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Show i wlaking Books Talk with Camera for Movie Screen I !' Motion! " M(Q)vn Film J MmsA: Descnlb las a FlakP Wknir jjji kovdisft Has ftk 5 If. V if fWkol Dicftioiraairy ;:lifoir Sairan P wposcgo :a I BY A. H. GIEBLER, iT3T7HOEVER dubbc(1 moving plc- il I My turcs "U'G silent drama" 'I coiner a catchy and dcscrlp- tjjj ;illve phrase, but a phraso that la losing -dj 'omo of its forcr. and power as time .oea on and the art dovelopa. Sj jT0' course, the pictures do not speak ''a llny moro Ul3h th0 evcr dld. so far as jjjj fiioands and words aro concerned. In j? ;ifacl- 6ln the old-style projection ma- ;tl :'chlnc that used to buzz and whizz loud 'Si i enough to be hcurd all over tho theater jhas passed, and the "effects' i; achlno lliat cried l'ko a baby, roared Uke a ,? ,Ut,r' snd backfired like an automobilo naa j I; been taken out of the orchestra, the U ; movies are moro silent than over, so jf far as actual noise Is concerned. , , But since it is generally conceded that 'gj '. ictlcns speak louder than words, and W i Jhe rcovJcn aro developing a now klnS f or action action deelgncd expressly to flake the place of words, the term "s!- 3 flcnt drama" 1ms become almost a M Jmtanomer. Tho new kind of action In tho plc- y3CS resultc,i u'om Ul screening of 1 jfbook;. I TlI7I1BJs" lhc movies were now no action J l except what was absolutely ncccs- Jtary was put in tho play. Any deviation 'f'jjf., from main line i Why Padding ot hurry up, get to jj fls Necessary tlie end of this and ' ;j start another one, ! .as regarded as a theft of time and jj n Imposition of tho audience. $ Whin tho producers began putting .books on the screen, however, they jj found that It was necessary In many in-j in-j ;tances to put bits of action hero and jj .there in a story to mako the characters f"d the,r motives understandable, a. J jhinjy that was not necessary in storks jj Written expressly for the screen, jj Sometimes this extraneous action was Jj ot 11 dono and caused tho lndlct-j lndlct-j ynent of padding to be brought against j 'jthe Producers, jn some cases it was 1 padding. Slight stories wore puffed :nd padded from two to five reels aimp-7 aimp-7 becauEo the program called for a Ipc-reel play on a certain dale, But In ;05t instances the extra action was (.tut In for the same reason that the : irjter of tho book indulges in long-descriptions long-descriptions and character drawlngs-to ;,treato an atmosphere and a tono to the 'Itory, :fJ?k,nS th,S ,CaC fr0m the b00k o lhe kmakera was ono of the bost things too movio makero over did. Tho crudo attempts at atmosphoro In action soon ,trw through expansion and improvement, improve-ment, until now the pictures, and particularly par-ticularly the pictures that aro made from books, como as near speaking us' anything with no voice can come. Transferring a book to tho screen, Making tho people of a .Hory that tho Wter has mado real by his aklilful do-icrlptlona do-icrlptlona ami character drawine, ccm fust as real und Juut on natural In tho Plitufes, lo one tf the rnoet difficult Ihlngs the moving plctUro director has to do. '.There are many problems that have to be overcome in the successful adaption adap-tion of a book. ' To begin with, every book that is put in the pictures has been read by many people. Each and ovory reader has formed a mintal picture of the people and of the places described, and if tho filmed version of tho story doca not come up to thesa mental impressions, they are disappointed and voto the film a failure. " ". ' People who read arc prone to fit tho characters of their stories to people they know rnd ndmiro. T F MABEL loves George, and Georgo Is tall all fiction heroes aro apt to o6Sumo tall proportions to her and after hnving read a No Dictionary book and fitted the for Screen ncr0 t0 coec. it is an awful shock to go to tho theater when tho film version of tho book is shown and see a short hero walk out on tho screen. On tho other hand, Mary may havo fitted her idcaa of heroes to Matthew, who la short and fat, and tho same disappointment dis-appointment will occur to her If a tall horo appenrs. The only way this can bo guarded against is to avoid extremes and mako tho screened version of a book a sort of composito creation that will pleaso everybody as nearly ats possible. Great care must bo exorcised in handling han-dling characters when thoy arc transferred trans-ferred from tho printed page to the screen. In tho book, tho author can mako the most consummato scoundrel havo tho most polished manners and tho most dignified and gentlemanly bearing, and