THE WIDENING FIELD OF THE MOVING-PICTURE

ITS COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL, AND ARTISTIC VALUE

BY CHARLES B. BREWER

IT has been variously estimated that there are already from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand moving-picture show-places in the United States. Greater New York alone has six hundred. Their development as an industry has been very recent. For while as early as 1864 a French patent was granted to Ducos for a battery of lenses, which, actuated in rapid succession, depicted successive stages of movement, this device could not have fulfilled the requirements of the moving-picture of to-day for the important reason, if for no other, that the dry, sensitized plate of that day could not receive impressions with sufficient rapidity. With the advent of instantaneous photography came what was probably the direct forerunner of the motion-picture in the work of Eadweard Muybridge, a photographer who, about 1878, began his camera studies of “The Horse in Motion,”[4] “Animal Locomotion,”[5] and other motion studies. His work was begun in California, on the private race-course of Governor Leland Stanford. Here he employed a battery of twenty-four cameras, spaced a foot apart, the shutters of which were sprung by the horse coming in contact with threads stretched across the track.

Mr. Edison’s kinetoscope camera, begun in 1889, was described in court[6] as “capable of producing an indefinite number of negatives on a single, sensitized, flexible film, at a speed theretofore unknown.” In his patent specification, Mr. Edison refers to this speed by saying, “I have been able to take with a single camera and tape film as many as forty-six photographs per second.”

A recently published account of what seemed a novel development served to show that other inventors were also busy on the subject nearly twenty years ago. The innovation makes use of glass plates instead of the ordinary films. The pictures are taken in rows, 162 to a plate, and the finished plate resembles a sheet of postage-stamps. Provision is made for carrying eighteen plates and for automatically shifting the plates to take the pictures in proper sequence.

From a photograph, copyright by The Biograph Co.

TABLEAU: THE DEPARTURE OF ENOCH ARDEN

Mr. Edison first showed the world his completed invention at the world’s fair in Chicago in 1893; but it was nearly 1900 before this infant industry could be said to be fairly started, though one enterprising manager had a regular place of exhibition as early as 1894. Two years ago it was estimated that in a single year the country paid over a hundred million dollars in admissions. There are no definite figures available, though the census officials contemplate gathering such statistics this year. It is probably safe, however, to place the present revenue from admissions at close to two hundred million dollars.

From a photograph, copyright by The Biograph Co.

SCENE FROM “THE LAST DROP OF WATER.”
OF WATER.” AN ATTACK BY HOSTILE INDIANS
IN THE DESERT

The Department of Justice, which has recently instituted action for alleged combination of the ten leading film-makers of the country, states that the total of pictures printed by these ten leading companies, which handle between seventy and eighty per cent. of the country’s business, fill between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 feet of film every week. This means between 25,000 and 30,000 miles of pictures annually.

By permission of the Jungle Film Company. From a photograph, copyright by Paul J. Rainey

BEAR-HOUNDS PURSUING A CHETAH (FROM THE LIFE)

There is an ever-increasing demand for films, and many manufacturers are kept busy. From an original film about two hundred positives are usually reproduced and sent broadcast to the forty-five distributing agencies of the general company, which do the work formerly done by about one hundred and fifty independent exchanges in the various cities of the country. The reels were formerly sold; but are now leased to various theaters. Dates of exhibition are arranged with as much care and business acumen as are the great plays of the stage.

From a photograph, copyright by the Famous Players Film Co.

SARAH BERNHARDT AS QUEEN ELIZABETH SIGNING THE DEATH WARRANT OF THE EARL OF LEICESTER

The larger places attempt to have one “first-night” reel among the several shown at every performance. The reels usually rent to the exhibitor for from $20 to $25 for the first night, the price being scaled down each succeeding night about twenty per cent., until finally the rent is as low as a dollar a night. Hence a reel may travel every day, much the same as a theatrical troop in visiting small cities. The writer once had occasion to trace one of the Edison films, known as “Target Practice of the Atlantic Fleet.” The exchange had a complete schedule of just where this film would be shown for three weeks. It had been shown in several places in Washington, where it was scheduled to return, but was then in Richmond, Virginia, and was billed to appear the next day in Frederick, Maryland.

The admissions are small, but the expenses are usually not great. Most of the exhibition places are cared for by an operator, usually paid not more than twenty-five dollars per week; a piano-player, a doorkeeper, and a ticket-seller, varying from fifteen to eight dollars per week. Many proprietors operate a chain of several places, and many fenced-in city lots are pressed into service in summer.

The moral tone of the pictures now exhibited has been greatly benefited by the movement started in New York by those public-spirited citizens, headed by the late Mr. Charles Sprague-Smith, known as the National Board of Censorship, which wisely serves without compensation. The film-makers voluntarily submit their work, and are more than glad to have it reviewed, and it is said on good authority that no manufacturer has ever refused to destroy a film which did not receive the indorsement of the board. In a recent letter to “The Outlook,” Mr. Darrell Hibbard, director of boys’ work, Y. M. C. A., Indianapolis, discusses this phase of the subject. He writes: “Why is it that from juvenile, divorce, and criminal courts we hear constant blame for wayward deeds laid on the ‘five-cent shows’? The one answer is the word ‘Greed.’” He adds that when a film has passed the National Board of Censors, copies of it go to distributing agencies, in whose hands “it can be made over uncensored, strips can be inserted, or any mutilation made that fancy or trade may dictate.... A so-called class of ‘pirated’ films are the extreme of irresponsibility.... They are either manufactured locally or smuggled in from Europe, and thus miss the National Board of Censors.... The only way that the people, and especially the children, can be safeguarded from the influence of evil pictures is by careful regulation of the places of exhibition.... The nation-wide supervision of public exhibitions should be under the Department of Education or Child Welfare at Washington.”

Produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

A SCENE FROM “THE BLACK ARROW”

This picture, showing the “Battle of Shorebytown,” was posed near New York City.

There are now many auxiliary boards. Some are under the city governments, and are compulsory, as in Chicago. Last year this board passed on more than 3000 reels of pictures, comprising 2,604,000 feet of films. They found it necessary to reject less than three per cent. If, however, on investigation Mr. Hibbard’s fears are found to be justified, the recently organized Children’s Bureau of the Department of Commerce and Labor will here obtain an early chance to justify its existence, as probably ninety-five per cent. of the films, as articles of interstate commerce, can now be subjected to its jurisdiction. Such supervision should also be welcomed by film-makers as an important step in furthering an advancement in the moral tone of films, long since on the upward grade, and thus to open up an even wider field of usefulness than they now exert.