Universal Pictures

“ The next few years of the industry’s history is the tale of numerous patent suits that wound in and out of the courts. The legal battles accentuated the naturally bitter competition to be expected in exploiting the new wonder. But the public had given a hearty welcome to the latest form of entertainment, and the picture-makers waxed prosperous, despite the handicap of internal strife. Theaters in all the big cities were showing the pictures as novelties, and traveling exhibitors were frequent. ”

“ THE MAN AND THE CITY. Universal City Studios. Distributed by MCA-TV. Approx. 53 min. each, sd., color, 35 mm. Produced in association with Groverton Productions. © Universal City Studios, Inc.
Jennifer. © 29Dec71; LP41678.
MAN CHANGES THE NILE. Public Media. Distributed by Films, Inc. 13 min., sd., color, 16 mm. (Man and his world) © Public Media, Inc. ”

“ The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the introduction of the close-up, switchback,95 light effects, and screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct. Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to judge our ever-increasing popularity. ”

“ And to get them we need these two things: inside the industry, the higher standards and leadership that can only come in with intelligent capital; and outside the industry, the support and encouragement of such good pictures as are already made. We of the motion-picture industry who stand for more intelligent pictures can only provide them if you on 68the outside, in addition to criticising in no uncertain terms the stupid films that offend you, will take the trouble to hunt up, and go to see, and boost, the photoplays that are good enough to merit your interest. ”

“ The barrier between real writers and the studios is, I am convinced, the greatest obstacle to the advance of motion pictures and the real trouble I can sum up in one sentence: “The picture stories are not written by authors, they are written by executives!” ”

“ It is simply that those men who make and distribute pictures have associated themselves to do jointly those things in which they are mutually but non-competitively interested, having as the chief purposes of such association two great objectives—and I quote verbatim from the formal articles of association, which have been filed in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, N.Y.: “Establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production and developing the educational as well as the entertainment value of the motion picture.” ”

“ In one year, according to the government tax paid on box-office admissions, nearly $800,000,000 worth of photoplay tickets were bought. That means more than $2,000,000 a day paid to see motion pictures. If the admissions averaged about twenty cents apiece, that means some 10,000,000 people a day watching the movies—getting their amusement and instruction, good or bad, and their impressions, good or bad, that go to determine what sort of people they will be, and what sort of a nation, twenty years from now, the United States will be. ”

“ The time is now close at hand when motion-picture investments will rank much higher than formerly, so that intelligent dollars may come in without losing their self-respect. When the industry is regarded as quite as honorable a field for investment as in the case with, say the newspaper or book-publishing business, we shall have far better pictures. ”

“ Don’t pay any attention to stories of the glamour and excitement of Hollywood. It’s just a dull place, a grand spot for winter golf, but a wash-out for any mature person who depends in the least upon mental stimulation; there isn’t any. The picture business is the second, or the third, or the first or some such silly number among the world’s industries, which is probably what’s the matter 216with Hollywood and with the motion pictures. ”

“ Motion pictures are still changing so much, in their development from year to year, that any survey of this vast, chaotic new industry is in danger of being out-of-date long before its time. With this in mind, I have attempted to stress those phases of movie-making, and of the story-telling that underlies each photoplay, that do not change. A generation hence, the fundamental problems confronting the makers—how to show real people, doing interesting things in interesting places—will be the same. ”

“ Another grave mistake is to allow a slide to be shown at the same theater several weeks in succession, for movie fans are accustomed to a varied daily change of program and hate seeing the same thing over again.
My main reason for favoring a film is because it is the right vehicle in the right place. The twenty million Americans go to see pictures in motion, and it has been proved from experience that the average movie patron does not object to a film which combines either instruction or entertainment. ”

“ Both as a form of entertainment and as an educational force the motion picture now merits consideration in the front rank of the world’s activities. Conservative estimates state that twelve million persons attend the picture theaters of the United States every day. Were figures available for Europe they could not add any to the amazement of those who remember that the motion picture’s strides to its present popularity have been taken in a period of less than twenty years. ”

“ The exclusive right of public performance is expanded to include not only motion pictures, including works recorded on film, video tape, and video disks, but also audiovisual, works such as filmstrips and sets of slides. ”

“ The “industrial,” which is the trade term for the picture that is used to advertise a particular product, is another field that has been only slightly touched. There are a number of companies that specialize in such work, but the stumbling-block thus far has been the exhibitor’s unwillingness to show the pictures in his theater. He rightly feels that the patron who has paid to see the performance feels cheated when his time is taken up with a strictly advertising picture. ”

“ That would be worse than forever playing tennis with a man who could never hope to ever equal your own game.
Do you see what we are getting to? Leadership!
Motion pictures, are, in a certain sense, a part of the great publishing business of the United States. They publish stories in picture form. And in those stories they publish ideas, and ideals, and rules of conduct, and good taste, and good sense,—or the lack of all those things.
It is through the publishing business—the movies as well as books or magazines or newspapers—that we get the information and ideals153 by which we live. ”

