Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-07-27
|MELODRA|NA DEAD,
PLAYWRIGHT ASSERTS

NEW YORK" you will leave
this wretched howell with me. I will
clothe you in silks and diamonds.
Horses and carriages viii be at your
summoning.'
"The william thus tempted the
pure, white heroine.
"But she spurned him.
"'Rags are royal raiment when
worn for virtues sake detained
she of the a1abaster brow, turning
from the grip Of the black-mus-
tached william"
That was long time ago, when Lin
coin j. Carter, father of the meller-
drammer," was turning out thrillers.
For the last fourteen years, since the
movies crept into his field, he has re-
tired to 22-acre farm in Goshen,
Ill. He is now staging a come
back" and is shortly to have the fun
of Watching the very film compa-
MES that killed his own productions
employing hundred people to do
the work he accomplished with four
teen combined actors and stage
hands in the old days.
"Some kinds of melodranla are
never going to die" declared Carter,
when he appepared in New York re-
Gently to place his name on a movie
contract. "If could take my big
scenic effects and reword them in
up-to-date language and put them in
the hands Of high-class actors, be-
lieve a Broadway audience would get
as much Of thrill out of them as the
old timers in Hicksville used to.
Modern melodrama has to be
dignified production and cannot be
thrown together with cheap actors.
The kind we used to put on In the
25-cent to a dollar circuits simply
went out of vogue, like long skirts
and puffed sleeves"
For the thirty-eight successful
melodramas which he turned out in
fifteen years, Carter used the old
style prescriptions for his cast, de-
pending on steamboat explosions,
tornadoes and train wrecks for his
plots.
GAS for the actors" the play
wright explained, "the william gener-
ally wore a vicious black mustache
and checked vest. He was always
after the heroine or the papers, The
hero was a handsome lmilk-fed idiot,
quite blind when it came to observ-
ing his enemies slipping up behind.
Our heroine was so mushy and soft,
you could put cats tail through
her. Then there was always a snap
py young soubrette to mix things
up for the william.
Now we have to change the make
up completely. The william is toned
down as to his decorations, Is little
more human and has to be more
carefully worked into the plot. The
hero is stronger, but he still has to
be beautiful. AS for the heroine
rights for women worked wonders
with her. The soubrette is still there
playing the ingenue role. Scatter a
few airplanes and automobiles in and
you get the same thrills"
Carter can reconcile himself to re-
placing the one-horse melodrama
with the .six-cylinder variety, but one
thing he can't see, is elimination of
virtue.
when I was producing plays the
public wouldn't stand for the tri.
umph of villainy," he declared.
Clean virtue had to come out on
most made the villains heroes.
Canned melodrama is never going
to be like old times" he explained.
"At the end Of the startling speeches,
we used to write in a pause when
the audience clapped. The actors ex-
pected that applause as much as
their salary.
Now the most you can get out Of
the spectators is some woman re-
marking, Isn't he darlng?' or
Wasn't that cute?'
1.-THE booming Of the gallery is a
thing Of the past. So also is the &C.
tor who used to turn to and help
with the scenic effects. I can re-
member when the leading woman
blew the flash torch, the hero beat
the thunder-drum and the sonbrette
turned the wind-machine. Now the
union bands would walk out if such
came to pass again."