion possesses her. and
on the moment all her love dies. With a
fine delicacy the story goes on to show
how the tender shepherdess wrought a