3. A High Quality of Imagination Demanded

Another well-known French dramatist, Marcel Prevost, who is a photoplaywright as well, in a recent issue of the Paris Figaro replied to a question whether motion pictures are harmful to the legitimate theatre, by stating that, while he likes the pictures, their authors are lacking in imagination.

That there is a great deal of truth in what M. Prevost says seems to be proved by the fact that when famous playwrights and best-selling authors have supplied photoplay plots to the manufacturers, they have been exceptionally well paid. We refer, of course, to stories specially written for the photoplay stage, for when a film manufacturer produces a story by a well-known fiction writer, which originally appeared in novel or in short-story form, the manufacturer does business with the author's publishers, unless the author has specifically reserved for himself all dramatic rights—a practice which, by the way, is becoming more and more general.



An editorial in Motography says: "The best motion picture dramas produced today are reproductions of literary classics. These films do not achieve immortality; they merely further assure the immortality of the original work. Why cannot a photodrama be produced that is fine enough to live on its own merit—why must the picture always seem to be secondary while literature and the drama continue to furnish the primary motives?

"The answer lies in the peculiar requirements of photoplay authorship. The writer of printed fiction is a master of words. He revels in artful phrases and unique constructions. He woos immortality not by his plots, but by his clever handling of words—his 'style'." And then the editor goes on to say that the photodrama will become great when it has developed its own great men. "The photoplay author of fame," he says, "must be a specialist."

This also is true; but at the same time he must, as in any other profession, first of all be a student. He must serve his apprenticeship; and while he is serving his apprenticeship he must cultivate the imagination which M. Prevost declares to be so essential.

Imagination cannot be developed by remaining in a rut. Experience is not only the best teacher, but the very finest developer of thought, and of a vivid and facile imagination. Thus constant practice causes the building of plots to become a sort of second nature.

Granting that you have the technical skill to develop the plots you evolve, the question which you have to answer is: What are the most suitable themes for photoplays?

No one can give you such a list, though he may do what has been attempted in another chapter—furnish a moderately full list of what not to choose as themes. Some general positive principles, however, are important, and these are now to be considered.

4. Write of What You Know

The fact that the market is wide makes it the less excusable when a writer courts rejection by attempting themes with which he is not familiar. If you live on an Eastern or Middle-West farm, or in a small town, remember that—especially between the months of May and September—the film companies almost without exception are looking for good stories of country life. Then why try to write stories of business life in a large city, of society, of theatrical or circus life, or even of the far West, until you have succeeded with a few stories that might easily be set within a short distance of where you live? Correct and faithful local color, at times, has much to do with selling a story, though you always need a good idea and a clever plot.

The same rule, naturally, should be followed by the young writer whose home is in a large city. If you can turn out a good, original story truthfully portraying New York's East Side, Broadway, or Wall Street; Chicago's "Loop" district; the social and political life of Washington, or any other such background, there is an editor waiting to purchase that story.

All this is not to say that you must write only of things which are, or have been, within the range of your personal experience. Many a writer has successfully built his story on well-verified second-hand knowledge. If you are not familiar with the subject at first-hand, and cannot get direct, personal information, get the knowledge from books and periodicals, but get it exactly—squeeze the last drop of information from the subject. If there is no library in your town, search your own as well as borrowed books and magazines until you find at least enough correct data to enable you to turn out a script that will not betray second-hand knowledge. Jules Verne had only indirect knowledge of most of the countries which he depicted, yet to read his books one would believe that he had travelled everywhere. Because he had read up on and investigated his subjects he was able to produce such thoroughly convincing, and always interesting, books as "A Tour of the World in Eighty Days," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and "The Clipper of the Clouds," in which he wrote, and apparently authoritatively, of almost every country on the globe.

Until your work is pretty well known by the editors, it is just as well not to attempt to write historical dramas. But if you do write them, the greatest care must be taken to adhere closely to facts, especially in composing scripts in which famous historical personages figure. Three or four years ago a certain company that made a specialty of two- and three-part historical, Western, and military dramas, was called to account by an army officer in Washington for having brought out a photoplay of pioneer life which held up a well-known officer of the United States army in a rather bad light by making him responsible for an act of great injustice to a famous Indian chieftain. The author of the photoplay—whether a staff-writer or a free lance—was doubtless unaware that he was doing an injustice to the memory of a gallant and kind-hearted American soldier; but, however the picture came to be written, it elicited the strong disapproval of someone who knew, and who did not hesitate to tell the makers that a mistake had been made.

Manufacturers have to be careful; they cannot afford to offend anyone. Moreover, the motion picture has come to be looked upon as a great educational factor, and no picture can be truly educational that is not strictly accurate. If you want to write historical photoplays after you have become known to the editors, very well; but be sure that you adhere closely to historical facts. It is far better to spend a week in the reference room of the public library than to have to suffer a rebuke from a manufacturer, even though the director be also to blame for not being familiar with the subject before attempting to make the picture. And the loss of your prestige may prove harder to bear than the rebuke.

5. Write on What Interests You

Next in importance to writing on a subject with which you are familiar is to write about that with which you are in sympathy. You cannot interest your audience unless you yourself are interested in your theme when the story is written. If you would arouse fire in your spectators you must first feel fire within you. To write a story merely because it is timely is not to do yourself justice. Suppose, for instance, it is about time for a new president to go into office. It may occur to you that to send in a script bearing upon that timely subject will be a sure way of "coaxing a check from the editor." You have some slight knowledge of politics and of Washington life, but you are not particularly interested in either. You are, however, anxious to sell a script, so you read up on the subject and work up a photoplay. The chances are that you will continue to own the script, for you did not put the snap into it that you would have done had you been both familiar with your theme and genuinely interested in it.

