Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-21
MOVING UP THE MOVIES

MOVING UP THE MOVIES
INFANT industries are not always
Il the ones to need protection. The
husky Movie kid has never needed the
protection of its Legitimate" mother
of the sock and buskin since It's earliest
cradle days. Already in these few
years 1t has ceased to be kid, and In
its one or two decades of life the NOV
ing-picture show has actually come to
threaten seriously the pre-eminence of
the Legitimate" drama, whose sway
reaches back through the centuries,
past the Middle Ages into the Golden
Age OF Greece, and further back into
the shadowy archives of tradition,
OF dozen articles on theatrical sub
Jects in the current magazines half are
concerned with movies" The most
significant of these Is by Bernard Shaw,
the famous dramatist, who outlines a
splendid and glowing future for the
movie show in the Metropolitan ~.
The effect of the film drama on the
spoken drama is very potent BY accus-
toming the poorest playgoers to genuine
realism in scenery at so low a cost OF
representation and reproduction that our
film companies can afford to spend sums
on the original production that would
ruin the most princely actor manager, IL
reduces the would-be deceptive realistic
scenery of the spoken drama to absurdity,
both artlstically and economically. and
thereby gives powerful and elevating
impulse to the restoration of the con-
ditions under which the theatre attained
Its highest and freest point. Film drama
will compete SO successfully with the
spoken drama that 1t will drive it to its
highest ground and close all paths to 1t
except those In which Its true glory lies;
that Is, the path OF high human utter
ance OF great thoughts and great wit. of
poesy and of prophecy. Or, as some of
our more hopelessly prosaic critics call 1t,
the path of Talk.
l am not forgetting the technical possi-
bllities of the synchronlzed monograph
and cinematograph. l have heard film
sing. and wished 1t wouldn't; but that
was the fault of the original singer I
have heard film talk through short
scene quite amusingly and successfully.
I have watched long film drama and
thanked heaven that the hero and heroine
could not talk, for I knew only too well
that they would bore me with sentimental
twaddle, and that If they once began they
would drive their audience back to the
circus, where the acrobats seldom olsen
chant us by opening their mouths. But
I once saw an excellent film in which
Sarah Bernhard figured as Queen Eliza
beth. 1t was in a small town on the
Welsh border, to which It could never
have paid any manager to bring so ex-
pensive a star. When they can see and
near Forbes Robertson's Hamlet equal
ly we'll produced, 1t will be possible for
our young people to grow up in healthy
remoteness from the crowded masses and
slums of the big cities without also grow
ing up as savages.
1 shall not be at all surprised II the
cinematograph and phonograph turn out
to be the most revolutionary inventions
since writing and printing and, indeed
far more revolutionary than either, foi
the number of people who can read is
small. the number of those who car
read to any purpose much smaller and
the number of those who are too tired
after n days work to read without falling
asleep enormous. But all except the
blind and deaf can see and hear and
when they begin to see farther than their
own noses and their own nurseries peo-
Pile will begin to have some notion of the
sort of world they are living in, and then
we, too shall see-what we shall see.
WHY NOT PERPETUAL MOTION
PICTURES?
With a pretense at condescension,
but, in reality, with an undercurrent
of the movies in the New Republic (2):
Most conservatives still see the movie"
through the noisy gloom of the first fire.
trap theatres. The movie" in their eyes
is a theatrical tintype. They observe its
vogue, but they also observe the vogue
of chewing gum. And, as they reckon
1t, the movie" is in a class with chewing
gum
To assume a lofty air about chewing
gum would not be sincere on my part.
Still, as one of the mortals to whom IL
was never anything more than an avoca-
ton, conducted In tmid privacy, I recol-
lect 1t as perhaps the least delectable of
uselessnesses. Combining the maximum
of activity with the minimum OF effort.
1t seems to be the supreme example of
lost motion, and on that ground alone I
disdain it, On similar ground, though
they are equally dear to millions OF
Americans. one criticlses the average
moving pictures. Popular though they
are the conservatives are justified In
contemning them. Incapable of assmila-
ton they are, for the most part, mental
chewing gum.
1t is no apology to say that they are
popular" 1t was once popular to dress
like an undertaken in summer, TO sleep
in a stufry bedroom. to regard a woman
who smoked as a prostitute, to be lugd-
brlous on Sunday. A custom or a taste is
not entitled to respect because 1t is popu-
lar.
But where the conservatives so astray
about the movies Is in assuming that be-
cause the invention has been unsatisfac-
torily utilized 1t is not proved capable OF
the most wonderful utilization. They fail
TO appreciate the illimitabla artistic, the