The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-30
DOLLY GOES TO SEE "CABIEIA"A AND DECLARES TT TO BE THE MOST MARVELLOUS OF "MOVIES'
By DOLLY pALRympLE

ask me what the emptiest of my brain cells happen to be, l should have to tell them
 Suffrage, Arnold Schonberg. the tariff and moving pictures
 0 the 9999 mistakes that I've made dur ing my brief but interesting (to mel news paper career, the greatest have had to do with the subjects just mentioned, and yet some one has generously said that Ito the production of entertaining literature nothing is more essential than subject Of which the writer is profoundly ig- norant."
 "A little learning is dangerous thing" and naturally it follows that greater learning involves greater danger, for facts are stiff and stubborn things, and knowledge of them cramps a body's style, shockingly; hence I've launched upon a subject which never dreamed I'd attempt to talk about much less put in print, be- cause I know absolutely nothing about it.
 I don't go to the movies often.
 1 am not especially crazy about them.
 The people all walk too rapidly and the horses run too fast, and the writing never stays on the screen long enough for
 me to read it. and I never catch on' to the story. so altogether I'm rather hopeless sort of movie fan.
 l haven't an idea how films are manu- faotured how the actors are engaged, who puts up the money, or whether if the admission tickets sold every day for such entertainments were laid down end to end would reach from Birming- ham to Kamschatka-in fact, I've always avoided the subject of the movies" as would the mother of a brand new, first baby" or the man who tells you what to do for ''cold," But you never can tell,'' so here I am daring to write down my impressions of the biggest the cost Hest and the most wonderful picture that has ever been put on the screen.
 But why not? Our friend G. B. s. has taken to writing about the movies and so has Hr. H. G. Wells and while carnot write like these wonderful people, I think I am entitled to my opinion of things, like the little story which says; If you are an artist
 And lady says to you,
 As though 1t were a sensible remark
  But I know just what I like,' You may answer, So do monkeys in the park
 We'll I know what I like to say the least of it, and I certainly liked Ca biria'
 Of course if I don't see through the stories at the movies that's nobody s fault but my own, for surely I've had plenty of opportunity to go to the movies" and train" amusements at popular prices struck the public at what 'bromides'' call "the psychological
 mcment''-the cost of entertainment "go-
 ing down" just as everything else was going up.
 Even Brigham Young might have taken all of his wives to a perfectly good
 movie for the same amount Of money that any ordinary husband could take ms one lone little better half'' to the the atre for. that is, if he did the thing up mic ely and sent her flowers, hired taxi, and had "a cold bottle and bird' after ward.
 Then, too, motion pictures are sooth- ing to the mentality because it really doesn't take an atom of gray matter to enjoy them Chats a terrible slam on me after the confession I've just made but it's true nevertheless), and maybe that why there is always such rustic to this popular form of entertainment As the linotype does the work of the fingers, so does the cinematograph do the
 work of the imagination.
 No longer are the melodramatc effects of Theodore Kramer. who wrote Nellie
 the Beautiful Cloak Model and Bertha the Sewing Machine Girl" the rage in the movies;'' indeed, even the comic sup | plement" pictures are relegated to the shades of antiquity (and these used to be fba hot In film cjrflpS) for now when such a genius as D'Annunzio among the many rises to heights unknown | with such a 'scenario" as "Cabiria," the | world pauses to reflect that "the motion picture'' is an art creation, one that has | come to stay.
 l The press agents' sense of humor is nearly always in inverse proportion to l the announced cost of a thea atrical spec
 tacle, and the old aphorism that "fgures 1 do not lie" is one that is not applicable to l chorus girls" and 'bllboards." At least, "the Itala film of Torino,' when 1 it declares that "Cabiria'' cost $200, ,000
 tells a truth that is self-evident once l you've seen the production.
 For instance, feel morally sure they had to pay old ''Etna" (and by the way
 she has a much better role in the d'An-
 nunzio drama than she's been playing for the past few years, while confinine | her activities to the advertisement of a
 certain well known life insurance com- panyA, at least, $25.000 to "Etna" at the
 right ti.Ns so they could get her picture
 because I 4nnt believe she'd do it just for fun" or ayen to be accommodating
 and when you see the big, husky olo volcano emitting-Sor I believe they say
 vomiting Qve reAd somewhere that vomiting is the praper word to ust lin spaking of what Solcanos dol, and