6. Write on Unusual Themes

Many a writer is deterred from developing an unusual theme for fear that no company will be found to produce it. Enough has been said on this subject to warn the photoplaywright against writing impracticable scenes. But with this limitation in view every effort should be made to strike into untravelled fields. In a day when most of the big manufacturers have two or three, or even more, field-companies operating in different parts of the country, when almost every maker of films has an Eastern and a Western organization, and when several companies have a "globetrotting" troupe working in some distant part of the world, there is very little chance of a thoroughly good and desirable photoplay plot's failing to find acceptance, provided it is intelligently marketed. No matter where you may live, no matter what you may write of, if it is good it will sell—some editor is waiting for it. But you must find that editor.

7. Write Stories Requiring Only Action

In selecting your theme, ask yourself if either dialogue or description may not be really required to bring out the theme satisfactorily. If such is the case, abandon the theme. The comparatively few inserts permitted cannot be relied upon to give much aid—the chief reliance must be pantomime.

For this reason it is inadvisable to write detective stories, unless you have a plot that can be easily and convincingly told in action. The average fictional story of this class depends more upon dialogue and the author's explanation of the sleuth's methods of deduction than upon rapid and gripping action. In a fictional detective story, the crime usually has happened before the story opens. In a film story, this would be impracticable, unless a long explanatory insert were introduced either before or after the first scene or two. But long inserts are not wanted, even in multiple-reel stories. Since events in a photoplay must appear in chronological order, you cannot depict murder without showing the murderer in the act, and that will soon bring you counter to the censors.

Aside from the consideration of the censorship is this point: in a fictional detective story the real murderer is not revealed, in most cases, until the last chapter. In the photoplay, on the other hand, it would be necessary to show the spectator almost at the first who the real murderer is—the other characters in the picture, and not the spectators, being the ones in doubt as the story progressed.

This is a difficult condition to bring about effectively. Still, it can be done, and there is a chance for a writer who can produce logical and interesting detective scripts, as there is always a market for any uncommon theme that is both original and handled with technical correctness.

An author who is anonymous has said "While the story may have for a plot a subject involving complication, or mystery, each scene must be easily understood, or the audience, taxed by trying to fathom motives or emotions with which it is unfamiliar, or with which it is not in sympathy, loses the thread of the story, and consequently pronounces the photoplay lacking in interest. Remembering the brevity of the film drama, compactness and simplicity in every feature are to be desired. It does not require a great cast of characters nor unusually spectacular scenic work to produce the big idea. The depths of human woe and suffering, or the very heights of joy and attainment, can be pictured in a flash. The dramatic story should consist of a strong and preferably unique plot, simple and direct in its appeal to the heart, and expressed or conveyed to the audience by a logical sequence of episodes or incidents, all having direct bearing on the story, and each one of sufficient strength to hold the attention of the spectators. The story must be human, the characters and their motives and actions human and true to life. The drama is perfect as it reflects a correct imitation of nature."

8. Write Mainly of Characters That Arouse the Spectator's Sympathy

Each hero must have his opposite, as each great cause must have its protagonist and antagonist. Indeed, as we have seen, it is this warfare that makes all drama possible. But it will not do to glorify the doer of evil deeds and thus corrupt the sympathies of the spectators. The hero and not the "villain" must swing the sympathies of those who see. Be certain, therefore, that pity for, and even sympathy with, a wrong-doer is not magnified, through the action of your play, into admiration by the onlookers, for in the photoplay as in the legitimate drama the leading character may be a great offender. This way danger lies, however, and you must walk with extreme caution, or the censors "will catch you—if you don't watch out!"—to say nothing of the lashings of your own conscience.

Without repeating what was said in Chapter XVI regarding the introduction of crime into film stories, we would impress upon the photoplaywright the necessity for always having a fully sufficient, though not necessarily a morally justifiable, motive for any crime that is introduced in a story; besides, the introduction of a crime must be necessary to the action and not a mere spectacular scene. But remember that it is not sufficient to avoid "crime without motive;" the motive must be one which will, after the crime has been committed, leave no doubt in the mind of the spectator that the crime was virtually inevitable, if not absolutely unavoidable. If it is the hero of the story who commits the crime, the very greatest care must be taken to show that he had a really powerful motive for his act, if he is to have the sympathy—though not the approval—of the audience after yielding to temptation.[29] This, of course, does not refer to deeds of violence which are really not only excusable but actually right, in the circumstances—like the killing of an attacking desperado in self-defense.

[Footnote 29: To make this basic motive clear, natural and unforced is what we call good motivation in fiction and drama.]