“ When two or more rivals in a single town are making a common bid for popular favour, the public naturally patronises the establishment which offers the most refined pictures combined with comfort in the seating arrangements. The inferior film is being driven from the better class of cinematograph theatre, where a programme is offered which is varied in character, and of the highest excellence from the photographic, dramatic, and educational point of view, as well as from that of sheer amusement. ”

“ Along with this new public demand for better pictorial qualities in the motion pictures have come higher ideals to those who make and distribute motion pictures. The producers are awakening to their opportunities. They are no longer content with resurrecting defunct stage plays and picturizing them hurriedly, with only enough additions to the bare plot to make the photoplay last five reels. It is not now so much a question of fixing over something old, as of constructing something new. ”

“ Motion-picture publicity is so pliable that arranging with movie theaters to put on a film of your product in the making and equipping salesmen with a reel and apparatus to demonstrate before prospective customers does not exhaust its uses.
I have unearthed a New York manufacturing concern in a large way of business who have fathomed the all-important matter of deriving the fullest value from their movie-advertising investment. They utilize their film to teach salesmanship to the employees. ”

“ That the imperfect films of the first decades offered only imperfect, at times even repellent, pictures, is altogether natural. The intellectuals of all nations, and those who had schooled their eye and their heart on the perfection and beauty of the [60] old and established arts, were terrified, if not horrified, at and by the unlicked antics of this new contraption. They saw in the motion picture nothing more than a machine to entertain, chiefly to amuse, the populace. ”

“ If yours is a high-class store, it naturally will not do to have your film shown at a nickeldrome attracting the poorest of the working classes. I would especially advise you, before putting your motion picture into circulation, to make a tour of the photoplay theaters in your territory. It is not enough to judge by the outside appearance—mingle with the audience—and size each one up from the point of view of your proposition. ”

“ The manufacturer of long pictures faces even greater uncertainty. His investment in each picture will average between ten and [Pg 73] twenty-five thousand dollars, and it does not require many high-salaried stars or spectacular scenes to reach the higher figure. Nor have we considered the overhead expense of maintaining a studio and offices and the heavy outlay to market the picture. A poor picture can lose all of the original investment and even more, the latter if a strenuous effort is made by means of advertising and so on to sell it. ”

“ As a means of supplying drama to America as a whole our commercialized professional theatre has broken down. The reasons need not concern us here. They are many, no doubt. One, of course, is the rise of the motion pictures, which are cheaper to present and to witness, 57and which enable the local theatre manager to keep his house open six or seven days in the week. ”

“ Unfortunately, the feeling against the moving picture has not been entirely eliminated, despite its tremendous popularity. Once an energetic Board of Education realises the possibilities of cinematography as a supplement to the information conveyed by text-books and manuals, the film manufacturers will hasten to supply the demand thus created. ”

“ It is not every day that a new and reliable advertising medium is unearthed, and it was decidedly a good day’s work when the selling powers of motion-picture publicity became known.
You appeal to the public at their leisure and there is no competition to fear, as exhibitors will not show more than one ad. film on a single program. You also enjoy a monopoly of the audience’s attention, for folks can only see one thing at a time in the darkened hall. ”

“ The base of the film is usually of a highly inflammable composition. Again, before the pictures are perfected, for public exhibition, the producer’s outfit should include highly perfected cameras, studios, staging, and star actors, and a search, often, for appropriate outdoor settings for the scenes to be enacted. The skilful direction of people and scenes to obtain illusions requires an expert at the business; for it necessitates a high grade of technical ability for the production of scenic, travel, and scientific pictures [57] with the minimum film waste. ”

“ It is hoped that this catalog will serve not only those seeking information regarding the copyright history and status of these films but will also be of material assistance to those studying the motion picture as an art, as an important means of communication, as a historical record, or as an effective social force. ”

“ Of course, the regeneration of the photoplay must be, of necessity, a slow process. We must look facts and figures in the face and admit at the outset that the millions of Americans who daily attend movie theatres are not, on the average, highly intellectual, nor over-prudish as critics. They pay their money to the box-office to be amused, not instructed nor uplifted, to get recreation rather than rescue. A stream cannot rise higher than its source, nor can a picture-play win success if it soars above the head and heart of the average movie fan. ”

“ Paramount Pictures Theatres Corp., a subsidiary of Paramount Productions, Inc., and successor to Paramount Pictures, Inc., is a New York corporation engaged in the business of operating motion picture theatres throughout the United States. ”

“ For economy’s sake, you need only one copy of the positive in circulation. [Page 172] Now, if you approach local motion-picture exhibitors in the right spirit, they may not demand a fee for showing your advertising motion picture, as they realize too well the value of anything with a local appeal. You should arrange with the leading theater to have first run of the photoplay, say, for a week, after which you can loan it to the next on the waiting-list, until all have been covered. ”

“ Familiarity with the individuals and organizations connected with the production of motion pictures during the pioneer period was essential to the identification as motion pictures of works registered as photographs in the Copyright Office. ”

“ At its present rate of progress, the cinema will soon become more powerful as an influence upon the minds of the masses than are the newspaper, the novel and the play taken together.
For the sun never sets upon the screen! Day and night, in all parts of the civilized, and an increasing portion of the uncivilized, globe the motion picture is making its imprint upon the minds and souls of countless millions of men, women and children. ”