THE PICTURE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 150, 26 June 1915, Page 15

THE PICTURE WORLD

Los Angeles, California, has of a sudden become the motion picture centre of the world. The men, women, and children earning a livelihood in the studios are said to number between twelve and fourteen thousand. The film exported during the year 1914 was estimated at six million pounds. This is the business, call it a trade or an art, that in less than ten years has passed from a device to amuse children to the standard form of entertainment, in almost every country in the world. The Vitagraph, Lubin, Keystone, and the David W. Griffith Companies, Mutual and' Majestic, have each about five hundred acres, and upon these there are villages that might have been lifted out of the hearts of Japan, Ireland, Holland, or any Western frontier town, and a complete Mexican mission, with chapels, cells, and gardens, while William N. Selig, with a menagerie said to equal Hagenbeck's Zoo in Germany, has a tremendous park where almost every thing on the "Dark Continent" can be duplicated. Close by the New York Motion Picture Company owns eighteen thousand acres of land. In Auckland, recently, during the production of the Keystone comedy in which Ford Sterling introduced himself to his old-time players, Mabel Normand and Fatty, a etout, hearty charwoman added greatly to the pleasure of those around her by her infectious laugh and sympathetic comments. A late-comer noticed, when the session was over and the first reel started again, she did not go, but settled back to enjoy it over again. When Ford Sterling and Fatty got into their comedy act, she shook with laughter. " Oh, dear; ain't they funny '" ehe gurgled. " They're funnier than the first time !" It has come at last. Th« song that everyone singe, without the slightest knowledge of what it is all about. Tosti's " Good-bye" has been filmed. It is a strange fact, but not one person in fifty who sings that song can tell you what. they are singing about ; they know there is a story hidden about the premises somewhere, but the music is so pretty that the singer has no time to hunt for it ; all that is thought about is to make a final effort in the " Good-bye for Ever !" phase. Now the Vitagraph Company is to give them a knowledge of it. The narrative must have been located very securely, because the film is over two thousand feet long. Elinor Glynn, dazzled by her great success with the filming of "Three Weeks," has made it public that she is contemplating a new story that will make her first filmic work look like three hours. Jo» Smiley, the director of the Lubin Company, read of her intention, and, he remarked, in his characteristic drawl, " Well, Elinor will have to wait till an asbestos film is invented, if she hopes to get it through a cinematographic machine." Mr. R. J. A. Lister, who made himself very popular during the past three years as manager of the Empress Theatre, vacated his position on Monday last in order to apply himself to some business propositions which he has in hand. Mr. Barrio Marschel, who has long earned the esteem of the public as a theatrical manager, replaces Mr. Lister at the Empress. Here are a few aphorisms from a notebook of a well-known photo-play star: It is a wise author that knows his own scenario after it has been directed. There are photo-play producers and photo-play manufacturers — the difference is seen on the screen and in the box office. Actors and actresses who do not read the papers live in a film which no one sees but themselves. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and, like all flattery, hurts the original. There never was a good film that could not be better or a bad film that could not be worse. Success is due to three things : opportunity, talent, and the chance to make the latter known. Advertising never made a star, but lack of it has often killed one.