Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-09-06
YANKEE MOVIE FILMS
SUPREME IN LONDON;
GERMANY COMPLETES
Low Value of Mark Enables
Teutons TO Spend
Lavishly.
BY NORMAN n. WATSON
Special Correspondent Of Great Falls Tribune
Copyright. 1922. by The Great Falls Tribune

eel IOEFthBOHutHt VI y avs tf'SAhp
Copyright. 1922. by The Great Falls Tribune
London. Sept. 3.-Eighty five per
cent of the films looked at by English
movie fans are American made. Pro
ducers complain that English audiences
are inclined to groan when they lind
the program includes a homemade
4 picture. And that seems natural after
one has sat through a native feature
in which the duchess's grand ball looks
in setting and costume much more like
the Saturday night party of the Anal
gamated Society of Grocers' Assist
ants" or phoney Indians capture the
hero on what is plainly a vacant lot
in a London suburb.
The producers are not only COM
planning, however, that they are handi-
capped by their country's chronic sun
light shortage and a restricted market,
they are striving to compete with the
American r-superbas, and already
are embarked on a years program of
bigger and better films. The accom-
p~anying publicity campaign is formid-
able with appeals for patronage of home
industry and promises of improved
production methods, as well as pro-
testing assertions that the English pub
lie is getting fed up on the alien psy-
chology expressed in American films
and on captions written in "uncompre-
hensible Americanese."
U. S. Producers Not Worried
The representatives of American
producers who have looked the situa-
ton over are not particularly worried.
The sunlight shortage remains and the
American technique cannot be duplicat-
ed without the wisdom of long expert
ence and the money procurable from
the worlds largest audiences. AS for
the "Americanese," the fact that the
great English cinema public reads
American slang every time it goes to
the picture must be explanatory for
instant and growing acceptance of our
argot. The fans do not dislike it
enough not to memorize it and j"oyfully
misuse it in their conversations.
If British competition seems the re-
verse of formidable. that of the Ger
mans is something to think about.
Representatives of English firms re-
Gently returned from Europe declare
Fritz is about to fairly overwhelm
Europe with new films of high quality.
They are striving with intelligence to
make pictures having an international
appearance. The first series of his
%torical subjects in which they are spe-
cializing will be shown in London this
fall. One important London exchange
has no less than 90 Of these in storage.
Miles Mander, f. X. G.. s.. who
knows more about the movie business
in Europe than anybody else in London,
has lust returned from a tour of Ger
many's Hollywood and thinks that the
German hope of capturing the world
market is not extravagant.
Labor. thanks to the foreign ex-
change. is absurdly cheap in Germany,
so that armies of mechanics and SUI
pers may be employed. Near Munich.
Mr.. Mander saw a film town big
enough to contain several Venetian
canals and full-sized replicas of the
Doges' palace and the Camp San
Marco. He saw at another Holly
wood a colossal reproduction of the
main square of Pisa Cleaning tower
and ALI and a portion of Fleet street.
London, as it was 800 years ago. In
Berlin. a week ago. he saw an army
of 1000 supers, all dressed in metic-
correct costume. storm an an
cient Italian castle. The movie en-
gineers of the fatherland haven't at
a life-sized reproduction Of
San Francisco earthquake, but as
q discouraged English producer said
the other day, while walking in the
unending rain. Give them time; if
the exchange continues to drop, they
can do anything" I
Pave Streets With Rubber
If experiments about to be made by
engineers prove successful,
wner of the worlds huge rubber sur
plus will have a far greater market
than that now provided by manufacture
ers of bath tubs, toys and slingshots.
A London street is to be paved with
rubber blocks. After heavy traffic
has done its work for three month";.
the engineers and municipal officials
will deliver their verdict.
The blocks are faced with rubber.
the base being a harder rubber compo-
1t Is claimed they will last Is
years and they will, Of course, silence
all traffic noise. AS Lon
don has no IL" and street cars are
a birds, London needs only to Law
pavement-and substitute b.
cycle bells for automobile horns-to
wholly solve the noise problem. But
alas, the new paving blocks are far
expensive than the material now
used.