As an example of the point we are trying to emphasize, take a story like "The Bells," the play in which Sir Henry Irving appeared so often. Mathias the innkeeper, who later became the Burgomaster, was a character, who, by reason of Irving's superb art, won and held the sympathies of the audience from the start. Yet after Mathias had murdered the Polish Jew and robbed him of his belt of gold, even the art of Irving could not have made us sympathize with the character had we not been shown that Mathias was urged on to his crime—a crime for which he was constantly tortured ever afterward, and which occasioned his tragic death—by two very compelling motives. His primary motive was the urgent need of money. But he had a two-fold need of money: he had been notified by the landlord that he must pay his over-due rent or be turned out of his home; and he had been told by the doctor that unless he could immediately remove his sick wife to a milder climate she would certainly die. Thus, impelled by the thought that only by the speedy acquisition of sufficient money could he hope to save the life of his wife, he commits the deed which he would never have committed had his only motive been the necessity for raising money to pay the rent. Mathias was esteemed by his neighbors as an honest man; he was a man whose conscience smote him terribly when he was contemplating the murder of the Jew; and after the crime had been committed—fifteen years later, in fact—that same guilty conscience, wracking his very soul, drove him on to his death.

Shakespeare's Macbeth is a character with whom we are forced to sympathize measurably, because we know that he is not naturally a criminal. Yet, after all, Macbeth is a man who—as Professor Pierce has pointed out—"has been restrained in the straight path of an upright life [only] by his respect for conventions." Mathias, on the other hand, is not held in check by conventions; he is essentially an honest man. He commits a crime, but what stronger motive could a man have than the one that drove him on to its commission? And yet—and this is the mistake that we wish to point out to the young writer—seven years ago a certain company released "The Bells" as a two-part subject, in which, according to the synopsis published in the trade journals, Mathias's only motive for committing the most detestable of all crimes was that he was behind in his rent! Even the magazine that gave in fiction form the story of the picture failed to mention what is brought out so strongly in the play—the innkeeper's distress at the thought that his wife's life depended upon his being able to raise the money to send her to the south of France without delay. The author mentioned that Mathias had a sick wife, but that was all. The whole treatment of the story in fiction form, moreover, was farcical, such names as "Mr. Parker" being intermingled with those of the well-known characters, "Mathias," "Christian," and "Annette," while the wealthy, dignified Polish Jew was turned into a typical East-side clothing merchant. The real fault lay with the producer who, ignoring the great and pressing necessity that prompted Mathias's crime, garbled the original plot to the extent of allowing the innkeeper to murder the Jew because (according to the fiction-version in the magazine) he needed one hundred and seventy-five dollars to pay the rent! First, last, and all the time you must remember that your story is not a good story if the leading character is not, at all times, deserving of the spectator's sympathy, even when his action is not worthy of approval.

It is a matter for real regret to have to be compelled to state that, in spite of the many artistic advances made in motion-picture production during the past six or seven years, this most important point was deliberately overlooked when the Pathe Company made its very fine feature-production of "The Bells" in the Fall of 1918. We say "deliberately overlooked" because the writer who prepared the scenario for this modern five-reel version had the same opportunity as had the scenarioist who made the other adaptation, years ago, to read the original stage-play and to introduce this most compelling motive for Mathias's crime. If anything, the fault is more glaring in the Pathe production than in the older picture, for the wife is shown as a woman in apparently perfect health, although naturally worried by the fact that her husband's inability to raise the required amount of money may result in their losing both their home and their means of livelihood. All the fine acting of Mr. Frank Keenan as Mathias, and all the wonderful scenic and lighting effects, were not sufficient to make us lose sight of the fact that the ones responsible for the picture's production had not given proper thought to the necessity for showing that the innkeeper had an unusually compelling motive for taking the life of and then robbing his guest. And, make no mistake, no matter how fine the production may be in other respects, this sort of thing is not overlooked by the intelligent, right-minded spectator of the photoplay.

9. The Theme and the Market

With regard to what are known as "costume plays"—and what we say is intended to apply to original stories, since it is never wise to attempt an adaptation of a popular book or play, even though you are armed with the right to do so, unless you have previously taken the matter up with some producing company—there is, perhaps, as was pointed out in Chapter XV, twice as much chance to sell such stories as there was a few years ago, since today every company is doing things in a much bigger way than in former years. But this must not be construed as meaning that the different companies are simply looking about for new ways to spend money. On the contrary, economy—sensible economy—is becoming more and more the keynote of film production. In every department, unnecessary expense is done away with. This applies to both the purchasing and the producing of photoplays. Better prices are being paid, yes; but stories calling for what appears to be unnecessarily expensive settings or costuming are usually rejected. That is why you may rest assured that no costume plays will sell unless they have a strong and unusual story back of them. Again, by "costume" plays we mean stories ranging all the way from Bible times down to American Civil War times. What is regarded by the editor as a costume play, also, may not be wholly that; it may be a story in which only a few of the scenes are laid in a past age, as when, in the Paramount production of "The Devil Stone," the heroine, in a series of "visions," sees herself as the wicked Norse queen of centuries before, and learns how the fatal emerald first came into her possession.

There is absolutely no way of knowing what company will be most likely to buy a so-called costume play. If you honestly believe that you have the material for an unusual story calling for settings or costumes of other days—or even of our own day but of foreign lands—go ahead and write a comprehensive synopsis of it. If you send it to a company which asks for synopses only, you will be playing safe whether it interests them or not. If, on the other hand, you plan to submit it to a concern which likes to pass on a full script, with both synopsis and scenario, you can send in the synopsis alone and explain that if they are at all interested in that, you will submit the continuity of action.

