The Washington times., 1914-03-26
THE BEST
EPhotoplay Department in
/ WASHINGTON
Photopldys Improve
The Public Taste
In Good
Books

=. = AS 1t ever occurred to you
that there was encourage
ment for the reading of good
books in the photoplay?
This fact hasn't been properly en-
phasized by those writers who have
been SO busy defending the picture
theaters against the attacks Of un-
thinking people who condemn them
Like everything else that has such
great public following. there are
ali sorts Of things to be said about
the bad influences OF the photoplays
AAd there are all sorts Of people who
DO not hesitate to say these things
The defenders Of the screen have
been kept 30 busy combating the
arguments that have been presented
BY the antis that the matter Of i'm
Droying the public's literary taste
has not been given much thought.
=. In fact the PRODUCERS OF pictures
have adopted q rather peculiar at
-utu9e toward the stories of their
plays. The original company OF
manufacturers - the same company
thai failed to see anything In photo
plays at the beginning and then
nadesa fortune from lthem-declined
to let the public know anything
about.tts plays or players for a long
time. on the ground thar n the stories
OF the plays were published the peo-
pie wouldn't 60 to see them acted.
: As matter OF fact, the printing Of
the stories OF photoplays is a far
greater advertisement for the nIay
than a novel is for. a play that is
made from it.
The reason is that there are very
lew novels that have been written
with the idea Of making plays from
tnem, while every photoplay story
ever written was prepared solely
ena d,c,ien exclusively for photoplay pro-
stories the people have an intense
desire to see them acted. This il
not a matter Of argument, now. for
the big producers Of photoplays are
paying large sums Of money to get
the stories printed. One company
alone has invested something like a
quarter Of a million Of dollars IN
tnis sort OF advertising. There arc
SUI some exhibitors who have the
old point of view, however. We had
. session with one only the other
day. We couldn't convince him that
he was wrong. The business the
the people do whose picture-play
stories are printed will soon show
him. however
This: though. hasn't anything to
do with what we started out to
state-the influence the photoplay
is having on the public to encourage
good reading. 1t is q fact that is
not generally known that the pro
duction Of the Quo Vadis" pictures
created such a call for the book
that an entire new edition was
printed and sold out The same was
true with THE Last Days Of Pom
peii." The old Buiwer-Lytton novel
had almost gone out Of print. Tho
interest In II was revived by the
photoplay, however. and We under
stand that not one. but two, editions
have been exhausted. Within the last
two days the editor of the photoplay
department Of The Times has been
asked twice where copies of The
Squaw Man" can be found. The
queries Were put by one man who
had seen the pictures any by anoth-
er who hadn't, but intended to and
wanted to read tho book before he
did SO.
The point that we want to make
is that there Is being aroused
throughout the country a tremen-
dous interest in god literature that
may be traced directly to the photo
play. The production Of the various
piays. from the works Of Charles
: Dickens, the dramas based on Bible
stories, THE Vicar Of Wakefield"
She" and hundreds Of others, by
careful, painstaking manufacturers
Is awakening an interest in books
that nothing that has struck the
country recently could have inspired.
And the good work is going son, the
amount of book-plays is increasing.
, It is a fact that a dramatized
book can be produced with greater
fafthfulness of detail In the photo
play theater than II can on the
Legitimate stage. The ever chang
ing scenes that make books almost
impossible on the stage as We have
Z known 1t. have no effect on the
.photoplay because the scenic posi-
bilities of the camera are almost
unlimited. It il nothing to produce
a play that has more than a hundred
scenes on the screen-it is almost as
easy as producing one with only one
scene-or rather set of scenery.
L SH-to those who would defend the
photoplay from its defamers-do not
4 forget the influence Of the photoplay
: OIL literature. It is great now. but
!. # will grow greater year after year
until the great books. fiction. history
= or poetry, will be familiar to every
d: one