Page:Screenland October 1923.djvu/84

84 

 Woman and One Arabian Night—there came a veritable tidal wave of American made costume pictures to fill and overflow the channels that had been opened by these sturdy pioneers. Oddly enough, the native productions made money where most of the originators had failed.

categorically, the biggest stars and directors in The Filmy Way, we find that each of them has taken a flyer in romantic drama. Some of them have gone in for costume stuff to the exclusion of everything else.

Douglas Fairbanks, in the past three years, has made two pictures—The Three Musketeers and Robin Hood—both of which were reeking with romance. His next production, The Thief of Bagdad, will follow the same schedule.

Mary Pickford has made Little Lord Fauntleroy and is now engaged on Lolita, a story of old Spain.

Rex Ingram has done The Prisoner of Zenda and Scaramouche.

Norma Talmadge reflected two stages of the 19th Century in Smilin' Thru and The Eternal Flame, and has gone even farther back into the dim past in Ashes of Vengeance.

Even the sprightly, sophisticated, ultra-modern Constance has attempted to prove that the flapper isn't a new invention. In The Dangerous Maid and Mme. Pompadour, she is following the fashionable trend into history.

D. W. Griffith, who was adept at this sort of thing even before the German invansioninvasion [sic], produced Orphans of the Storm and then, characteristically, shifted his scene to the present time and started to put romantic drama into dress suits.

{[sc|ichard Barthelmess}}, whose chief charm has always been his essential, homely Americanism, has chosen to cast off the humble habiliments of Tol'able David and step forth in the finery of an elder day. The Bright Shawl was a flashing affair of the brave days in 1850 when Cuba was first struggling for independence. The Fighting Blades—Dick's latest—is a romantic melodrama of the early 17th Century.

Marion Davies, whose picture, is published regularly in many of our leading newspapers and magazines, has run wild with costume pictures. When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York have been as complete as Wells' Outline of History and Yoland and Alice of Old Vincennes are to follow.

William Fox has donated The Queen of Sheba, Nero, Monte Cristo, Monna Vanna, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and a few others of equal magnificence.

Cecil B. De Mille has never quite departed from his favorite Fifth Avenue mansion, with its marble beds and patent leather, sheets, but he has inserted in each of his pictures a streak of historical stuff.

There are many more names on the list: The Covered Wagon, To Have and to Hold, Oliver Twist, Down to the Sea in Ships, Grandma's Boy, Trilby, Richard the Lion Hearted, Under Two Flags, The Green Goddess, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Brass Bottle, Omar the Tentmaker, Blood and Sand, Rupert of Hentzau—and so on as far as the eye can reach.

is no doubt that many of these spectacular romantic dramas have been produced to satisfy the star's personal vanity. There is no actor or actress in the world who doesn't like to dress up, and the gorgeous costumes of the olden days offer great opportunities for costly display. But it is equally certain that films of this type have, on the whole, been successful financially. Although statistics gathered by the energetic Mr. Roger Babson indicate that exhibitors still believe that the public doesn't want costume pictures, the actual box-office' records prove otherwise.

So the production of costume dramas will probably continue until every period in the history of the world has been carefully covered. Then, perhaps, the silent drama will pass quietly from the romantic age and achieve its full growth.

In the meantime, however, it's going to be pretty tough for the Hollywood barbers.



the moulds are retained, altered a bit and used again.

The Lasky studio saves every piece of lumber over, four feet long. A special nail-pulling gang pulls out all nails from the wood, and even saves the nails for the next job.

of the much-maligned "cost hounds" have vanquished wasteful tactics in the "prop" line, at least. At the Lasky studio, a drapery, may start its screen career at a drawing-room window. In its next appearance, it may be cut up for pillows or act as a piano cover. Or it may be bleached and dyed and used over, again. War clubs, spears and swords are used over and over again to suit the fashions of different eras. Cobble stones, Belgian blocks and marble floor slabs are kept in stock and used to pave streets or foyers at a moment's notice. They are used over and over again.

Telegraph poles used on locations are saved to make log cabins for some plains picture.

Stairways, arches and portions of the walls are saved. Structurally, they are not changed, but you would never recognize them under a disguise of new paper and fitted into a new setting.

There is an emulsion rich in silver salt left in the developing fluid by the film. Laboratory experts treat this fluid carefully, removing the silver.

So gradually, the wasteful days are passing. And they must. In the flush pioneer days of pictures, waste didn't matter. The new business was so great that it carried the movie makers along to fortune as on a tide. They couldn't help making money. But today competition is murderously keen. The public appetite for pictures is a bit sated. Waste is cutting into the profits so deeply that the producers, being business men first, last and foremost, are taking steps to prevent waste.

Let's hope they succeed. Then perhaps the price of pictures will come down, and father can take ma and the kids to the show on Saturday night once more, without feeling that he has paid a quarterly instalment on the national debt.