As might be expected, stories of this kind are usually written in the studio, because the staff-writer has the opportunity of finding out just when and where the picture can be made, what types of male and female players will be able to take part in it, and what special effects he may include. Still, to repeat, many of the bars against costume plays and stories calling for foreign and other hard-to-get settings have been taken down in the last year or two; but the demand for only strong, interesting stories is more insistent than ever, and you must still observe the rule—which, it may be added, will never change—of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the different markets if you wish to sell your stuff regularly and to the best advantage.

Themes! They are everywhere. The pathetic, the tragic, the humorous—countless admirable photoplays are to be drawn from these sources. And the most encouraging thought is this: Given the same basic idea for a plot, no two people will work it out in exactly the same way. Individuality will make a difference. "Happiness," as Mr. Floyd Hamilton Hazard has said, "does not always mean the same thing to everybody. It means many different things to different people. It is a theme upon which many varied tunes can be played."

In conclusion, we quote and warmly endorse this advice from Mr. Herbert Hoagland, censor of photoplays for Pathe Freres.

"Select for your theme an idea which embodies good things. Avoid anything coarse or suggestive. Make your stories clean, wholesome, happy—a dainty love story, a romantic adventure, a deed gloriously accomplished, a lesson well learned, an act of charity repaid—anything of a dramatic nature which is as honest as daylight. Good deeds are just as dramatic as wicked deeds, and clean comedy is far and away more humorous than coarseness. Keep away from scenes of brutality, degeneracy, idiocy or anything which may bring a poignant pang of sorrow to some one of the millions of people who will see your story in the pictures, unless the pang will be one of remorse for a bad deed done or a good deed left undone. In a word, help the film-makers produce films which will help those who see them, and make the whole world a little better for your work."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE TREATMENT OF COMEDY

Let it be remembered that the lines of division between the several sorts of comedy are not sharply defined, for one often overlaps the other; nor is a rigid adherence to type insisted upon by either playwright or public—for example, on the regular stage we have farce-comedy, and other hybrids.

1. Types of Humorous Plays Distinguished

Comedy, strictly, is a lighter, more refined, type of humor than farce. It deals with those amusing situations which do, or may, happen every day, without the introduction of the extravagant and the unnatural. True comedy is distinctly probable. Its humor is the humor of reality, however laughable it may be. It may press humor to an extreme, but that extreme must never strain our credulity.

Farce is essentially extreme. It deals with the absurd, the ridiculous, not with the physically impossible. Though not in itself probable, all its actions proceed just as though the basis on which it is worked out were probable.

To illustrate both types, we may recall an extremely humorous comedy situation which was worked out by Miss May Irwin some years ago in "The Swell Miss Fitzwell." One of the characters had conspired with a physician to deceive the former's wife by pretending to break his leg. As a matter of fact he tumbles down stairs with an awful clatter and the leg is actually broken. The doctor comes in, according to the scheme, and, not knowing that the leg is broken, begins to twist it with fine professional vigor. The victim howls and protests that he is in agony, but the doctor merely whispers in a cheerful aside, "Keep it up, you are playing your part beautifully!" And so the play goes on.

All this might easily have happened in real life, and the audience is tickled—not to see a man apparently suffer, but at the humor of the biter being bit. The very incongruity is the foundation of the humor—incongruity, mingled with surprise.

But farce would not be content with twisting the leg, it would go to any absurd extreme imaginable. Suppose, for example, that the doctor's twisting of the victim's leg should so enrage him that he would leap upon the doctor and bite the torturer's leg in the manner of a dog. The wife, coming in, might think that her husband had hydrophobia, and a whole train of farcical results might follow. We have all seen unnatural yet uproariously funny situations to which such a complication might lead in farce.

Burlesque takes a well-known and often a serious subject and hits off its salient points in an uproarious manner. One might burlesque "Hamlet" by causing a red-nosed Prince of Denmark to do a juggling act with "poor Yorick's" skull.

Extravaganza deals with the unnatural and the impossible. The super-human antics of the acrobatic buffoons in Hanlon's perennial "Superba," and those of the Byrne Brothers in "Eight Bells," are familiar examples.

2. Comedy a Difficult Art

A writer in one of the photoplay journals, advising writers who are struggling to succeed, concludes by admonishing them either to avoid stories which because of prohibited themes are likely to make them unpopular with editors, or else to "try comedies."

It may be that this writer is one of those who have never tried to write comedy scripts, or possibly he is one of the favored few who have a special talent for humor. Whichever may be the case, notwithstanding this well-meant advice, the truth is that the thoroughly effective comedy script is the hardest of all to produce, and this is proved by the fact that, no matter how many manufacturers announce that they "will not be able to use any more Western, slum life, or war stories for some time to come," they never declare that they are "over-stocked with good comedy scripts." There is always a market for a fine, clean comedy.

3. Comedy Requires a "Full" Treatment

But superior comedy scripts, we insist, are hard to write. One of the less obvious reasons is that there are generally about twice as many scenes in a comedy script as in any kind of dramatic story. This does not mean, of course, that the comedy script is hard to write merely because it takes longer to write it. The labor expended on its mechanical preparation is trivial compared to the brain-work necessary to the building of a story which, while having almost double the usual number of scenes, must still display lively action, logical sequence, and convincing (which in the case of comedy means probable) situations from beginning to end.

