Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-08-19
AUTHORS ON THE SCREEN


authors to supervise the screening Of their
own novels is the greatest sensation that the
movie industry has yet produced. 1t was
amazing enough when our secretary of the
treasury went into the moving picture business,
but that Rex Beach and Mary Roberts Rhine
hart and several other well known novelists
shouId attempt to produce their own pictures
is regarded as nothing less than .epoch-making-
The new enterprise bears the modest name
of the Eminent Authors Pictures corporation
the eminent authors being GouVerneur motifs,
Rex Beach. Basil King Rupert Hughes. Leroy
Scott Gertrude Atherton and Mary Roberts
Rhinehart The president is Rex Beach and
the chief stockholder is Samuel Goldwyn, well
known moving picture producer. The chief OBJ
iect OF the organization as announced by the
members, is to improve the standard Of screen
versions This is TO be done by permitting
each author to supervise the production of his
own work The writing of the continuity, or
the scenarioizing of his story, will be under his
direction; he will choose the player for each
part, and he will select the place where the
picture is to be made, in order to secure the
proper local color. In photographing Mr..
Beach's story, The Silver Horde" for example.
the company will be sent 10 the northern Pa
cifc coast, where pictures may be obtained OF
the great salmon canneres.
ONLY authors are to be featured by the new
corporation. The stars may be mentioned on
the screen, OF course. but it Will be in small
print 1t is to be thoroughly understood that
the story and not the star is the important con-
sideration which is something startlingly new
have always been selected to suit the person
alities of various stars; now for the hrst time
stars are to be selected to suit the characters
in various stories.
In the past and to a great extent in the
present it has been the custom of the movie
producer to buy a story outright from its aU-
thor, and then turn it over TO his scenario de-
partment to be put into true movie form.
Usually this process was referred to as whip
ping the story into shape" and, as Rupert
Hughes points out. it was frequently so I'M
usually whipped that the blood ran out and the
shape was a ruin
In excuse of this practice. the movie people
have always declared that the average novel
was unsuitable for screen use in its original
form. It is an entirely different matter to eX-
plain an incident by dialogue they point out,
and to explain it by pictures. Like the theatre,
the screen has certain technicalities which the
novelist does not understand. Furthermore,
experience has shown that certain things are
on the screen, so far as the public
is concerned. and that some things are ex-
unsuccessful. 1t is impossible, for
to make the public like picture in
which the heroine is not a sweet. good-natured
little creature who never willingly did wrong
The heroes must always be noble and at the
same time athletic, while moving picture
audience will tolerate picture which does not
end with fade-out of the embracing couple
with a spappy subtitle to the effect that they
lived happily ever after. In picture the
heroine was permitted to commit suicide by
jumping into a live volcano, but this was be-
cause death in this instance was preferable to
certain living conditions which she faced.
With these specific rules laid down early in
the movie game, it was only natural that for
long time screen versions of famous or sue
cessful novels were not Overwhelmingly popu-
lar One frequently heard it stated throughout
the industry that the only really successful
movies were those written by men and women
who had never written anything else but see
II,
supposed to indicate that the movies were de-
yeloping their own particular form of art.
Moreover, added to this evidence against the
novel scenario was the modest conviction of
the stars that the picture really didn't matter
anyway-tha. the public actually came to the
movies TO see its favorite players.
Such the situation when Ben Hampton
Of publishing fame entered the moving picture
business 1t was he who brought the publish
er's point of view into the industry, and who
raised the prestige of the author in the movies
by permitting him to make suggestions as to
the screening of his stories. The first picture
produced. Beach's The Barrier" proved a
great success. although the author had super
vised the writing of the continuity, had picked
the locations, chosen the character types, and
was present when the picture was filmed. As
a result successes, the whole industry became
intensely interested in authors. While Hamp-
ton the man who first introduced the sue
cessful author into the moving picture business
il is the Eminent Authors corporation, two
months old, which has startled the industry
into action.
Meantime. the eminent authors are quietly
going about their work of revOlutionizing movie
methods. Gertrude Atherton is out on the Pa
cifc coast supervising the production of her
novel, THE Perch of the Devil" and Basil King
is working the filming of his Street Called
Straight" In the east the public is being edu-
Gated to look for the author and not for the
star. Whether not the movies will from
now on lose their peculiar identity and become
a literary sideline still remains to be seen, of
course.