Part 10
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.
[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by The Biograph Co.
TABLEAU: THE DEPARTURE OF ENOCH ARDEN]
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.
[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by The Biograph Co.
SCENE FROM “THE LAST DROP OF WATER.” AN ATTACK BY HOSTILE INDIANS IN THE DESERT]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.”
[Illustration: 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.
THE FILMS
The smaller illustrations show the exact size of the pictures as they appear on the film. They are an inch wide and three quarters of an inch deep. A reel is usually a thousand feet long, and contains sixteen thousand pictures. On a screen twelve feet square, which is smaller than the usual size, there is surface enough to show twenty-seven thousand of the pictures side by side if they are reproduced without enlargement. Yet if every enlarged picture were shown on a separate twelve-foot screen, a single reel would require a stretch of canvas thirty-six miles long. Likewise a screen twenty feet square would accommodate over seventy-six thousand of the little pictures, and the stretch of canvas required for the enlarged pictures would be sixty miles long. After witnessing a performance, few realize that they have seen any such stretch of pictures as the figures show.
[Illustration: By permission of “The American Quarterly of Roentgenology” and “The Archives of the Roentgen Ray”
SERIES OF RADIOGRAPHS SHOWING THE MOTIONS OF A STOMACH SUFFERING FROM GASTRIC PERISTALSIS]
The life of a film is usually from three to six months, though varying, of course, with the treatment in handling. “The Scientific American” gives credit for superiority to films of French make, and attributes their excellence to the many tests to which they are subjected to secure exact dimensions, adequate strength, and other properties.
It is almost as vain to speak of the cost of producing a film as it is to speak of the cost of producing a painting. We know the cost of the canvas of the latter, and we also know the cost of the bare film is three cents per foot; but the cost of what is on the film may be represented only by the cost of developing and the labor of the machine-operator, as, for example, in such pictures as “An Inaugural Parade,” or the famous pictures showing the “Coronation of George V.” Sometimes, however, the cost runs as high as fifty thousand dollars, as did the film known as “The Landing of Columbus.” These films require many people, necessitate the taking of long journeys to provide an appropriate setting, and need from two to three years to finish them. Before the film known as “The Crusaders” was ready for the public, six hundred players and nearly three hundred horses had appeared in front of the lens. The film of “The Passion Play,” now in preparation, will cost, it is said, a hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Paul Rainey has stated that his wonderful animal pictures, which showed his happenings from the unloading of his expedition from an Atlantic steamer on the coast of Africa, through the various hunts, and up to his departure, likewise cost fifty thousand dollars. Some of these wonderful films demonstrated how practical was his much-laughed-at theory that the Mississippi hounds used for hunting bear could successfully hunt the destructive African lion and the chetah. These pictures, which were taken with the idea of permitting Mr. Rainey’s friends at home to journey with him in spirit in his travels, were first shown publicly last winter at the National Geographic Society in Washington to illustrate a lecture by Mr. Rainey. Those who then enjoyed them can feel only satisfaction to know that they have now been placed on public exhibition, to show to the people at large what Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural History, has declared to be “the greatest contribution to natural history of the last decade.” The writer recently saw these pictures, and while the films are naturally not as perfect as when first shown in Washington, all the essentials are faithfully reproduced.
It is only recently that the streaky, flickering, eye-straining series of pictures first brought out have been supplanted by pictures so improved and so steady and continuous that the setting of a room or a landscape made up of hundreds of pictures appears as a single photograph. This is admirably illustrated by a portion of Mr. Rainey’s pictures, which show, through the peculiarly clear African atmosphere, a range of mountains ninety miles away. Again, his picture of the drinking-place, where, owing to a long drought, some of the animals had come eighty miles to scratch in the sand for water, shows the stillness of an immense landscape broken only by the swaying of the nests of half a hundred weaver-birds in a single tree, and by the scamper of monkeys, baboons, and other small animals two hundred and fifty yards from the camera. The same still background is shown as these little animals cautiously approach, drink, and are driven away by those of larger size, who in turn give way to companies of zebras, giraffes, rhinos, and elephants.
In a recent lecture given to benefit a fund to establish an animal hospital in New York, Dr. Joseph K. Dixon is credited with having shown a rare set of films which took his audience on a most interesting trip through the Yellowstone Park, and showed them an animal hospital which nature had provided in a secluded spot of aspen-trees, where injured creatures went for rest and convalescence. Many vivid pictures showed lame deer, wounded elk, and bears having their cuts and bruises healed by their own applications of oil taken from the trees.
