There is an interesting story with respect to “Humoresque” that has often been told. The picture had cost a deal of money and was watched with particular interest by everyone in the studio where it was made from William R. Hearst, down to the merest property man. It was something of an experiment.
When it was finally completed and in readiness to be put before the public the heads of the organization decided not to put it out! They were afraid of it! Why? Well, because it dealt solely with Jewish characters, it didn't contain the ordinary type of motion picture plot, in brief, it was something quite apart from the usual type of picture. Therefore those who stood sponsor for it trembled lest it fail financially and trembled to the point where they decided it shouldn't be released at all.
And then someone spoke up and started to champion the picture. It may have been Mr. Borzage. But whoever it was the picture went into a theatre and from the first performance started to break records. And such has been the case with a number of the best pictures produced. “The Birth of a Nation” and “The Miracle Man” were considered by those supposed to know as failures before they were released. They would never make a penny. And all three of these pictures went out and cleaned up the shekels for their sponsors!
Mr. Borzage has a few words to say on the subject of directing which also stamp him as a man from whom greater successes still are to be expected in the future. “Every type of picture,” he says, “whether drama, melodrama, comedy or farce can be treated in the same way with respect to characterization. By this I mean that all such types of pictures are based primarily on the sincerity of their characterizations. If I were making slapstick pictures I would pay just as much attention to characterization as I do now. Look at Chaplin. Characterization, true characterization, is at the bottom of his success. It is what makes his pictures more than mere comedies but masterpieces of picture art.
“As for melodrama, I think it a vastly belittled type of entertainment. Of course the old melodrama, the type disparagingly referred to as 'ten, twenty, thirty' contained little merit beside its ability to thrill. Then there was no characterization except that which rose from the situations themselves. Situations created character, true to the rule of melodrama. But today in the pictures we have the old melodramatic situations fitted out decently with true characterizations. Critics are inclined to belittle them and call them cheap. But they don't seem to sense the idea that life is made up largely of melodrama. The most grotesque situations rise every day in life. Read the newspapers, talk with your friends and see if I'm not right. Coincidence runs rife in the life of everyone. And yet when these true to life situations are transferred to the screen they are sometimes laughed down because they are 'melodrama.'
FRANK BORZAGE IN DIRECTING “BACK PAY” STOPS TO GIVE DIRECTIONS TO HIS CAMERAMAN, CHESTER LYONS
FRANK BORZAGE AND THE “HUMORESQUE” COMPANY. THE DIRECTOR IS SEATED ON THE FLOOR. THE LITTLE GIRL IS MIRIAM BATTISTA. THE WOMAN AT THE RIGHT IS VERA GORDON. ALMA RUBENS IS ON THE LEFT WITH GASTON GLASS BY HER CHAIR. DORE DAVIDSON STANDS WITH HIS HANDS FOLDED
“If this is true then all life is a joke and while some humorists hold to this idea, I am not one of those who believe it so.”