Especially in comedy must each scene tell; hence there can be no excuse for "writing in" a number of scenes which have no dramatic value whatever, for that is palpable padding. True, you may have seen many comedy subjects in which one or two fairly good ideas were stretched out until you could almost picture the director kneeling in front of the camera, stop-watch in hand and megaphone at lips, wearily pleading: "Ginger up! Work fast! It will soon be over." Unfortunately, there have been many such "funny" plays, and there will be more, for the right kind of comedy is not to be had for the asking. The number of scenes in a comedy photoplay arises from the necessity that the action be brisk, scene follow scene rapidly, and the whole be played from a full third to a half faster than is the case in a dramatic subject.

To say that comedy requires a fuller script-treatment than is needed for a dramatic subject does not mean that in writing comedy scripts you should write in line after line of action that would only be useful to give the director a few details which he could very well think of himself. No matter what part of the script you are writing, be constantly on the alert to avoid including non-essential details. Take pains, of course, to show the director just what bit of by-play it is that is responsible for a certain situation that will "get a laugh," but do not be verbose, and do not go into tiresome details. "It is a very easy matter, for a writer fired with enthusiasm, to overwrite."

4. Length of Comedy Photoplays

Seemingly, the day of the split-reel comedy is past. A few years ago, when one thousand feet was considered the proper length for the average dramatic subject, a full-reel comedy was the exception. They ran from four hundred to six hundred feet, the remainder of the reel being taken up with a scenic or other educational subject. Thus we had what came to be known as "split reels," as we have previously explained. Today, even the slap-stick comedies are produced in not less than one full reel, and they usually run to two reels. On the other hand, there are one or two comedy-producing companies which adhere to the single-reel length for their light comedies of domestic life.

Far more than in writing dramatic scripts, you must be guided in deciding the length of your comedy photoplay by the company to which you are submitting. This entails taking a chance as to whether you sell at all or not, in the event of your story's not being suitable for the market at which you have aimed it. For example, those writers who have both sold to and had scripts rejected by the editor who looks after the wants of such a comedy team as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew know that if a script does come back from them it is seldom "placable" anywhere else. For markets such as this, the fact that a synopsis only is usually called for is a real benefit to the writer, saving him much time and disappointment in the event of non-acceptance.

Another thing that experienced writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy" stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with the studio, its players, and the surrounding possible locations.

Thus, in its way, the market for comedy scripts or synopses is more or less limited, and yet there is, as has been said, a good demand for first-class humorous stories for the screen. One important rule to keep in mind is that they should be, in every case, just as long as, but no longer than, the idea that is back of them. You must never pad a comedy plot, or even a comedy idea; to do so is fatal to the attainment of artistically perfect results, if not to its acceptance by the editor.

In writing dramatic stories, on the other hand, more freedom is allowed. To be sure, here padding is bad also, but in a dramatic subject the central idea is almost always big enough to justify one of the several lengths to which screen dramas now run; but, largely because comedy action is played so much faster than dramatic action, you must firmly refuse to allow yourself to expand a humorous story by even so little as a single scene beyond its logical and natural end.

Comedy ideas, perhaps more than any others, should be carefully classified, and in classifying you should try to determine, from the very first, the length to which that particular story ought to run. Having once arrived at your decision, keep to it. It is quality—clever situations and funny action—and not quantity that counts in the writing of humorous photoplays. Most of the good comedy themes have been worked over so often, either by the authors themselves or by the director, that it requires considerable skill to give them that much-desired new twist[30] that is necessary to make them acceptable. In the writing of dramatic photoplays, a word or two will often suggest the necessary "business" of a certain character, but in comedy it is especially important that every action, every bit of by-play, should be made to count; and for that reason it is necessary to give each scene a much fuller treatment in the script than would be necessary in describing dramatic action.

[Footnote 30: Treated in Chapter XIX.]

5. Classes of Photoplay Comedy and Their Requirements

While the written-and-spoken drama recognizes not only the four major types of humorous plays already referred to, but several sub-types in addition, there are only three general classes under which humorous photoplays are usually grouped: (a) Comedy-Drama, (b) Light-Comedy and (c) Farce.

Of the comedies, two kinds are in almost constant demand—the comedy of society life, and the comedy of everyday life, with special emphasis upon domestic scenes. In treatment, these two kinds may be cast in any of the three foregoing forms, but usually they will adhere to the principle of comedy, even when they may verge on farce, or take on certain aspects of the more intense dramatic tone.

When writing photoplay comedies, remember always that comedy of action is more important than comedy of idea. That is, it is not enough that you work up to a funny climax, but the action leading up to the climax must be funny as well. A humorous idea underlying your comedy is good, but unless this idea is constantly worked out through humorous action, the effect is largely lost by its being too subdued. In fact, the photo-comedy cannot be purely the comedy of idea. On the regular stage, most light-comedies succeed by reason of the bright and humorous dialogue which the author puts into the mouths of the players. Funny "business," and the by-play of the players, help, of course, but the humorous lines of the piece are depended upon to make it a success.

It is just the opposite in photoplay; dialogue (unless cut-in leaders, taking the form of a speech made by one of the characters, may be called "dialogue") is entirely absent, and humorous action and funny situations must take its place.

