MOVIE WAYS THAT ARE DARK.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13488, 19 May 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOVIE WAYS THAT ARE DARK.

I If nothing else shows that 'tin iheatheu Chinee is peculiar," his tastt in motion-pictures would give it awa> boldly. He is not contented with dynamite explosions, burning cities, ousiard pies flung in the face cf the immaculate-iy-attireu beau of Sister :>usie; he will not give his celestial plaudit-, to the fat comedienne who rolls down tin church stairs- with her bridegroom, nnr will he weep salt tears on the sliMilner ol" the lady in front as the po-or little golden-haired girl is put out of hci hat by the cr-00l landlord because her dead mother can not pay the rent. Not. these for Pong Chu, or whatever his name may be. What he does like and how it igiven him may be gleaned ir-m an article in the New York Tri ; >unc. in which the author recounts the -.iiii total ol his observations from an aeade.nic and .scholarly inspection of n >.\ Chines* film-. These films are not tin- importations from California, wherein Alan Piekford and Charlie Chaplin disport themselves identically as they do in Boston or Mobile; but real Orienta: pictures made in China, acted by Chinese actors, and portraying all the joy* and sorrows of the Oriental's lite. Ol the industry in China we are toid by this astute investigator : Come to think of it there i-. no reason in the "world why the motionpicture business should not flourish in China as elsewhere. And there is no reason in the world why the Chinese should not make their own picture*, it they don't happen to like the European and American kinds. But it is a bit of a shock, nevertheless, to learn that the Chinese have been flocking to their movie house;* for half a dozen years, that they have been making their own pictures for five years, and, in short, that the business is highly organised and flourishing. For all of those thingare true.

They leaked out, these facts, during the recent visit to these parts of one. Benjamin JBrodsky, the Marcus Loew of China. As head of the China Cinema Company, Limited, he enjoys practically a monopoly of the business in the land of the Celestials. Ho controb eighty moving-picture theatres, scattered from Peking to Kong-fchang. and from Canton to Tyng-Choo. Am! he maintains fully equipped studies in Shanghai and in Hongkong, where be employs hundreds of persons in the manufacture of Chinese motion-pic-tures. Something about this industry in China is herewith set down in'.type foi the first time.

Benjamin Brodskv was not an Annri. can movie man who carried the business to China. On the contrary, he did not know a great deal more about picture.-, than the several million other re'sidonts of China. In China h. spent al!< hut his earliest years, and when motion pictures became the craze, BrodVky, having; an intimate knowledge of the country, conceived the idea of earrving tin pictures to the great cities of the Chinese interior—cities of uncounted millions. His first house, established in one of the great unpronounceable cities contained' little more than four walls. To this day there are no seating accommodations for the multitude in Chinese movie houses—the Intorborough would rind it a delightfuJ country. A few of the patrician Chinese buy seats and pay handsomely for them t7s fid in most cases); the common people statu! on the great floors, wedged tightly against one another. Main of the Brodsky theatres take care of 15,000 persons in this manner: the smallest of them holds 6000. If there were seats, explains Mr Brodsky, he could never get his audience out. They would sit down and stay there until driv» n out by hunger.

When lie came to open his first Chinese movie theatre, this new impressarin discovered that nobody came. Hi had staged, we are told, a thrilling oomhina. tion of French wrong apartment mixups, with "wild West" bronco-melo-dramas, all in vain. The public did not. attend; in fact he learned that it did not. know it was supnosed to attend. Th<i author adds, emphatically: They didn't know anything about it at all. So Mr Brodsky started out to round up his first audience. He it by paying it to attend— surelv a new procedure unique in the annalsV.f showdom. One at a time, he interviewed Uhmamen and paid them to go to see his .show. He gave them what they asked—one tsien, two or ten. 11, didn't cure a great deal, because he knew that they would pay back the money on future as soon as thev found out what was going on. In this manner several dozen theatre* were put on their feet, in cities A \\ „vor China, but the audiences never derived their full measure of enjoyment from the proceedings because thev top frequftiuh: failed to understand "them The printed portions of the films w. i\transated mto v C'hinese. of course, but s tho human motives could not be. There sprang up a demand lor the Chinese Photoplay and Mr Brodskv sm, that he would have: to satisfy it. Then and there was founded the Chinese Cinema Company.

Mr Brodsky is the onlv American connected with this enterprise. The eonMikiug committ.,'.. for example is made up of such sterling Chinamen as K:m Louey O'Hoy, Ma Vat Chm. Fourfa Gam and the like. At their two Utsdies they arc turning out a picture a week these days, and these make the rounds of tin ir eighty theatres. One of their hlms is almost certain to roach tliis country within another year It is "The Empress of Dowers,"' and is in twelve reels. The Government loaned a huge segment of the Chinese Army tor use in this film—fiO.tKX) men. At the Shanghai studio, which is the larger, Mr Brodsky and his associates maintain a stock company of three hundred actors. At all eve-its. thev an actors to as great an extent PS the I.hine.se over can be actors. Mr Brodsky picked them uo where he could, find them, for he knew that thev would be no harder to train than anv'others Their trouble is a lack of imagination, lake a genial soul stretched out on the ground having his leg pulled (a Chines.." comic device equivalent to being hit with a flap-stick). Before he could be persuaded to exhibit obvious signals of distress it was found noeo>sarv~ to administer a .sound beating, whereupon he cried.

'lt I want a man to laugh and be glad," explained Mr Brodskv, ' : l have to take him out and show him a good. time. I gave him a fine meal, with plenty to drink, and then march him right to work. That is ahout the only way T can sot a comedy scene."' Thus, when it is desired to show a Chinese family at dinner, an ordinary motion-picture dinner will not do. There must ho regular food. And live minutes later, it' it is discovered that tln-re wa.-n'r any film in the machine, there inu-t be another dinner served if the director wants a retake. Chinese films, like all things Oriental, are of course bound up with Chinese traditions and superstitions. Ancestorworship plays a large part, says the account, and has a marked influence on the plots. It is probably the camera's capacity for trick photography that. make« it easy to show the return of a long-departed grandfather, and thus vivify the worship of one's forebear. And, furthermore, we are informed:— Chinoso superstitions, also, are constantly getting in the way of the pictures, and many and horrible are the throats that have to be resorted t.> in order to persuade actors to perform the proscribed stunts. One performer, for example, refused flatly to be photographed in a coffin, citing the Inchest religiotw authorities on the question and declining to put himself in line for the visitations of the evil one. As :i method of persuasion he was overpowered, placed in the crffin. and made to stay there for thirty-six hours, with the additional promise that he would lie kept there for ever if he refused to listen to reason. Thereupon the scene was taken. These little incidents, however, render moyie-makincr in China '. a somewhat uncertain profession.

"The Unfortunate rW," a populir film, contains enough melodrama to b-> «n American movie. Stripped of iChinese moviation. in fact, it might l>" shown in anv New York fihn emporium. and probably will. Lo Sing P»k. gaa

got the Chinese audienco interested by a couple of murders, ttm proceeds to work itself. In Chy*, although the Government holik a restraining hand over certain features ol the filnjH, thou is no real censorship. Muroer ana other things may le ireelv shown upon the Krreen.

In his Shanghai company Mr Brodsky has a comedian who is infinitely moro humorous than tin- celebrated Mr Lhaphn (or so be is regarded in China). and it may be that be will be seen in America before long. Alter all !>'. wa\ of winding up with a w.appv exit speech, there is ; ,n excellent reason why Chinese actors shou.d be better than those of any other country: Because they never tot-got- their queues!