American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922 - 4

January 15, 1922

THE AMERICANCINEMATOGRAPHER

In the Mo?!ies

1921

Edwin Scballert, Dramatic and Pitiure Critic of the Los Angeles Times, Sums Up
the Year's Produdion in His Own Inimitable Style
By
This reprint
from the Los Angeles
Times
AMERICAN ClI,EMATOGRAPllER'S oUI-of-town
readers
Schaller!'.
masterly and eminently
fair review.

IN sizing
. must

up the output of a film year, any critical
be to a large

place, no standards

degree

arbitrary.

rating

In the

first

have yet been satisf actorfl y evolved.

In the second place there is a vogue for certain
story

EDWIN

and production,

which

takes no real

SCHALLERT

of Mr. Schallert's
interesting
article is
to whom The Times
is nOl available
and

types of

account

their permanent artistic value. As a result of these two
conditions and the peculiarity of local viewpoint, every
summing up of achievements
must strongly
reflect a
sentiment somewhat provincial and largely personal.

made for the benefit
of
who would otherwise
miss

THE
AIr.

like rating certain pictures higher than others as far as
their personal appeal goes, it must be granted that such
rating will have little or no value for the future, because
of those rapid changes which exist for every new endeavor, and because perspective
is the one thing that
will determine the permanent worth of any film. With
what perspective we have, it can only be said that very
few if any films made during the history of pictures,
have any value beyond that of the life of their celluloid.
SOME

NEAR-CLASSICS

Under such circumstanaces
as these an attempt at
deciding the five best pictures of the year, or the ten
best pictures of the year, or the twenty best pictures of
the year, is-more or less a futile expedient.
To what an
extremity it may be carried is indicated in a choice recently made by a New York paper, giving the three first
places to foreign-made productions, including, I believe,
"The Golem," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"
and "Danton," and the fourth and fifth places, respectively,
to
"The Kid" and "A Small-Town Idol."

Even D. W. Griffith's "Clansman"
is slow and tedious
now. Even "Cabiria" is of negligible interest in its revived form.
"The Fall of Babylon" possesses no special
attractiveness.
"The Whispering
Chorus" is apparently
on the shelf.
Of the past year's output only a few pictures would be susceptible of further revival-c-Iike "The
Four Horsemen,"
"Passion,"
"The Kid," "The Three
Musketeers,"
possibly "Little Lord Fauntleroy,"
"The
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and one or

This rating failed to take into. account the somewhat
overwhelming
success of "The Four Horsemen
of the
Apocalypse,"
which has a. value artistic, as well as popular, or "The Three Musketeers," w-hich certainly bears
promise of establishing
anew an American tradition for
drama in which romance and costumes have a part.

In neither instance, do I claim that the popular ap·
proval of these pictures
discloses a supreme
artistic
value, but I simply make the point that any rating of
films, such as is habitual in the East, is valueless in
determining what is really worth while in the film product. It is too much like taking a straw vote to find out
how a national election will come out.
.
More important,
it seems to me, is a summary of
those tendencies in picture-making
which indicate a path
toward the future, and which really contribute
to give
definite character to film-making as an art, as well as an
entertainment .. Personally,
I believe that the game is
altogether
too new for anyone to know what the ten
best pictures of any year might be. There are too many
formative
endeavors,
too much experimentation,
without any true form determined.
In other words, pictures
are as yet anything but pictures.
They have been suecessively
photography,
drama
and literature.
Their
borrowings
have always been too large from other art
forms.
For this reason, one would be perfectly justified
in emphatically
declaring the ten best pictures of the
year to be the ten best educationals
~nd scenics-for
these borrow from nothing but nature, and are consequently true to themselves and to life, and what is more
their value is permanent.
But as the personal, the imaginative
element must
be considered
in reference to art, it is primarily
the
photoplay
that concerns us. And while we may feel

To Our .Advertisers
The February I edition of THE AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHERwill be issued as
a souvenir program of the Third Annual
Prosperity Ball of the American Society
of Cinematographers which will be given
on the night of February 4, 1922.
Reservations for increase of space or
for new advertising must be made and
copy filed not later than January 24.
In addition to the regular subscription
list of THE AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, each of the two thousand persons attending the ball will be given a COllY
as a souvenir and copies will be placed in
.every motion picture studio, laboratory
and supply house in the world.
The edition will contain special matter
of great interest to the industry and to allied business and professions.
Instead of being advanced the advertising rates for the special edition have been
reduced very materially.
Call Hollywood
4404 for rates or further information.

American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922