Arizona republican., 1919-08-31

the blood ran out and the shape was a ruin"
 "The author of a book or play that had pleased multitudes and earned for tunes" says MT. Hughes, was mys- teriously supposed to be unable to con- tribute to the picturization of his ma terial anything important enough to repay for the time and trouble of lis- tening to him." It is quite common for a continuity writer to eliminate certain characters altogether and to insert others; to change the character of the heroine so as to play up the dimpies or the small feet of any particular asset of the star, and generally so to mutilate the entire story that the au- thor is happily unable to recognize it and the movie fans go home wonder ing if they hadn't made a mistake in supposing they had read the thing. Tn some instances companies have paid five and ten thousand dollars for story and then have made use Of nothing but the title and the authors s name
 In excuse of this practice, the movie people have always declared that the average novel was unsuitable Tor screen use in it's original form. It is an entirely different matter to ex- plain an incident by dialogue. they point out, and to explain it by pic lures. Like the theater, the screen has certain technicalities which the novelist does not understand. Further : more, experience has shown that cer- tain things are successful on the screen, so far as the public is con- cerned, and that some things are ex- tremely unsuccessful. It is impossible, for instance, to make the public like a picture in which the heroine is not a sweet, good-natured little creature who never willingly did a wrong. The heroes must always be noble and at the same time athletic, while no nov ing picture audience will tolerate a picture which does not end with a fade-out of the embracing couple with a snappy subtitle to the effect that they lived happily ever after. In one picture the heroine was permitted to commit suicide by jumping into live volcano, but this was because death in this instance was preferable to certain living conditions which she faced.
 With these specific rules laid down cdiiy III lIc ilONic SdiHcs II NdS Ottty natural that for a long time screen versions of famous or successful novels were not overwhelmingly popular. One frequently heard it stated throughout the industry that the only really sue cessful movies were those written by men and women who had never written anything else but scenarios. This was encouraging, because it was supposed to indicate that the movies were de- | veloping their own particular form oi art. Moreover, added to this evidence | against the novel scenario was ths modest conviction of the stars that the picture really didn't matter anyway that the public actually came to the movies to see it's favorite players. i Such was the situation when Der Hampton of publishing fame entered the moving picture business. It wa. he who brought the publishers point oi view into the industry and whl raised the prestige of the author 1T the movies by permitting him to mak, suggestions as to the screening of hi. stories He formed a company know as Great Authors Pictures, Inc, wit Rex Beach. Zane Grey, Stewart Ed
 ward White, Irving Bachelor, Winston ] Churchill and others under contract
 The first picture produced, Beach
 The Barrier, proved a great success although the author had supervise
 the writing of the continuity, ha,
 picked the locations, chosen the char
 acter types and was present when tn picture was filmed. The same wa true of the next picture turned out b
 the company, which was Zane Grey Desert Gold In this case MT. Gre
 even superintended the cutting of tn film.
 As a result of these successes, tn
 whole industry became intensely inter
 ested in authors. It still clung to tn opinion that the author should be kep
 away from the studio, however, an,