American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922 - 5

January 15, 1922
two others.
These are the nearest
But they are in no sense classics.

THE AMERICAN
we have to classics.

The fault of all pictures thus far is one which finds
its Closest parallel in early history of opera-s-too many
extraneous
influences.
The form is consequently
stiff,
where it should be fluent, just as music is now fluent.

In the early days of opera, there had to be just so
many acts, and just so many arias per act. The plot
might go to the dogs while a tenor was singing, but the
tenor had to sing.
In the films there has to be a certain

age.

amount

of foot-

The plot may go to the dogs while the director is

shooting footage, but shoot footage he must, else the
exhibitor will howl that the film is too long or too short
and there will be the devil to pay all the way along the
line.
The star, if there be a star, must have a certain number of close-ups, or there'll be the devil to pay again.

And the plot goes to the dogs again.
The upshot of the matter is that oftentimes the film
studios have been too much like misfit clothing shops.
No matter how little relationship
there might be between
a popular story and the screen, someway or other it is
made to fit into a five, six or seven-reel length, trimmed
to suit the needs of its principal
characters-and
the
censorship!
TWIXT DEVIL AND DEEP

The censorship
has without doubt been the most
troublesome
problem of all during the past year.
The
producer
has struggled frantically
with its outrageous
requirements.
Films have lost their character because
of the stupid, insistent demands of penny politicians.
They have reverted to sentiment and swash in a vain endeavor to get by.
The more they conceded the more
was demanded.
It has been a losing fight.
And yet, I cannot but feel that if the producers
themselves had changed their tactics, their campaign
would have been successful.
They have borrowed too
much from a cheap trashy pornographic
literature,
and
have not striven to procure
material
that was fresh
enough and healthy enough in its sources, to get by
without question.
And as long as they continue to try
to adapt the sensational sex stories of the magazines, or
the so-called "western" gun-fight thrillers, they are going
to have trouble with the censors, and more and more of
it. In other words the fight against censorship is not
strategically
sound.
It has sought to give battle on
unfavorable
terrain, instead of maneuvering
to a safe
or at least as well-fortified
position.
Lay your stories where they can't get at you, seems

to me to be a slogan that could be well adopted by the
scenario writer.
The historic angle or the distant locale
provide the best opportunity.
The home, whose precincts have not yet been invaded by the reformer, is another of the safer channels.
Rupert Hughes has indio
cated this in cheerful
fashion
in "Dangerous
Curve
Ahead," and "The Old Nest."
Romance and this truer type of h~manness
as expressed in Mr. Hughes's pictures are, I believe, the most
available keys to a situation which is apparently
more
complicated
than it is. And though a producer may be
between the devil and the deep sea, as expressed in the
attitude of the public and the censors, there is no reason
on earth why he shouldn't try to swim.

CINEMATOGRAPHER

In the light of these facts, the achievements
of the
past year may be surveyed with some, degree of understanding.
Because it will also be found that those films
which have during the past year been most.' successful
in avoiding the shears of the censors and the thrusts of
the critics have been those which have been the truest
in their reflection of life, or the most stimulating to the
imagination-s-the
only two possible excuses which any
art can have for existing.
The films that have failed
did so because they gave a view of that muddy mess
which some are pleased to call "life" and which took
themselves
altogether
too seriously
while they were
doing it.
DRAMA AND WIT

How many pictures of the year stand out in your
memory?
Fewer, I believe, than usual.
Good pictures
have really been scarce.
Well-made
films have been
abundant, but there has been a plentiful lack of wit and
of drama in their making.
Whenever the wit was present
the picture was good, and wherever the drama was it
was equally good.
The technical fault is that there has been too much
long-winded narrative and not enough action-too
many
close-ups and not enough long shots.
Yet the signs of
a change "are apparent.
"The Four Horsemen"
and "The Three Musketeers"
have indicated the way toward action.
"The Conquering
Power" indicated the way to the artistic spirit.
Rupert
Hughes has shown us the amusing side of ourselves.
Griffith has done nothing that is worthy of his name
during the year, for "Orphans
of the Storm" comes
under the head of the pictures of 1922, and "Way Down
East" belongs to 1920.
"Dream Street" wa~ just pretty
sentiment,
removed out of the humdrum ways, but its
plot was ordinary,
and its depiction of life far from
actuality.
Nor did it greatly stimulate the imagination.
Yet for all that, and because it revealed the Griffith
touch, which exhibits so often genius, it may be classified as one of the really worth-while pictures of the year.
I would like to give "Molly-O" a place of honor because I have such keen faith in the ability of Mabel
Normand.
I think sometimes that she holds a place
among the women of the screen that Chaplin
holds
among the men. There is, at once, the pathetic and the
humorous contrast in her work, the tear and the laugh.
She depends not so much on beauty as on her own personality, and her art for her success.
She is a star of,
infinite potentialities
marred
only by her own lack
of luck, and perhaps, in the past, by a lack of devotion
to purpose-s-but
not now.
"Mol ly-U" is, however, a makeshift for her talents.
It lacks the cohesion and probability.
An entertaining
photoplay,
but not a great one. Her next film may turn
the trick.
Seriously

considered,

"The

(Continued

Four

Horsemen

of the

on Page 11)

TITLES
Art
HOLLY

482

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American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922

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