Moving Picture World (Dec 1917) - Learn About Movie Posters

December 22, 1917 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1785
was served. At the meeting, the advisability of sending
messengers to Washington to fight the reel tax was considered.
* * -*
Ed H. Phillippi, sales manager of the Rothacker Company,
was recently appointed a director of the Advertising
Association of Chicago. Mr. Phillippi is also serving on the
committee of entertainment and on the committee of general
business affairs of the Chicago Club.
* * *
Gail Kane, who has been one of the prominent stars of
the American Film Company for a year past at Santa Barbara,
passed through this city on her way to New York,
Wednesday, December 5.
* * *
Jacqueline Saunders, popularly known by her appearances
in Balboa productions, made a brief stopover in the city,
Wednesday, December 5, en her way from Los Angeles to
New York City. Her husband, F. D. Horkheimer, accompanying
her, entertained several friends at luncheon in her
honor while here. It is said the Balboa star will close a
new contract which already awaits her signature in New
York.
* * *
The ninth annual ball of the moving picture operators
of Local 110, I. A. T. S. E., which was held Wednesday evening,
December 5, in the Coliseum Annex, was the most successful,
financially and otherwise, ever held by the members.
Sousa's band from the Great Lakes naval training station,
furnished the music for an assemblage of about 2,000 people.
The grand march was led by Clarence Rowland, manager
of the White Sox; Mrs. Rowland, Nell Craig and Jack Meredith.
The profits will be used to assist enlisted members of
the organization and their families. The local has eightyone
members now in the different branches of the service.
* * *
A dispatch from Washington states that the Creel committee
on information is establishing branches of its moving
picture bureau throughout the country. A middle western
bureau will be esablished at Chicago and similar headquarters
are being established at Kansas City, San Antonio,
Minneapolis and on the Pacific coast. A New England bureau,
with headquarters at Boston, has also been organized.
The various state councils of defense throughout the country
will co-operate with these bureaus.
* * *
Major Funkhouser has denied that he ever made the
statement that a permit had been refused the "Rose of
Blood" (Fox), because the committee on public information
had requested that the permit be refused. The report made
to Washington concerning the film in question, according
to the major, was in the form of a telegram which was
shown Judge George A. Carpenter, of the Federal Court, before
it was filed. Major Funkhouser explains that the permit
was refused because the committee of censors which
had seen the film decided that there were too many bomb
explosions in it, and that it should not be shown at a time
when the federal and local authorities were endeavoring to
avert bomb outrages.
* * *
The censorship hearing before the sub-committee of the
Chicago council's judiciary committee on Tuesday, December
4, was devoted chiefly to reviewing certain pictures on
which Major Funkhouser had placed his ban, and in viewing
cut-outs which had been made by the Chicago board of
censors.
* * *
Two more big, modern moving picture theaters are about
to be erected on Sheridan Road, near Wilson Avenue, and
in close proximity to the Lakeside theater, owned by the
Ascher brothers. One of these new houses, together with
the value of the site and the building in which it will be
located, will represent an investment of about $900,000. while
the cost of the other, with site and surrounding building,
is figured at about $585,000. The first mentioned theater will
be erected by Barney and A. J. Balaban and Morris and
Samuel Katz, the owners of the Central Park theater which
excited so much comment when it was opened recently. The
architects, C. W. and George L. Rapp, are now working on
the plans and it is expected that ground will be broken early
during the ensuing year.
The other theater will be erected by Walter W. Ahlschlaper,
and the cost of the theater itself will be about
$325,000 and the seating capacity will be 3,050. This theater
will be known as the Pantheon.
* * *
The meeting of the city council license committee was held
Thursday, December 6, to consider the increase of moving
picture theater licenses for houses seating over 400 people.
About sixty-eight exhibitors were present and after the matter
had been discussed for some time it was resolved the
meeting should be postponed and final action taken at a
meeting to be held Friday, December 14.
War Quickens Public's News Sense
Jack Cohn Says the World Tragedy Has Increased Its Perception
of Dramatic Values.
LOOK
at a news reel on the screen today, and then cast
your mind's eye back to the news reel of 1912—the
clays "before the War." There's a difference, isn't
there? Not the war pictures—that, of course—but the regular
run of pictures dealing with the doings of the day. Then
there was a plethora of views, a paucity of news. Now the
motion picture theater public demands something more than
mere motion in a news picture. They don't look for acting
in it, but they do demand action. The scenes presented
must be news in fact as well as in name—big news, news
that's worth while.
"Yes," agreed Jack Cohn when questioned on the subject,
"there has been a big change in the news pictures, and I attribute
it largely to the war."
Now, Mr. Cohn is manager of Universal's three news services,
"The Animated Weekly," "Current Events" and "The
Screen Magazine," and was the first American "editorial director"
of news reels, having taken President Wilson's
first inauguration. So he is accepted as the recognized
authority. That he has positive genius for the work has
often been demonstrated during the last five years.
"The war," he continued, "has brought every mind into
close touch with big events. It has forced a quickening of
the public news sense, developed a keen perception of news
values. I am not speaking now merely of war pictures.
They are important, of course, but the public are not interested
in them alone. They also want the pictures of the
doings of the day, but they want only the important doings,
and they want those presented in a dramatic way. They
want life, character, action.
"When Universal put out its exclusive pictures of Pershing's
reception in France the people were wide awake to
their news value. Oh, yes, they know a big scoop on the
screen when they see it. And then there were aeroplane
pictures, where the eyes of the audience went up in an
aeroplane with the cameraman and were right among the
fliers, observing their every movement at close quarters
not on the ground looking up at specks three or four thousand
feet above them. Oh, the people know good pictures
when they see them—well made, live, newsy pictures. And
when they go to see news reels these days they expect to find
the word News on the screen as well as on the poster outside.
"The cameraman who works for the news reels now," continued
he, "must have the instinct of the newspaperman.
He must know what is worth taking and know how to seize
the vital moment. And the news reel director must have
editorial 'judgment.' He must be able to sense the public's
demands and the enterprise to get it for them. And, as with
the editor of a big newspaper, his work is largely that of
selection, the work of editing, the cutting out of many
hundreds of feet of film to present the few hundreds the
public see.
"Producing a news reel is every day becoming more and
more like producing a newspaper. In fact, that is what the
news reel is going to be—just a newspaper, giving the news
in pictures instead of in type. Only with this significant
distinction, the screen is a power greater than the press
because it has the undivided attention of the public, and, for
thousands who read any particular newspaper, millions see
every release of a news reel. 'A power greater than the
press,'" repeated Mr. Cohn, "I like that line and believe I
will adopt it as a catch line for our announcements."
DU QUESNE ARRESTED ON INSURANCE CHARGE.
Fritz Jaubert Du Quesne. thirty-seven years old, has been
locked up in New York Police Headquarters charged with
presenting false proof of loss in support of a claim on a
fire insurance policy amounting to $33,000. He is also
charged by the police with claiming to be Frederick Frederick.
Other allegations by the police against Du Quesne
are that among his effects were found the outfit of a captain
of Australian cavalry and that in the uniform he had appeared
at New York hotels; that he delivered Liberty Bond
addresses. At one time it is said he was a reporter on a
New York paper,