The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1921-05-02
MAN WHO INVENTED
MOVIE SOLD INTEREST
FOR $4,000
lin the New York Tirbune)

There are now sixty-eight thou
sand persons in the United State.
engaged in the motion picture bust
ness, tmany Of whom are not pres:
agents.
Were you ever one Of those un;
happy wightss who went to a motion
picture ball expecting to dance with
a film favorite? Then you, too, have
suffered. You have gone out Of 6
morning with the world bright be-
fore you and come back Of ar
evening and crawled into bed know
ing that all is sawdust.
That gang around Babe Twok'
nees was not an admiring throng:
fighting for a smile and dying for an
autograph. No, indeed. They were
merely her press agents, and in.
stead Of dying they were making 8
pretty good living.
She is completely in their power,
They dictate where she shall be mar.
ried and when she shall be arrested
for speeding. -
Inventor Has No Press Agent
Thus it is for the people Of the
movies. They all have their press
agents-all except one man, and he
is the man who, invented them,
Almost any day he may be seen
walking down. Pennsylvania avenue.
Washington, and yet nobody knowsn
him. ALL the attention people pay to
him Is to push him out of. the way.
BE has not addressed a mothers
club in sixteen years. He goes jostl-
ing on down the street, but if some
movie queen comes along she blocks
traits. Thus life runs away. .
Ten million people a day 60 to
the movies in the United States, but
how many Of them know who made
the first movie? The 'Noes" have it.
The man who made the first motion
picture, as we know it today, is c.
Francis Jenkins. Many. girls who
have not been "in pictures" a
month are better known. c. Francis
is too much given to hiding his light
under a bushel. If any motion pic
ture actress endeavors to hide her
light under any kind of protection
her address at present is unknown.
Instead, she crawls up on top Of the
measure and calls for the spotlight
man. It he does not give it to her
quick she will kick the four pecks to
kingdom come.
C. Francis Jenkins was a clerk in
the Hfe-sating division of the treas
ury department at Washington, but
he was not content with putting on
his sleeve protectors of a morning
and taking them off at 4:55 o'clock.
He did not want to spend his life
beating the clock of a morning and
of a evening watching to see if the
boss had yet gone home. He was hip
ped on photography, and in the back
yard of his boarding house made
many experiments. He was working
with a magic lantern, which was
then considered about the ,furthest
north of human ingenuity. Young
jenkins was seized with the extrava-
CANT idea of making pictures move
by means of the lantern, and to
work he set. In he called a vaude.
vile dancer named Annabelle,
whose particular bit of entertain.
ment was a so-called butterfly
dance. Of her Jenkins made pic
lures. Many men in the United
States and Europe had been work
ing on the idea Of ",animal locomo-
tion," as. it was then called, but as
plates had to be used, the result was
not any bewildering success. The
heavy, cumbersome plates could not
be progressed in front of a light
source fast enough to make any ami,
NAL look like anything but a death
struggle. Then the celluloid film was
announced. 1t was light and flex-
ible. The inventors we're off. It was q
rae Nv
The summer vacation, came along
after a while, as it always does and
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