[Illustration: By permission of “The American Quarterly of Roentgenology” and “The Archives of the Roentgen Ray”
SERIES OF RADIOGRAPHS SHOWING MOTIONS OF THE STOMACH DURING DIGESTION]
SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL,--MICROCINEMATOGRAPH FILMS AND ROENTGENCINEMATOGRAPHY
Though the work of the cinematograph is only in its infancy, the range of its possibilities seems almost boundless. When the target-practice pictures mentioned above were taken, it was said that some of the pictures showed a twelve-inch shell actually in flight. The writer saw these pictures, and while he did not see this point illustrated, possibly due to the breaking and imperfect repairing of the film, the statement can be credited, as it is feasible to see this with the naked eye if the observer is well in the line of flight. Another remarkable instance which illustrates the capabilities and speed of the lens has been cited in the case of a picture which shows a rifle-bullet on the inside of a soap-bubble, from which it was learned that the bubble does not break until the bullet leaves the opposite side from which it entered.
[Illustration: Produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
SCENE FROM “WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE”]
The moving-picture is more and more being used for educational and scientific purposes. It has been used for recruiting, and pictures were taken of the convention at Chicago for use in the national campaign. Pictures showing the methods of teaching in New York schools have been shown in many parts of the country. Dr. William M. Davidson, superintendent of public schools in the District of Columbia, is strongly advocating the passage of a bill now pending before Congress to use the schools as social centers for exhibiting educational moving-pictures. Likewise Superintendent Maxwell is urging their use in the New York public schools. Mr. Edison has very recently been quoted as saying: “I intend to do away with books in the school; that is, I mean to try to do away with school-books. When we get the moving-pictures in the school, the child will be so interested that he will hurry to get there before the bell rings, because it’s the natural way to teach, through the eye. I have half a dozen fellows writing scenari now on A and B.” An eight-year course is being planned which it is expected will be started in Orange, New Jersey, in about a year.
By the use of the moving-picture, the St. Louis Medical Society has recently shown the method of inoculating animals with disease-germs and the effect of the germs on the blood. Circulation of the blood and action of numerous species of bacilli were also illustrated. In a micro-cinematograph film showing the circulation of the blood in a living body, prepared by M. Camandon, a French scientist, and exhibited by MM. Pathe Frères, the London “Nature” states that the white corpuscles of the blood are shown gradually altering their shape and position and fulfilling one of their best-known functions in acting as scavengers and absorbing such abnormal substances as microbes, disease-cells, and granules of inert matter. “By reproducing at a slower pace the changes,” this journal continues, “the cinematograph can assist us to attain a clearer perception of the nature of the alteration as it takes place.... No amount of imagination can supply the clearness and comprehension which actual seeing can give. The cinematograph might well become a most sufficient aid to the teaching of very many biological and especially medical subjects.”
[Illustration: Produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
SCENE FROM “THE LAND BEYOND THE SUNSET”
This picture shows the fairies guiding a little newsboy to the land of his dreams.]
Utilizing the moving-picture with the microscope has given the layman an insight into a world almost beyond comprehension, and yet this field
## particularly is only in its infancy. At the recent World’s Hygienic
Congress in Washington, the large attendance at the lecture of Dr. Fullerborn of Hamburg, illustrated with microscopic moving-pictures, demonstrated the keen public interest in this subject. The pictures showed the skin of a guinea-pig being shaved, how it was inoculated with the hook-worm, the surgeon cutting out a piece of the skin and preparing his microscope. The remainder of the film showed just how the rapid multiplication of the much-talked-of hook-worm is revealed through the microscope.
The peculiar opaqueness necessary for the X-ray is obtained by administering to a patient, who is in a fasting condition, two ounces of bismuth subcarbonate mixed with two glasses of buttermilk. Many radiographs are then made in rapid succession. These are reduced to cinematographic size and projected upon a screen, giving a very graphic representation of the motions of the stomach during digestion. The films used in this paper were made by Dr. Lewis Gregory Cole, Radiologist to Cornell University Medical College, and were shown at a recent meeting of the American Medical Association, and published in the journal of that society and in the Archives of Roentgen Ray. This procedure is termed “Roentgencinematography” by Kaestle, Rieder, and Rosenthal, to whom Dr. Cole gives much credit for previous work along the same line. In the articles referred to above Dr. Cole advises this method of examination for determining the presence of cancers and ulcers of the stomach.
[Illustration: Produced by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
SCENE FROM “THE STARS AND THE STRIPES”
This picture shows the surrender of the British captain to John Paul Jones in the famous fight between the _Bonhomme Richard_ and the _Serapis_. The scene was arranged in the Edison Studio, the American ship being stationary and the other arranged to run on rollers.]
“Photographing time” has a spectacular sound, yet patents were recently issued to the writer which virtually accomplished this. Between the shutter and the film of the moving-picture machine are introduced the marked edges of revolving transparent dials, actuated by clock-movement. The figures in the three dials denote the hour, minute, second, and smaller divisions, and are arranged to come to a prescribed position as the shutter opens. By this means the exact time at which any motion is photographed is imprinted on the different pictures of the film independent of the varying speed of the hand-crank. Such records promise to be most useful in the “scientific management” field and medical pictures, from which comparative time studies can be made from a number of films at the same time or from a single film by reproducing it on the screen in the usual manner.
