WHAT MAKES GOOD PICTURES GOOD
Motion pictures are not yet nearly so good as they ought to be. Not so
interesting. Not so funny. Not so artistic.
People who know what they are talking about—teachers and artists and
editors and preachers—say so. Indeed, it’s an almost self-evident fact.
One of the main reasons is that you and I and the others who watch
motion pictures, millions of us every day, don’t know enough about
them. So we can’t demand better pictures, and refuse to make poor ones
profitable. Taken by and large, we don’t know whether or not the movie
stories are well told, or how they are made, or what sort of people
make them. We simply go in and watch what appears on the screen, and
perhaps wonder whether we really liked it or not. We take what is set
before us, unable to praise or criticise intelligently, because we know
so little about the matter.
It is true that whole articles are written about the dresses and
automobiles of lovely Lotta Breeze, the popular star, and we see
pictures of directors, and actors, and even an occasional producer. But
that is about all. No real public ability to judge movies accurately
has yet been developed.
Almost any teacher can tell you why the _Atlantic Monthly_ and
_Century_ and _Harper’s_ are better than some of the cheaper magazines;
almost any teacher can explain, as well, why the circulation of those
magazines is smaller than that of many of their competitors, and why
you and I prefer, possibly, stories of the forest or the forecastle.
But so far there has been no one to point out what brands of pictures
are the best and why they are the best, and where they must be
improved, and how it can be done.
We have got to learn—you and I and the rest, now that the movies
have come along to claim our time and attention—something about
story-telling, and a lot more about how movies are made, and who makes
them.
Fortunately, it is mostly very interesting.
Let us look at some facts about story-telling.
Whenever we watch motion pictures, we see somebody doing something,
somewhere.
It may be a young fellow from the country, who has come to the city to
make his fortune, and finds work as a truck-driver, hauling piano-boxes
that are filled with rifles for shipment to the Soviet. It may be a
girl who decided to wake up “Ellum Center” by putting in a real live
department store. It may be an old man who sails away to the South Seas
to try to locate his runaway grandson, and finds a pearl island as
well. But always it is somebody, somewhere, doing something.
Those three things are the foundations on which all story-telling
is built. People—the things they do—and the places they do them in.
Characters, action, and locale.
It may happen that the people in our picture are merely travelers,
looking at strange scenes in Siam. In that case, we call the picture
a travelogue; the emphasis is neither on the people, nor what they
do; instead, it is on the place they happen to be—Siam. We watch for
elephants or queer bullock-drawn carts and odd houses and think nothing
at all about whether or not the lady with the parasol is going to marry
the man who feeds the elephant.
Frequently we find more or less conventional heroes or heroines engaged
in death-defying feats and adventures, with all the emphasis on what
they do, and little enough on what they are. That is the usual trend of
melodrama.
More rarely, we find really interesting people—children with a slant of
ingenuity that makes the old folks sit up and take notice—a man with a
temper that gets him into trouble until he finally manages, when the
big test comes, to control it. Such films are usually of the better
class.
Mostly, we see a blend of all three things. In “The Three Musketeers”
Douglas Fairbanks gives us a little more of characterization than
the average hero has (we can feel his wit, his audacity, his
resourcefulness and loyalty) and shows us as well the thrilling
episodes of a fast-moving plot, in the alluring setting of romantic
France, a century and more ago. In Charles Ray’s pictures we find
still more of characterization, in a winning personality that usually
has humor, modesty, ambition, sincerity, and naturalness; but there
is a lot of interest that attaches to his trials and tribulations in
the small town where he lives. With Bill Hart we feel real character
again—cool courage, restraint, a fine spirit of fair play—and always
interesting doings against the fascinating background of the cattle
country.
Now it is in the excellencies or defects of these three
things—characters, action, and locale—that we find good or poor
photoplays.
Don’t be afraid that, to learn to be able to tell good pictures when
you see them, you have got to watch tiresome pictures. To be really
good, photoplays must be interesting. Emerson, I believe, lays down
somewhere three rules for reading books—never to read a book that isn’t
a year old, never to read a book that isn’t famous, and never to read
a book that you don’t like. With photoplays, we might perhaps say:
never go to a photoplay that hasn’t somewhere at least a good criticism
(that is, real praise from some one you know or whose opinion you can
respect), and never go to a photoplay of a kind you don’t like. Whether
or not it is the kind you like, you can tell by noting the stars, the
director, and the producing company or brand.
