The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-11-13
SLIDE SONG CONE.
illustrated Solo Is a Thing of
the Dead Past.
Lack of Punch Knocks Out
Former Movie Feature.

Gone is the colored lantern slide and
its nasal accom- paniment from the To-
peka movie shows. No more pictorial
ly, will amorous young couples stand
in loving attitudes under blue and
pink sky and by trees whose green
foliage startled che eye. Five years
ago a moving picture program was
thought incomplete without an Illus
trated song but the sentiment has so
far changed that a vaudeville pair re-
Gently put on a picture song as joke
at the Novelty.
81 don't know why illustrated songs
ceased to be-" said local theater
owner "unless perhaps they ran out
of song@or more likely out of sing
ers It happened all of a sudden
everywhere-the colored slides were
shown no more in Topeka about five
years ago and it was the same way
all over Kansas.
Today there is not one company
making lantern slides where there
were ten six years ago and most of the
work today is on advertisements
1t is curious psychologically that
audiences everywhere should tire of
the illustrated song all at once and
ring it's knell in thousands of picture
shows. The coming of the two and
three reel story films caused a revival
of interest in the Pickering pictures
and the one and two-pin machines
eliminated all but the last Vestige of
flicker and caused the picture to be
steady on the screen. Previous to that
the short films could not have q good
story on account of the lack of space
to introduce characters and afford
rising action to the plot. The stories
must be short and full of action and
consequently numberless Chaser
films were put out which interested
the audience only in the new ways in
which the actors could do damage in
their falls. With the longer stories
came managers who did not think that
their audiences were made up of
ignorant children unable to figure out
things for themselves and conse-
quently actions ceased to be that were
overdrawn in order to put across"
the primary ideal
The lantern slide is as old as the
stereopticon and was developed to its
highest point in the late nineties when
the assistance of special cameras and
plates made the manufacture of high
grade slides simple. The co1oring of
the slides was first done in Paris by
girls who tinted the different objects
in the picture with transparent aniline
dyes. AS the song pictures proved
popular any number were hurriedly
turned out and the color and photo
graphy became slipshod and dauby.
Little attention was paid to the text
of the song and some idiotic contrasts
were brought together.
Along with the slides, the songs de-
preciated into mere singsongy chants.
1t was the effect of commercialization
art IN the extreme sense
You cannot write music to order"
says Prof. r. H. Brown of the Kansas
State Agricultural college, professor
OF instrumental music. Every the
it is attempted to write a potbOiier,
the song fails. There are but a few
high class writers in the United States
today and they all have tried and
failed to write music to order. Irving
Berlin author of 'AleXander's Rag
time Band That Crooney Melody,
'Everybody's DOM It. and others, be-
came a member of a syndicate re-
Gently, and although he has incor
porated parts of his former successes
in his new made to order
they have fallen away below par.
Apparently the writer-nearly al
ways a foreigner-has to wait until
an inspiration for a new air strikes
him and cannot jingle it off at any
time. Very few Americans make
good at writing music and they al
ways are thinking of what the fin
ished music will be worth"
In the past two years there has been
a revival of the lantern slide as an
Ten or twelve are
often shown in the theaters preceding
a performance but lately these have
to disappear and it will be
but a question of time until the lam
tern slide is a novelty-outSide of a
professors lecture room.