Over twenty years ago, Mr. Edison stated in his patent specification in referring to his ability to take forty-six photographs per second, “I have also been able to hold the tape at rest for nine tenths of the time.” It was probably not intended to convey the impression that he could take anything approaching ten times the number of pictures, as it is of course necessary to provide for rest periods; but it is significant that very recently a machine has been perfected for portraying such rapid motion as projectiles in flight, etc., which takes the almost inconceivable number of two hundred and fifty pictures per second. Indeed, experiments are in progress which promise even four hundred per second.
Films are also being utilized to show the news of the day. A member of ~The Century~ staff was in Rome last year when the king was fired upon. Two days later, in Perugia, he saw a moving-picture of the king appearing on the balcony of the palace before an enormous crowd assembled to congratulate him on his escape. More recently a London theater which shows the news of the day in motion-pictures is regularly opened and important events are shown on the screen two hours after their occurrence, a promptness approaching that of the press “extra.”
TRICK FILMS
The old saying is that figures do not lie; but a modern one is that they can be made to. Just so the trick film places before one’s very eyes what to one’s inner consciousness is impossible. Two favorite devices of the trickster are brought into play in a recent film which shows a cleverly produced romance woven about such an absurdity as the painting of a landscape by the switching of a cow’s tail. The film tells the story of a ne’er-do-well, in love, pretending to study art. The father frowns on the match, but promises his favor if the son will produce an example of his skill. In desperation the brush and palette are taken to a field, and while the lovers are despairing, a friendly cow approaches the easel. The switching begins at once, and a change in the canvas is seen with every movement until a creditable painting appears. What has appeared astonishing would have attracted less attention had the audience seen that the pictures showing the restless cow were taken at intervals, between which, while the camera was stopped, a real artist worked on the picture, and stepped to one side when the camera was put into action.
The work of the trickster is shown to advantage in reversing a film depicting a building operation. When run backward, a brand-new structure is seen to be pulled to pieces, and its various members hauled away in wagons running backward.
One operator, who had shown boys diving from a high spring-board, has related how, by reversing the film, he let his audience see the boys come out of the water feet foremost, rise through the air the same way, and by a graceful turn land on their feet on the spring-board. Another has told how, by the same reverse motion, firemen, who a moment before had rescued occupants from a burning building, were seen to carry their victims back into the flames. We may perhaps look for some of these enterprising tricksters to illustrate the possibility of that expression of impossibility, “the unscrambling of eggs,” or for one of them, with rare presence of mind, to catch on his lens an accident shattering a number of valuable cut-glass pieces, and then to convert a loss into profit by exhibiting the film reversed, and showing with wonderful effectiveness a mass of broken glass ascend through space and form itself on the table into the perfect originals.
THE PHOTO-PLAY
The moving-picture has developed an important branch in the field of literature. Several periodicals are devoted entirely to the subject, and in many of the standard magazines can be found regular advertisements for short “photo-plays.” The scenario-writers engaged in the work do not seem to be able to keep up with the increasing demand. Standard plays are pressed into service, and the leading managers and actors of the world are found among those producing the 5000 plays which moving-picture audiences require every year.
The drama on the white sheet dates back to the autumn of 1894, when Alexander Black of New York brought out the first “picture-play” before a distinguished literary audience. This first picture-play, called “Miss Jerry,” like later white-sheet plays by the same author and artist, was accompanied by a spoken monologue giving all the speeches and covering all the transitions of the action. The pictures, the making of which was begun before the appearance of the motion-picture device, were produced in series, indoors and out, from a living cast, as in the present plays, and were put on the screen with registered backgrounds by the aid of a double stereopticon at the rate of from three to five per minute, thus presenting stages of action--a prophecy of the continuous action perfected in the plays of to-day.
When Mr. Black gave “Miss Jerry” for the first time in Boston, Edward Everett Hale, greeting the author after the performance, exclaimed, “Black, it’s so _inevitable_ that I’m chagrined to think that I didn’t invent it myself.” It seemed inevitable, also, that the motion-picture machine would take up the play idea; yet for a considerable time motion exploitation was confined to short, episodic films. Indeed, the early motion films were far less smooth in effect than the modern product, and at the beginning a prolonged run appeared like a hazardous undertaking for the eyes. Within the present season certain films have been run in almost unbroken continuity (as in Bernhardt’s “Queen Elizabeth”) for an hour and a half, which is to say that the motion-pictures are now giving the full dramatic progression suggested by the original lantern-play as seen by Dr. Hale.