The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1915-02-18
The Moving Picture - Craze, and Some
of Its Evils.


agitate the crusade Of a censorship for NOV
ing pictures, as we have begun to go mad
on the subject, as people.
Ii you are IN city or town where the ten
cent and five cent picture theatre is, you may
have begun to note the trend of the pre-
ponderance of most mellow melo- drama
which seems to have revived most of the plots
of the old time dime novels of the Dare
Devil of the Gulch Order, and which many
a middle aged man will recall he was sent to
bed supperess, for being caught with
The plots of some of these picture dramas
are SO thin, it is wonder the camera could
ever get Them the william looks all a william
should look; the stern parent, ditto the adj
ventures, likewise; Little Bright Eyes,
around whom the Vaccinations Of the villa
ness and the william weave, and who suffers
from the stern parents mandate, looks as
though she had grown up not very far from
Broadway, but she wears her hair down her
bdck,P and her clothes are of cut and style
that bespeak close reading of the fashion
journals.
The viccissitudes Of one of the popular
'movle" herones have taken up about three
million feet of ''flm" and three months of
time to Depict so far; she has been blown up
with dynamite, kidnapped in everything from
a flying machine to horse back; poisoned, set
fire to, buried alive, abducted by pirates, made
her escape over roofs and tree-tops on ropes
that were conveniently located where she
could get them, and her end is not vet
The william, aided and allotted by various
other Williams and a yillianess or two pur-,
sues her through the mazes of the films, and
the hero seems to be in the nick of catching
up when the "Contined Tomorrow Night
sign is flashed, and the tension of the audi
ence is relaxed, while something less strenu-
GUS is shown.
The possibilities of the moving pictures are
great. AS educators, they cannot be equalled
by anything but the effect of their vivid por-
trayal to young, old and middle-aged, of the
extreme, yellow drama of the !"ten-twenty-
thirty" circuit is working havoc in more than
one instance.
The patrons of these places are so EVENLY
divided one cannot say that the men are less
eager for this form Of amusement, than the
women, but it is the children who are being
harmed by it.
If there could be special films prepared for
them, and special theatre set aside for their
display, no parent or one interested In child
rens welfare could object to renditions of
cred Riding Hood" 'Cinderella," "Jack the
Giant Killer" and many Of the light operas
with picturesque scenes, and pantomime of
easy interpretation
Another Objectionable feature to many Of
the Shows is the religious element which
has been permitted to enter so many Of them.
It seems to be an accepted fact that only the
garb of the Roman Catholic priests and isis
ters' will lend themselves to dramatzation,
and this is another of the insiduous in
fuences which have been ignored by many of
the devotees of the 'movy'' drama.
1t is to be hoped the efforts of the magazine
referred to viii meet with success; that there
will be a thorough censorship of those moving
picture dramas which are to be shown