The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-25

ton to this it studies every play on
Broadway for its movie possibilities:
it gets proofs two months in advance
of all the stories published by GER
tain great weekly. it searches all the
magazines for ideas. and it has an ar
rangement with a number of leading
publishers by which it sees the
proofs of manuscripts of all fiction
about to be published. 1t certainly
misses no chance to borrow an idea
from some other art. and about half
of its ideas are gotten that way. 1t
has twenty-five people engaged in this
search. and whenever any OF them
find n available idea they get a boz
nus. Several of the readers are
alumni of the Belasco play-reading
staff. The other half of it's ideas are
produced by it's own staff writer's. The
way of the unsolicited contributor
would seem to be hard.
do you read the manuscripts that
are submitted to your was asked of
the literary looking young lady in the
manuscript department.
Eyes; they are all read and card in
dexed," she replied with a wave of the
hand toward an enormous filing case.
I'VE get about sixty unsolicited man
uscripts a day.
And about what percentage of
them do you accept?"
well; I've been here three years.
During that time we have accepted
| one-but it was never produced" she
added thoughtfully. She went on to
! submitted by writers is unbelievably
| bad, and that many of them are taken
from books. plays or magazines.
Whatever there may be of truth
| in this, it certainly seems to be fact
| that the writer and the movie are not
pulling together. In the three years
| of the young woman's experience
about fifty thousand manuscripts
must have come to that department.
| If not one in that whole crop achieved
| production, there is certainly wrong
| somewhere.
Many persons believe that this
wholesale borrowing of ideas from
| trouble with the movies. Each art.
| they say, requires it's own kind of an
idea. We all know that novels sell
dom make good plays, and plays never
make good novels. Any writer will
| tell you that you can't use a short
| story idea for a novel or vice versa.
And it might be added that the few
| moving pictures which have been of
| acknowledged artistic merit were
written as scenarios, and not as novels
| or plays or magazine stories.
These facts would seem to indicate
| that if the movies are to gain recog-
milton as an art alongside the novel
and the spoken drama, they must de-
velop their own writers. who will do
genuine creative work with the film
in mind. OF course, some such writ
| ers have been developed and a few
| of them have shown real creative
power. But the fact remains that the
movie industry is primarily an indus
trious borrower of ideas. Its spe-
cialty is adapting, and this, in effect,
is often but milder word for artistic
murder. And it is certain that the
unsolicited contributors, among whom
are surely to be found, if anywhere,
the movie playwrights of tomorrow
are the red-headed stepchildren of the
business.
This particular distributor, who is
the largest in the business, seemed
to make good the claim that his con-
Germ is we'll organized, if you except
the debatable shortcomings OF his
scenario department. And it is con-
coded by outsiders that there is moth
the chaotic about this particular bust
ness. It is run on the most approved
| corporation methods, with sinking
fund for emergencies, and a plan for
the next twenty years. 1t is said alFo
to be a lone example of such eff
cheney in the movie business.
/ This is the organization against
which the new United Artists Corpor-
alton is pitted, if it seeks to dominate
the field, as its president, Mr.. Price
says it does. One distributor says
there Is uOlHlHS new dDOuL SoSii al
attempt. Ever since art began, he
says, the dream of the artist has been
to deal directly with his public. Au-
thors have tried to become their own
publishers, singers their own i'm
presarios, actors their own managers
| Now the screen artist is going to try
to become his own distributor.
i "They may succeed" he admitted
But Broadway is lined with the
tombstones of enterprises just like
Il n6 hot
nothing would tickle him so much as
to be a pall-bearer at. one more such
funeral.
Tomorrow-The Charge of Waste