The requirements of a comedy script are very definitely covered by Mr. Sargent in the following, taken from his department in The Moving Picture World:

"In photoplay ... the majority of the scenes must each have its own comedy action while the narrative is advanced, and it is here that the average writer of comedy falls short. If a scene is not naturally funny, put some humor into it. Do not force the comedy action, but invent something that is germane to the plot and natural to the situation. If you can do this you can write comedy, but until you can get a laugh in every scene you are not writing comedy, no matter how funny the central idea may be. As a rule the central idea furnishes the comedy for only one scene; not for the entire play. In comedy you must play faster, work harder, and strive constantly for the natural, unforced laughs. And remember that the editors go to vaudeville shows, the same as you do. They know the old sketches and the whiskered jokes. If they wanted them they would write them themselves."

The success of a comedy composition lies fundamentally in the novelty of its plot, or in some new and interesting phase of an old situation; it prospers in proportion to its interest-holding qualities, its natural logic, its probability, and the constant humor of the individual scenes and situations. There is a wide difference between comedy and comic pictures, and the difference lies chiefly in that comedy depends largely for its humor on the cleverness displayed in the construction of the plot, whereas the comic picture is usually merely a series of funny situations arising from one basic situation, but having little or no plot. In the "comic," the scenes are loosely connected, while the humor of the picture depends upon the uproarious fun in each scene. These comic pictures, usually of the slap-stick variety, would naturally be classed as farces; but even in photoplay it is possible to produce a better and more natural brand of farce than that which depends for its humor upon the silly antics of different characters in a series of loosely connected scenes, which have no logical or consistent plot.

There is steady demand for the unusual and genuinely humorous light comedy—by which is meant the kind of photo-comedies that approximate the legitimate plays usually employed as vehicles by Mr. John Drew and Mr. Cyril Maude. They may treat of society, of business life, or of life in the home, but on account of the light, airy, and subtly humorous way in which the situations are developed they take far higher artistic rank than may be accorded to farce. There is also a good demand for comedy-dramas in which there is a strict regard for dramatic values in handling the different scenes, and in following out the plot, which has its serious elements, but in which the comedy-element remains comedy from first to last.

The domestic comedies produced by Metro, featuring Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, of which we have already spoken, are so well known, and these artists are so universally popular, that a word or two from Mr. Drew on the subject of screen comedy should be interesting and instructive:

"Comedy is and always will be an amusing story humorously told," says Mr. Drew. "If it is a good story, well told, then it is a comedy, but if it has no story or cannot be told humorously, then no amount of bolstering will ever make it into a comedy. You may add a lot of knockabout and perhaps get an acceptable farce, or you can write in sensation and get travesty, but you cannot by these means change the unfit into comedy, and the broad use of 'comedy' to apply to anything intended to be diverting is a misuse of an ancient and honorable word.... To my way of thinking comedy is first of all a good story. It is a story and not merely an incident or a collection of incidents. There must be a plot to obtain and hold the interest. This plot does not necessarily require profound depths, but there must be a distinct and clearly defined objective upon which the interest may be centred, and the interest must arise from mental processes and not from mere mechanical appeal.... Humorous action does not mean gross horseplay. The action itself may not always be marked to be amusing. To take a crude illustration, suppose that a character in the story is about to thrash his ancient enemy. He feels so certain of victory that he bribes the policeman on the beat not to interfere. Now he goes to the field of battle and unexpectedly gets the worst of it. He is the first to call for the police, and the scene flashes between the suborned officer placidly smiling at the sounds of the affray and never dreaming that it is his patron who is calling for aid. There is nothing humorous in the spectacle of a policeman on a street corner. In a comedy of incident he would have to suffer indignity to get a laugh. In the comedy with a plot, the plot makes the action humorous. We are not, in reality, laughing at the policeman. He is merely the symbol of the idea. We are laughing at the predicament into which our hero has thrust himself. It is this thought, and not the sight of the policeman, at which we laugh. The policeman merely stands for the thought, yet it is humorous action within my meaning of the term in that the policeman represents the thought.

"In our own comedies Mrs. Drew and I seek to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye, but to appeal to the mind through the eye. We value the advantage of brightly-written sub-titles, but believe that these should supplement and not replace the comedy in the action. The clever leader may either prepare for the comedy-situation or may follow and intensify it, but it is always an accessory and not the chief aim. It is absurd to talk of the leader as an intrusion to be avoided. It should be avoided only when it really is an intrusion. The cleverness of an author displays itself in the expertness with which he handles leaders rather than in his skill in avoiding them."[31]

[Footnote 31: Sidney Drew, "Comedy Picture Production," in The Moving Picture World.]

6. General Advice

It is most important that, having started to write a farce, for instance, you keep it a farce throughout. One fault of many amateur scripts is that they show a tendency to be a little of everything. A strong emotional drama may—even should—have its "comedy relief," but it is a very unwise thing to introduce a note of tragedy into a farce or even into a straight comedy composition.

At this point it will not be out of place to say a few words in connection with this matter of "comedy relief," of which we have just spoken, as used in writing dramatic stories. The over-use of comedy relief, so called, is mostly due to misguided directors who have seen the success attending its introduction by prominent directors who really understood how and when to use it. A departmental writer in the Motion Picture News, speaking of the small army of directors "who worked with Griffith," says:

"Probably the most obvious of all the blunders made by the men who seek to emulate the wonderful work of Griffith is their introduction of comedy, chiefly through the medium of domestic animals, when they are forced to stop the action of their story to do so. Griffith's comedy is always spontaneous, incidental—it seems to have been inspired at the moment and runs in as part of the main action. The comedy of the men 'who worked with Griffith,' while perhaps inspired at the moment, rises not from the situations of the story but from the contemplative mind of the director himself. This is the general rule, at any rate. There are exceptions, of course, and notable ones, too, but that all-powerful motif of 'comedy relief' often gets the better of the director's judgment and results in a product that is so unbalanced that much of the illusion is destroyed. In fact, comedy relief is a difficult element to gain. It should always be purely incidental, unforced, arising from some major situation, and so creating the desired contrast. When it is obviously sought after and introduced without regard for its suitability it is not comedy relief but comedy-out-of-place."

