The New York herald., 1922-09-24
High Lights and
ShadOwS on News
s. Motion Pictures
German Experts Here Showing
Ability to Use Otherwise
Waste Material Of Films.
ny FRANK vREELAND.

/ II
waste material. to pick UP a
discarded glove and turn it into q
! neat pocketbook for a Christmas pres
ent to some relative. German photo
play representatives in this country
are showing the same thrifty ability
to manipulate films which might be
called the discarded gloves OF the
movie business.
A number of Teuton pictures which
I have been imported to this country
have been found unsuitable for con-
sumption here because Of various rea-
sons-principally because the censors
We're liable to get on their dignity
about them. The pictures were gen.
orally of spectacular nature. with
elaborate scenes that might readily
cause Germans fond of pomp and
show to weep frantically when they
went into the dump heap. But were
thy Teutonically downhearted? No!
They methodically cut out most OF the
scenes of the story that might incense
/ the censor. The scenes they had left
looked principally like an Elks' carnival.
! Now they have been sedulorsly trying
to get an American producer to produce
a picture-around these scenes Hugo
Ballin Is said to have been one of the
film makers approached with view to
hanging tale on these sets that
wouldn't puncture American screen mo
rality. But so far no one has essayed
to emulate the inimitable Mr. Crumm'es
In Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby'' and
build a play around the pump.
Franz WedekinG has reached the
stage OF maturing already on the Ger
man films, though 1t took him some time
to break out in the spoken drama here
and then hardly long enough for the
public to find out what 1t was all about.
His Lulu" and "Pandora's Box have
been assimilated to celluloid but the
Germans, who are very busy just now
producing pictures which they are GER
tain will find their natural home. In
America, somehow have been led to sus-
pect that Wedekind's pictures wouldn't
take root here. Somebody must have
been tipping them off,
John Emerson. newly returned from
abroad with his collaboration. Anita Loos,
| is not so certain that other German
pictures are going to cling tenaciously
to the American silver sheet. In fact.
he feels certain that the so-called Ger
man menace" has killed Itself. that most
pictures from Berlin are unsuited to
Yankee taste and that they will just
founder with all hands on these shores.
While the Scandinavian films which
he saw-without visiting those regions
displayed an excellent grasp of tech
nical details and splendid acting, their
subjects were disc greeable to the Amer
lean mind, getting kick, so to speak,
out OF graveyard and similar subjects.
France, he found. was less active and
promising in the photoplay field than
Germany. and. while England was perk-
ing up a bit in film making, SO far
the Thames hadn't been set on fire. In
short. by his survey of studio eonditiors
abroad Emerson reached the comforting
conclusion that American producers had
| little to fear now from foreign competi.
tion. and that we would still have much
of our film romance made on the prem
ises.
While Samuel Goldwyn appears to
have been resting on Long lsl9nd and
| preparing to turn the searchlight OF
truth upon the movies before Nina WIZ
cox Putnam beat him to it, he has also
been busy. II appears. making ready 70
launch himself head foremost into the
movie maelstrom he is describing. he
had negotiations recently with COM
! pany that planned TO start photoplay
hothouse on Long Island. but so faI
not even press agent blurD mas come oi
II. Perhaps every one of the promoters
| ~ atcht close
baseball pennant races,
The difficulties between Thomas II.
Ince and Associated First National APP
near 10 have been smoothed out. and now
\ ALI Is as merry az a box office sell out.
II Is not often that a producer, after
| going to war In the courts with MS dis-
tributing organization, settles back into
the traces again with nothing more Wig
orous than a sigh. Such. however. is the
case with Ince and now Associated First
| National has his complete kindergarten
OF fail relea eases--kindprgarten being used
advisedly in view of the screen appear
ance Of Douglas MacLean and Madss
BeIlamy--and First National Is congrat'
uating itself on good harvest TINS
autumn.
he rumored as the man who will make
! "Ben-Hur" hurry on the screen. Mean
while Tourneur is going calmly about
the launching of Lorna Doone.' Tor
which he Is said to have borrowed the
authentic Devonshlre scenery.
The Capitol has it's screen curricu-
lum made out for some time TO come
/ this semester The next big feature
there will be "The Headless Horseman
| OF Sleepy Hollow" with VIII Rogers
competing for smiling honors with the
grIrning pumpkin OF Washington 1r-
\ Wings story. No doubt the "Follies'
| will be the better and wiser In cracks"
| since Rogers will be able TO see HIM
self here IN this film. Remembrance,
| Hungry Hearts," "The Old Home
stead" and 10 Iiavc and 70 Hold
arc other subjects which are optional
with the Capitol students.
/ So many inventions of n radically i'm
/ portant nature are threatening 10 break
I loose on the screen nowadays that II ls
| interesting to have the opinion Of S. l..
| Rothafel as to whether they will actu-
lally turn the film business topsy-turvy
| or vice virsa. Here he goes:
II saw the TechnIcolor pictures
/ when they were shown recently by VIII
/ lam Travers Jerome. and consider
4 them the finest coiored movies I've yet
\ seen. Wen certainly show them at tho
| Capitol II they produce a screen drama
/ that's worthy. of exhibition. | prorh-
I ariad mt qo long aYo TINT they would