Well, then, supposing we are going to try to see only photoplays that
we can genuinely enjoy—enjoy more than has been the case with most of
those we have “just happened” to run into in the past—let us get back
to our three main ingredients.
First the people. Because in the end they’re the most important of all
three. What sort of a chap will we find in a really worth-while movie?
One who, to begin with, is genuine. A regular fellow.
Mostly, photoplays don’t have them. If we want to find regular fellows
playing the big parts in a picture we have to make up our minds to pass
by a large proportion of the films that come along, except in the
pretty big picture-theaters. Actually, the men making photoplays hardly
seem to know, as yet, what regular fellows are. In pictures you don’t
often see the real thing—yet. But it is coming. Every now and then a
regular fellow gets on the screen.
In 1921 a preparatory school story, “It’s a Great Life,” came a little
closer than most pictures do to showing what real boys may do or think.
And even that was pretty far from the mark in some things.
On the whole, Charles Ray and Bill Hart, and in one way, Douglas
Fairbanks, have probably come closer, so far, to showing men who are
“regular fellows” than any one else. Will Rogers is another, at least
in a good many of his pictures.
Not long ago a picture was turned out that hits the nail right on
the head; “Disraeli.” It happens that the “regular fellow” in that
particular film is an old man, and the story is one that will be
enjoyed mostly by rather quiet-minded grown-ups, for it concerns the
purchase of the Suez Canal by England, through the foresight of the
great man who was premier of England at the time. It may not be the
sort of picture you or I happen to like best; but we must not forget
that it is the real thing, and shows what can be done.
Another picture that showed real people was “The Copperhead” released
in 1920. It was a tragic story, but exciting, and all the characters,
from Abraham Lincoln down, were convincing. “Humoresque” was another.
Whenever you find a picture that has regular fellows in it, whether
they are young or old, encourage it. If they have the stamp of
genuineness—if they do the things that you or I would do, and think
as you or I would think, the people that produced the film are on the
right track.
But when, if you stop to think, the old men in the pictures are not
natural, and the women are not natural (young girls playing the parts
of married women of thirty or forty and so on) and the men and boys are
not doing what everyday men and boys would really do, we can classify
the picture as a second-rater at the best.
[Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._
DRAMA ON AN AEROPLANE.
The use of aeroplanes has become almost commonplace in movies on
account of the opportunities they provide for hair-raising stunts.
Note that, as usual, there are two cameras on the job.]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._
A GRUESOME AEROPLANE WRECK.
Of course all carefully posed. When “blood” is needed for movie
wounds, catsup and glycerine make a great combination.]
You may have seen the Charles Ray film called “The Old Swimmin’-hole.”
The story concerned schoolboys and schoolgirls; the incidents were
taken straight from boyhood in the country, and were at least passably
true to life. The scenes were well planned, the photography was
beautiful.
But for me, there was one tremendous defect, that marred what would
otherwise have been an exceedingly fine film.
It was this: the boys and girls of the story were—oh, say twelve to
fifteen years old. Certainly not more. But the actors who took the
parts were nearly all of them nearer thirty than fifteen, and showed it.
Now, boys in a swimming-hole, purloining each other’s clothes, or
ducking to get out of sight of some one hunting for them, and all the
rest, may be funny enough, and interesting. But when you see a man
doing those same things, it is entirely different. And Charles Ray
never at any time in “The Old Swimmin’-hole” looks enough of a boy. The
result is, that the film, instead of being a knockout, is “almost” the
real thing.
Or take “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” It is a fine picture. But Mary
Pickford is playing a boy’s part—and we are never quite able to forget
that she is a girl. Result: the photoplay isn’t quite right.
We have a right to insist on reality.
Now, when it comes to what the “regular fellows” of our photoplays
(men, women or children, it makes no matter which, so long as they
are real flesh-and-blood human beings, with real characteristics to
distinguish them from everybody else)—when it comes to what they do, we
have the chance to see if they are worth while or not.
If the picture is an out and out fairy story, say like “The Little
Princess,” or “Rip Van Winkle,” or “The Golem,” we can take our
choice. Occasionally, a Douglas Fairbanks comes along and escapes from
thirty-nine bloodthirsty villains by jumping over a house, and we like
it because it is pleasing nonsense. But mostly, when photoplay folk do
quite impossible things, they might as well “get the hook.”