Since this, like the over-use of the close-up, is something for which directors are largely responsible, it is the photoplaywright's duty to help by being very careful about how he himself writes in comedy intended to "light up" tense, serious, dramatic action.

No matter what class of humorous photoplay you may be writing, you must keep in mind what we enlarged upon in Chapter XVI: Nothing is funny that offends against good taste, or that, in any way, causes pain to any number of the spectators. Comedy, to be worthy of appreciation, must always be good-natured. National types as caricatured by many comedians with the aid of eccentric costumes and weird make-ups are usually as far from being real national types as one could well imagine. Humor must have more than mere extravagance or caricature for its basis. Even in farce and in musical comedy, as well as in vaudeville, the once familiar green-whiskered Irishman, the Frenchman who is all shrugging shoulders and absurd gestures, the negro who walks as if he were trying to take two steps backward for every one forward, and whose most noticeable facial feature is an enormous mouth, and the "Busy Izzy" type of Jew, who when not getting robbed himself, or being otherwise abused, is doing his best to defraud others, are gradually going out of fashion. And in the photoplay, which is now seen by all classes of people and is for all the people, racial characteristics must be treated in at least a fairly accurate manner, and always good-naturedly. Six or seven years ago, more than half the comedies produced were based upon a chase, or else depended largely upon slap-stick humor to raise a laugh. Not a few of them had as their chief comedy-incident an act of downright cruelty to some animal, or even to some human being. Today, when manufacturers are vying with each other to produce better, cleaner, and more universally enjoyable pictures, the script that violates Censorship rules or studio ethics by including any of the foregoing undesirable subjects stands but little show of reaching the production stage, if, indeed—which is extremely unlikely—it is accepted at all.

"Good sense is at once the basis of and the limit to all humor. He who lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that mirth is a matter of relationships, of shift, of rigidity trying to be flexible, of something shocked into something else.

"Let us think of a circle on which four points have been marked:



"Beginning with a serious idea, we may swiftly step from point to point until we return to the serious, with only slight variations from the original conception. Take the perennial comedy-theme of the impish collar, and visualize the scenes:

"1. A man starts to button his collar. Nothing is less comical, as long as the operation proceeds normally.

"2. But the button is too large and his efforts begin to exasperate him, with the result that his expression and movements become incongruous. We see, and laugh—though he does not.

"3. He begins to hop around in a mad attempt to button the unbuttonable, and soon rips off the collar, addressing it in unparliamentary language. He is ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd.

"4. In his rage he violently kicks a pet dog that comes wagging up to him. Our laughter subsides, for the fellow is more contemptible than amusing—a deeper feeling has been born in us.

"5. The little dog limps off with a broken leg—we are no longer amused, we are indignant. What is more, not only have we gotten back to the serious, but there is no amusement left in any of the previous scenes.

"Still applying the test of the extent of the variation from the normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that serious consequences kill humor. The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in the circumstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely. In real life this might sicken us with disgust—I say 'might,' because we can easily conceive of such a situation's exciting laughter if the victim were well deserving of the punishment. It is human for us to laugh when the biter is bit; indeed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous writing.

"Sympathy also kills humor. The moment we begin to pity the victim of a joke—for humor has much to do with victims—our laughter dies away. Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady. True, we often laugh at those—or at those ideas—with whom or with which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for the moment overwhelms our sympathy—and sometimes even destroys it."[32]

[Footnote 32: J. Berg Esenwein Writing for the Magazines; published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."]

This one thing bear especially in mind: clean comedy is even more essential than clean drama. It is so easy, when writing humorous material, to go wrong without intending it—indeed, even without knowing it. Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pass the censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be tolerated for a moment. But these are exceptions.

The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people. Real infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays altogether. Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing you should remember that what merely might be tolerated on the regular stage would never do on the screen. It is well to remember also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coarse, suggestive, and even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to "get a laugh." There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of an audience. The local censorship boards of some cities have made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of slowly and surely causing the lower class of photoplay patrons to acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more refined comedy.

It may be said in passing that not all the companies producing farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called—exclude the work of the outside writer. Such firms as do accept outside scripts of this kind are prepared to "go the limit" in the matter of expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and unusual in the matter of staging. The Pathe comedy, "Cleopatsy," featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and sumptuous a scenic investiture as was accorded a few years ago to screen-versions of Shakespearean or other "classic" plays. The laughs in this Pathe production were produced, principally, by the introduction of business and situations that simply could not have happened in the time of Cleopatra, Antony and Caesar. Thus we saw traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use, and so on. In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony (instead of, as according to history, Caesar) kept the spectators in a roar of laughter. For an originally-worked-out idea such as this there is nearly always a ready market.

