FILM FINANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1920, Page 9

FILM FINANCE.

Tito arrival in England of representatives of several of the largest American companies engaged in the production of films for the kinema theatres, with the object of tempting the best-known English authors to write stories for production of the screen, has directed attention to the remarkable prosperity of this branch of the moving-picture business. It is -stated that Mr. Jesse L. Lasky, representing the American company of Famous Players-Lasky Limited, has induced Sir James Barrie and Mr. Henry Arthur Jones to write a scenario for the film, and that lie is negotiating with other famous authors and playwrights. Mr. Goldwyn, whose firm has induced M. Maurice Maeterlinck to study the technique of the film preparatory to writing scenarios, lias endeavoured to induce"Mr. Bernard .Shaw to follow M. Maeterlinck's example, but so far has not been successffll. Mr. Shaw doubts whether his intellectual work would he successful when presented in dumb show on the screen but Mr. Goldwyn has no such doubts. He believes that there are no intellectual heights or subtleties which cannot be reproduced on the screen in a way that will make them acceptable to the pieanest intelligence. With the bombastic assertiveness of the American showman, Mr. Goldwyn declares: 'uCinema work is one of the arts. It is not enough that a film should have merely a physical punch; it must have a mental punch as well. In future, people must never leave a kinema theatre without carrying away with them some great idea. That is what we aim at—the effective and artistic presentation of f great ideas. We have the biggest public in the world, and we must give them of the best. We want films that will run continuously for years in the same theatre, just a3 successful plays do." lit England, where the film business is !ess developed and less prosperous than in America; with its hundreds of film studios and IS,OOO picture palaces, the expenditure of £3,000 to £6,000 on the production of a film is considered high; but in America 10 times as much is not considered exceptional, and some films have cost over £200,000 to produce. Mr, J. L. Laskv states that an average of £2">,000 to £35,000 is spent on every film produced by his company. Enormous sums are spent on artificial scenery. "'On the other side of the Atlantic we spend £7,000 in building an old street for the background of one scene." states Mr. Goldwyn; "but over here in England you have got the real thing for nothing.'' America film companies have so much money to disburse that they have raised to unexampled prosperity the trade of authorship for those who write film stories. Mr. Lesley Mason, editor of a New V'ork newspaper connected with a publication which watches over the trade interests of the exhibitors of films, stated during his recent visit to London that £250 would be regarded Ss a very low price in America for a scenario from an outside source accepted by a film Company. A friend of his who devotes 1 his talents exclusively to writing scenarios is making £o,ooo a year. The record sum paid within Mr. Mason's knowledge for a scenario from a comparatively .unknown man was £I,OOO, and a royalty of o per cent, on all receipts over £'20.0(10 earned bv the film,

Tlie English companies are now finding it necessary to offer good terms in order to pot film stories'. Jn the past the majority of photo plays produced on the screen have been adapted from novels or sti\ge plays; but the film companies have used up in this way the most successful novels and plays, and are trying to obtain original stories written fMr the screen. Some of the producers cling to the idea that the best work for the screen can be obtained from men who have made reputations as novelists or dramatists, and that if they can only induce these authors to write for the screen the difficulty about finding thrilling material for the picture palaces will be at an end. Others, with more enterprise and originality, believe that the successful authors and dramatists bave already produced the best, that is iu I hem, and that the successful writers for the screen will be found amdng men and women who have not already made their mark in other directions. Mr. Walter West, of the Broadwest Company, has announced his readiness to pay £SOO for every original story submitted to him which he considers suitable for production, on the screen by his company, The story, which in this case means a bare outline | of the plot, should run to about 0,000 1 words, but it is not essential that it should bp written as a scenario, The successful writer of scenarios must study the technique of the film, so as to present his plots and his situations in a way which can be most effectively produced on the screen, just as the dramatist must master the technique of the stage in order to write good plays. But each film-producing company employs its own experts to sdapt foy the screen novels and plays that have achieved remarkable success ill their own spheres, (n order to bring a play or novel within the limitation ,of the screen, the story it contains is usually mutilated iu the' most ruthless manner by these experts. They know nothing whatever about the art of the novel or of the drama, and they have ft great contempt for what they don't knpw. The. Wpy that they butcher classical examples of literature in order to produce these classical stories on the screen is enough to make the authors turn in their is said that, in view of the great of the film business, American undertakers .ire making for aijthprs a special gyroscopic coffin which will fr.nilitfUo Ihe painful operation of turning in their graves I whenever their-work's are produced on the screen.

| The storv of the adaptation' of The ' Four Horsemen of the Apqpa!ypse' fyf i.hc screen in America illustrates the Imtcherlni: methods of Hie adapter. "The Four )Horsemen of t!ie Apoclypse,' which was written ljy the Spanish novelist Vineoiite Jbanez, had a salt,of nearly half a million copies jn America, although the book mat wi'th |io success wholi subsequently published lit Enghuid on the .strength of its American boom. Tho tioiik (leals with tlie war, and it is said by American critics to lie the best war novel that lias been published In any country. As a result of the boom in America, an enterprising firm of lecturing agents arranged a profitable lecturing tour of the United States for the Spanish author, and he was received everywherti as st iymn of distinction, Ono of the film-producing companies paid liim £II,OOO for the right to lilm 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," and when the adapter wan licking the masterpiece into shape for the film the author was told: "We can't allow your hero to have 911 illicit love affair. The great public of the united Sfe>t#s. wlf) ve v ev {b^t,"

"But it is of necessity in my-story that the love episode Bliould fee so," protested the author. "And the lady has a husband." "The best thing will bo to kill Mm Off," (said the cheerful adapter.. "I'll soon fix him. The next thing to leave out is the war parts of the book. The United States doesn't want to know what people in Spain and the Argentine thought the war." "But the war is the substance of my novel," said the author. "Not at all," was the reply of the adapter. "You don't understand it. Leave it to me. But, of course, we can't have your hero dying in the last scene. We must have a happy ending," "Madre de Dios! Hia death means everything in the book. Without it the book cannot be." "Leave it to me," said the adapter. "I'll make him live happy ever afterwards." An American lady who admired 'The Pour Holsemen of the Apocalypse' as a novel, and had seen the screen version of the story, asked the author how he could possibly have consented to allow such a travesty of his story to be produced. "Ah, niadame," he replied, "there was a question of £II,TOO. Any man would be willing to cut his own throat for so muc'i money."—London correspondent of the Age,