The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-12-17

pinch of Imagination. Yes, sir. imagination, I'm supposed to have some of that under my thatch. You see, I'm Scenario Editor at the Q. and 0. Film eompanys studios, where most of the events took place. Be- lieve 1t or not.
 Ten years ago 1t couldn't have hap pened. Ten years ago it was beyond the scope of human imagination. Nowadays, however, there is no boun- dary; you can go anywhere, do any thing, believe anything, without arousing the least comment in your neighborhood.
 Jules Yerne's imagination got as far as this age and then the fuse burned out. Think of flying about in the air like an eagle, dashing un- der the sea like a dolphin, talking thousands of miles without visible means through somethingamerother in the air! Why, Is years ago, when you bought bacon, the butcher used to give you calf's liver gree gratis for the cat But not these days.
 Perhaps the most wonderful idea of the age is that anybody can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as moving picture, actor.
 Geologists tell us that the plains about Los Angeles are gradually sinking below sea level. Fact. They cannot account for it. l can. I've seen the studio payrolls.
 We'll 26 years before. this story opens No, that won't do. East Lynne"setu never gets by Birch. our managing director. All right We'll begin at another point: stormy win ter night last winter. The wind was a-whooping and a-yowling up the streets, and Jack Frost q almost said Jack BarrymoreD had worked out some fine scenic effects on the great window panes along Broadway. Just the kind of night for young man who hated moving pictures to go out in search of one.
 He hated them because he was a literary fellow who still cuddled his first dreams for all that the edges were a bit frayed. In fact he was one of those high-brows who cant see anything in the movie game be- cause the subtitles never mention Horace, Catullus and that bunch same plane as those musical cranks who can't possibly listen to an or chestra that hasn't an oboe in it.
 l could lead you forth with him from a cold forlorn garret, only that would not be fact. On the contrary he left a warm and cozy bachelor suite for which he paid nine hun dred the year. He was one of those literary chaps who wear their hair
  money.
 Grumbled All the Way
 Sir Cuthbert-that's what I'm going to call grumbled all the way over to the moving picture theatre he had in mind. For nearly a week he had been fighting his curiosity, and this was the surrender.
 He paused before the vivid posters of social drama. knockabout com g1f .1 he said "humphi' any number of times. At length he approached the ticket booth and showed in his dime
 Rear row, please" he said He didn't know that all seats in moving picture theatres are pit-luck.
 The blase blonde thought he was trying to crack a joke, and as he was smile. She pressed a button. and a red ticket darted toward him like the tongue of a snake.
 If the seat isn't a good one, I'll give you another" she said
 As the ticket did not come all the way out he plucked it forth and pushed through the swinging doors Someone he couldn't see snatched the ticket out of his grasp, and blinking and stumbling and paving unseen heads. he managed to find seat in the center row 2.
 He had entered in the middle of the slap stick comedy. All his an tagonism returned; and if he hadn't been damned in where he was, he'd have left the theatre then and there Toward the end. however. he found himself ehuckling. That fellows feet were funny.
 Lights came up. He surveyed the spectators condescendingly This condescension was short-lived He was astonished to observe that most of these people were his kind. intel ligent, well-bred and well-dressed. He hadn't been inside moving picture theatre in four years. His recollec- tion was of q densely packed. evil smelling throng, of an i'll ventilated fire trap and a thud-and- blunder melodrama. He forgot that if thing doesn't grow if immediately dies. No real business ever stands still.
 Lights went down again, and the feature" was projected. For this he had left his cheerful rooms, his pipe and his bCoki
 As a matter of fact. Sir Cuthbert Chis real narhe is Arthur Brennan). had come forth moated and bastioned against the slightest encroachment of this new art.
 Like Kaleidoscope
 His views were joited like the crystals in a kaleidoscope when you give it a sudden turn. He saw a real play, real actors, excellent interiors, marvellous outdoor backgrounds CO.,