Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-03-14

Imagine moving pictures of ninety-day fast!
| A third friend of the movie man tried to
sell the rights to a picture of "a wonderful
old Southern negro in the act of doing
difficult feats of arithmetic in his head
This man wrote in serious and sober vein
that the negro in question could multiply
three figures by three figures in his head.
Had he been able to suggest way to pic
ture the mental operation, he would have
landed.
| In Idaho arose a wiseacre who had plan
for enriching the movie man beyond imagi-
nation. "Take moving pictures in summer
and hold them till winter; then show them,'
he wrote. "'rhe pictures you take in winter
should be shown in summer. You can fill
your houses; for when it is cold people will
come to see warm pictures, and when it's
| hot they want to see ice and snow"
Once in awhile real suggestion is made.
manufacturer last winter at the height Of
the dance craze dancing master in New
York offered to illustrate the new steps
| free of charge. All he wanted was the pub
| licity of his name on the film. His offer was
accepted, and he gained many new pupils
| from the showing he made on the screens of
| Broadway.
A new religious sect had beautiful we'd
ding ceremony and "live' man as min
lister. The man offered the movie men
| the right to take the picture for mentioning
the name of the church 1t was done. It
was probably the only genuine, bona fide
moving picture wedding ever taken in a
church.
W/HEN Theodore Roosevelt ran for Presi-
~ dent in 1912 the movies campaigned
for him. 1t was the writer's lot to arrange
for the taking of the picture. The manu-
facturer wanted to get away from the con-
ventional election picture, showing Colonel
Roosevelt on the stump: he wanted to
show Colonel Roosevelt at Sycamore Hill.
Finally Colonel Roosevelt consented to pose
for the picture.
The Colonel rode horseback, fed his horse
sugar, played with his dogs,-I recall that
one of them had the unusual name of Two
Dollars, wrote letter on his porch, talked
with reporter, chatted with his sons, and
chopped down a tree 1t was a strenuous
morning. The film was not long enough
however; SO the Colonel was asked to play
tennis, a game of which he is very fond.
NO. he replied with a broad smile
"People mightn't understand. You and
know tennis is mans game; but the pub
lie generally doesn't. | don't want you to
show me playing what they might think
was not mans game | rather fancy that
you won't get either Mr.. Wilson or Mr.. Taft
galloping on horseback
The Roosevelt pictures were shown broad
cast during the campaign. They brought
the Colonel before the eyes of millions who
would not have seen him otherwise and
they showed him to his best advantage
at a mans game.
SOMETIMES the best thing in the world
- a movie man can do is not to take pic
ture. Such was the case during the first
serious roting at Trinidad in the Colorado
miners strike. The movie man was with
the troops, and he photographed riot.
When it was shown on the screen the United
States military authorities demanded the
negative, Why? Simply because that
negative had accurate photographs of hum
dreds of rioters, and it would have been pos
sible to arrest everyone of them and prove
the charges against him by the pictures.
The manufacturer promptly forgot where
the negative was. He takes no more pic
lures of riots or lynchings. And the miners
sent word to the camera man that the next
time he came to the Colorado strike zone
he would come to stay. He hasn't been
there since.
MANY is the bald-faced advertisement
~ that has been pcrpetrated on an unsus-
pecting public by means of the news movies.
This practice has now been abandoned.
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