at tho same lime mako tho reader understand that he Is deep dyed in villainy by the uso of words. On the screen, unless thoro are things of a villainous naturo for tho villain to do, ho is very apt to look liko tho hero at times. It Is very easy for tho writer to explain ex-plain that Madgo, who amokes cigarettes, ciga-rettes, drinks cocktails, attends Questionable Ques-tionable resorts and docs many other unladylike things, is still a perfect lady, in spito of everything, becauso he has as many words as tho dictionary holds to Justify Madgo and make you understand under-stand hor. Whon tho writer puts Madgo on tho Rcreon, only her behavior, and not her motives, aro seen, and It takes some clever maneuvering and some very fino and subtle work to koop Madgo from seeming to be Just what her actions brand her to bo. Apart from this phase, equally wonderful won-derful strides havo been mado in giving tongues to books by the lliilo things that aro act hero and there in u picture. 4n Mary Tlckford's "Amarllly of Clothesllno Alley." Amarllly, her brothers broth-ers and her mother, who Is a washerwoman, washer-woman, arc Invited to tea at a fashion-ablo fashion-ablo house. Just boforo tho lot of ihcm come trooping into the house, a sceen with a goldfish bowl with fish (lopping around on the fioor, la shown. Just that no words of explanation of any kind. Then the sceno fades into tho drawlnc room of the rich house and Amarllly and her family aro .shown In tho midst of tho fino company. MAHHIIALL NE1LAN, tho director or this picture, explained that thi family were fish out of water In action, ' where the writer of Where Action a book would havo Speaks Loudly dn- lne same thing In worda, and In this ct?so tho action spoko louder than any -wordJj could ever hope to speak, Literary crltlcH and many other people peo-ple as well, deplore the fact that to many books arc being mado into movies. Direful prophecy Is made that aftor a Umo thero will bo no more read-on:, read-on:, nnd everybody will turn to the picture pic-ture shows for their stories. Il is said that our best authors will ru.-h to tho screen with thoir bost efforts, because of the greater anl ciulckcr reward offered by the movies.' Thero la JlUlc danger of this. Thj mr Ing-plcturc producors will not buy up the writers of books and pay them such fat salaries that thoy will stop writing books, becauso as .soon as the b ck writer stops writing books, he is no longer valuable lo the movio producer. pro-ducer. A scenario writer of tho wcll-pa'.d c!hsft thinks he is getting excellent pay if he ia given a thousand dollars for a con'ploto llvo-rcel piny. Tho producers will pay the author of a successful novol $5000 maybo ?10,000 for the privilege of adapting his novel to tho screen. But they do not pay him this price because his story is any greater, great-er, so .far ns the story goes, but becauso of the fact that If tho book Is a succss-ful succss-ful one It has been read by muny thousands thou-sands of people, all of whom wlll&wunt to sec It screened. In othor words, the advertising the book has received from' being widely read and talked about makes It valuable to tho producer, whether it turns out to be a good screen story or not. Tho successful book writer mu-t 'horcforo keep on writing books it ) o wants to command a bis price for his wares from the movies. As soon as 1'e abandons book writing nnd becomes a scenario writor ho gets paid at scenario writers' prices, and if tlio experience of some producers who havo tried tho experiment of employing high-prlci-d writers lo prcparo scripts for1 tho screen is taken as a criterion, somo of them would find themselves out of, a Job altogether al-together very soon. tAIvING books talk with action does 1 not mean that anything really new In the way of technique has beqn discovered dis-covered in the iVe Interest movies. Tho dc-in dc-in the Books vlces usod aro the same old-rcllablo stand-bys, the cut-back and the vision, but using theso two friends of intro-spoctlou intro-spoctlou and retrospection with skill and artistry has brought about a vast improvement In tho pictures, mado thorn better by a largo por cent, opened a now and delightful field for tho book lovor and addod to tho following of tho pictures by drawing pcoplo of literary tastes lnlo tho theaters. Many peoplo find a new pleasure In rereading a book after they havo seen It worked out In tho films, and, thonc who sco the pictured version first novcr fall to read tho book as soon as they oar. got lu V )rb -Win Cobb's '"Tlie face irilheDapld" : I WSSOWjru BeBescvs M xNHaapt- of frie Survsst'-' ! M |