A Scandinavian film, released in this country by the Fox organization under the name of “The Blizzard,” does the same thing as “Down to the Sea in Ships.” Only, it has a reel that shows reindeer incidents, instead of whales. But it is just as remarkable. You see a whole gigantic herd of reindeer—hundreds and hundreds of them, the real thing—follow their leader across frozen hillsides and rivers and lakes, through sunshine and storm. Finally, in a blizzard, the men holding the leader that guides the herd get into trouble. One of them falls through the ice, while the other is dragged by the leader of the herd over hill and dale, snowbank and precipice until at last the rope breaks. The herd bolts and is lost.
It’s a wonderful picture. Because of the reindeer incidents. But it couldn’t have been made in Hollywood. It combines fiction with fascinating touches of actual fact.
About the time the reindeer picture was released in this country, a five-reel film that was made in Switzerland was shown at the big Capitol Theater in New York. It was made up of scenes of skiing, ski-jumps, and ski-races, in the Alps. Nothing else. But it furnished many thrills and real entertainment.
Here we come back again to the crux of the whole matter, entertainment. A picture has to entertain us, whether we want to be instructed, or only amused. But between the two kinds of pictures that I have outlined in this chapter—the movies that merely tell a story and the pictures that show facts—there is this difference: Photoplays that are designed to be merely entertaining, to be good, have to seem real.
But photoplays that actually are real have to be genuinely entertaining.
Courtesy United Artists Corporation.
A Douglas Fairbanks “Set” Used in “The Three Musketeers.”
Note the wheelbarrow, the peddler’s box, and all the wealth of minute properties and detail necessary to properly costume and equip the actors and “dress” this elaborate set. (See next illustration).
