The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-09-11
Better Movies.


Il A pioneer company among motion
picture producers has announced that
it has engaged to purchase the liter
AIRY product of the following list of
literary notables:
Rex Beach. Richard Harding Davis,
Robert w Chambers, o. Henry, Ru-
pert Hughes. George AIDE, Mary Rob-
Z ert Rinehart, Governor Morris, irwin
S. Cobb, Amelie Riyes Chanler, Booth
I Harrington and George Randolph
4 GheSstef.
Il What it probably means is that ii
! aIfss arranged with the holders of the
copyright to adapt certain OF such
authors books for the screen, so that
/ lit is nothing of a novelty, but rather
a succession of the grieyous outrages
on literary fame which the average
scenario writer or director perpetrat-
I es when he undertakes 20 convey
| through the medium of pictures the
works of real writer's
< The motion picture does fairly well
with Rex Beach stuff, because it is
NATURALLY vivid and elemental Rich.
ard Harding Davis has written rather
! well for the stage. Why don't the pic
| tNiAO NOlliD riAlitN ltt CuNu MAItGio Mlltt
something directly for the screen?
4 Any attempt to convey the peculiar
charm of Chambers and o, Henry on
/ the silver screen" is sure TO fail,
but the more theatrical productions
of Rupert Hughes might survive the
attempt There is nothing TO"
/ George AIDE, Irving S. Cobb or George
Randolph Chester movies but very
\ little of their good stuff" flashed
on the screen in mutiated condition
/ The stories do not belong" in the
movies, and attempts to make them
go are merely attempts to trade
on good-seling names
Imagine the works OF Amelie Riyes,
yulgarized and coarsened by some
| Pheda Rara of the movies, One of
Booth Harkington's best stories was
! recently so butchercd by a screen di-
rector as to be almost unrecognizable
! Gouverneur Morris might write a
scenario, but his published stories
would be hopelessly commonplace if
produced by the average commercial
director. Shall we not. then, have
the best talent of the literary world
employed to write movie stories or
scenarios for the great middle-class
| public?
The answer is "Yes!" If Gouyer-
neur Morris or George AIDE would give
his attention CD to the peculiar tech
mic of motion pictures, which are
practically wordless literature, then
write story with production in mind
he would certainly produce some
thing incomparably superior to the
aver age rubbish which appears in
the picture theaters of the country.
But would it pay? Could the pro-
ducing managers pay the price and
get their money back? Would the
lordly director, who knows about as
much about literature as he does
about euneiform inscriptions, permit
the author to have something to say
about having his Script slashed and
patched? Serious questions, and few
students of the most popular form of
amusement would venture to say
what the answers might be.
Where there is one director who
takes a serious work like THE City
of Comrades" by Basil King, and
makes serious effort to get the
spirit and sentiment of it across,
there are probably a dozen, who, il
they were so unfortunate as to be
compelled to produce literary
script, would simply mangle it beyond
all telling, filing in the gashes with
their own drivel
/ As the movies go today, they are
practically all amusement, with the
occasional exception OF the propo-
ganda or historical film They are
not literature, they are not art, they
are not drama, yet by rights they
should have touch of all three. |
What. then, can be done to improve
them!
Nothing but slowly educating the
pHbiis'staste to the best there is and |
in the painful process Of time teach