Whether it is scaling precipices that simply couldn’t be scaled,
or rising to heights of grandness that never could be risen to, the
trouble is the same. For even when watching pure fiction, we want to
have it applicable to life. We want to be able to feel that it really
might have happened. And whenever we find a movie hero doing something,
big or little, that makes us say or feel “O piffle!”—why—out.
Another thing: our movie people must have worth-while thoughts in their
heads.
Take a small thing—the men in a picture keeping their hats on in a
house, or perhaps failing to stand up when a lady enters the room,
or showing poor table manners, such as would not be expected from
gentlemen in the class they are pretending to portray.
Or more important things: In “The Affairs of Anatol” a woman steals a
pocketbook to pay back money she has taken from her husband, who is
treasurer of a church, and the husband accepts it as quite all right,
without making any effort at all to find out where his wife got it.
Apparently, in such cases, neither actors nor directors knew any
better—in the one case good manners, in the other, seemingly, good
morals.
But we have a right to insist on something better than that. The people
who tell our stories must know more about both manners and morals than
we do, or they are not worth keeping on as story-tellers.
How long could a teacher unable to speak correct English be kept in a
public school?
If the people of our photoplays don’t do worth-while, intelligent,
convincing things,—out with them.
They do not need to be goody-goodies, either.
Last of all, the place where things happen.
Here, it is plain sailing; we want things artistic if possible—but
accurate, anyway.
Suppose a boy started to tell you about a game of tennis, and happened
to refer to the solid rubber balls.
When a photoplay shows London streets, with all the traffic going to
the right, instead of to the left as it really goes there, we watch a
lie.
Once in writing a story about a man who had been in South Africa I
referred to the little kangaroos he had seen there. It was a slip; the
man was an Australian, and I had confused the little ground apes or
baboons of the veldt with kangaroos, in the queer way that we all have
of making mistakes sometimes. Kangaroos grow only in Australia. But
what a calling down I got from the editor to whom I sent that story!
It was his business to see, among other things, that he protected his
readers from just that sort of misrepresentation.
In motion pictures, they have not got quite so far along yet.
Near-cowboys are apt to seize the pommel of a saddle with their left
hand and climb on any untried horse with it, instead of holding the
side of the bridle with the left hand, as they usually do. The movies
haven’t yet learned that they have a duty of being accurate, and
truthful. And we must help them learn that lesson.
To be sure, we may not recognize all the mistakes, or even very many
of them; but where we do—put down a black mark. The producer of the
picture with that particular lie in it is not playing fair with you.
And now, a final word about how to find the best pictures, and avoid
the poorer ones.
First, learn the names of the stars and producers of real ability, who
have been in charge of their own pictures so long that we know we can
expect pretty good pictures from them. They’re not so many altogether;
Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Bill Hart, Charles
Ray, Charlie Chaplin, Maurice Tourneur, Harold Lloyd, Marshall Neilan.
Whenever you go to a picture made by any one of those people, you know
just about what to expect. Of its kind (and you can pick the kind you
like) any of these will give about the best there is.
Second, learn to look for praise or criticism of new pictures that are
exceptionally good, and whenever you find an unusually strong reason
in favor of a picture that seems to be of the kind you like, put it on
your list as one you will see.
Don’t go to pictures you know nothing about, made by people you know
nothing about. The chances are at least five to one that they will not
be worth watching.
[Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._
GOOD TRAINING IN CHEERFULNESS.
Movie actors have to learn how to be good sports under any and all
circumstances. They have to be able to grin when told to do so,
whether they like what they are doing or not.]
[Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._
TWO CAMERAS AGAINST ONE PIG.
Animals are nearly always interesting on the screen. They make
excellent “actors” because they can never be anything but absolutely
natural. This is one reason why dogs and babies nearly always
“screen” well.]
Third, learn to note the name of the director (or in some cases the
star or author or producer) responsible for the picture. Look for the
name again.
For instance, among the directors who have become prominent in the last
year or so is John Robertson. Go to one of his pictures some time, and
see how it proves in all three ways—real people, doing interesting,
convincing and worth-while things, in a place that is shown truthfully.