Finally, remember that comedy-action should run as smoothly as a well-oiled machine. Start with a good, fresh, funny idea and then make each scene run smoothly and logically into the next. There are certain series of comic pictures in the comic section of the newspapers which might well serve as your models for progressive and logical action. Mr. Bud Fisher's well-known "Mutt and Jeff" and Mr. George McManus's "Bringing Up Father" series are excellent examples. Particularly in the McManus pictures do we get funny, logical, and, above all, generally natural—in the sense of its being probable—comedy action. Take as an example the one which is sub-titled "It's a pity the valet left—he would have been such a nice playmate for Father." "Father," as we know, is the very much hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place among the "400" only by reason of her husband's wealth. It is Father's constant ambition and determination to spend as much of his time as possible amongst his old "roughneck" working-man pals, instead of in attending his wife's receptions and other society functions. A sociable companion of his own class is what he constantly seeks. In this picture there are, as is usual in the Sunday supplements, twelve scenes. The action of the picture may be roughly synopsized as follows:

Scene 1. Mrs. Jiggs introduces Mr. Jiggs—"Father"—to the new, and very English, valet—who "waited on Count de Miles until he died." To which Father (possible sub-title) replies: "No wonder he died!"

Scene 2. The butler, in Father's room, announces that he "thinks he'll like the job and that Father won't find him hard to please."

Scene 3. Shows Father making a critical inspection of the statue-like valet, and muttering that "his folks must have been fond of children, to raise him!"

Scene 4. Shows Father glancing up at a shield and some ancient battle-clubs, spears and axes, hung on the wall. We can easily guess what is passing in his mind.

Scene 5. Father takes the valet over to the window and stands him facing out, saying that he wishes to show him the wonderful view. Behind his back Father holds one of the war-clubs.

Scene 6. As the valet gazes out of the window, Father swings the club upward, preparing for a mighty blow, muttering as he does so: "It's a duty I owe my country."

Scene 7. Just as Father is about to strike, the valet glances down at something on the corner of the dresser, and exclaims: "Ah! A pinochle deck! My favorite game!" To which Father replies: "Oh! Do you play cards?"

Scene 8. Here they are in the middle of an exciting game, Father winning everything, the chips piled high before him. The valet asks: "Will you pardon me? I'll see if I can get some of my wages in advance."

Scene 9. In the lower hallway. Shows the valet asking Mrs. Jiggs for his salary in advance, adding that "the count always paid him ahead."

Scene 10. Back in the room upstairs, with Father at the table, on which are piled the valet's clothes, while the constantly losing valet plays his last hand from behind a screen.

Scene 11. Shows the entrance of the butler, who tells Father that Mrs. Jiggs "wishes to see him at once."

Scene 12. Shows the inglorious dismissal of the pinochle-loving valet, dressed only in three of Mrs. Jiggs' hat boxes, the bottoms of which have been knocked out. When Mrs. Jiggs declares "Pack your things and get out immediately—you are fired!" the valet answers gloomily: "I have nothing to pack, Madam!"

This, although merely an idea drawn out into a dozen pictures, is the sort that might easily be made the foundation for a laughable short comedy. Barring the fact that one or two of the scenes are played (so to speak) in the same setting, with no leader or other scene separating them—as would be the case in photoplay—this newspaper "funny" is much better put together, much more logical, and is just about the same number of scenes as were many of the split-reel comedies of a few years ago. Almost all of the more popular comic series in the newspapers, in fact, may be studied with profit by the would-be writer of screen comedies. There is action, and often very funny action, in every picture, and the plot moves quickly, logically, and without the slightest sign of unnecessary detail or irrelevant action, to an extremely funny climax, which, best of all, is usually a surprise to the reader.

Apply the same working-principle to the writing of humorous photoplays, especially the plan of having a surprise climax followed by a quick denouement, and you can hardly fail to produce a comedy that will cause the editor to notify you favorably.



CHAPTER XIX

GETTING THE NEW TWIST

No story is an old story if you give it a new "twist"—a fresh turn, an original surprise, an unexpected course of narration. As a matter of fact, this is what fiction writers and dramatists have been doing for hundreds of years; taking an old idea, they have twisted it about, enlarged upon it, provided a new setting for the story, and created something new, yet in truth far from new, from the idea furnished by another writer. Who evolved the "original" plot in any certain case is a question that will forever remain a question, for the earliest plays and stories are no longer extant. But this we do know: there are only a very few original or primary plots, and all the plays, novels, and short-stories that have been written are variations of these. Some writers have made the twist more pronounced, and their work, judged by present-day standards, is classed as original. Others, without trying to conceal the source of their plots, nevertheless give them new treatment, and so are not charged with plagiarism. Therefore we may conclude that that writer is entitled to be called original who is capable of so twisting and remodeling the theme used by another writer that it is, in the remodeling, virtually recreated.

1. An Example from Fiction

As a concrete example, let us compare Poe's short-story, "The Cask of Amontillado," with Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb." In both of these the theme is revenge, brought about by having the one seeking to entomb his enemy alive—the same theme, precisely, as Balzac had used earlier in "La Grande Breteche," and Edith Wharton in later years in "The Duchess at Prayer." In "The Cask of Amontillado," Montresor desires to be revenged upon Fortunato because the latter has both injured and insulted him. Exactly how he has been insulted we are not told; nor do we know the extent of his "injuries." It is sufficient for the purpose of the story that we know that his Latin blood has been roused sufficiently to make him eager to compass the death of his enemy—who is none the less his enemy although, up till the very moment when Fortunato realizes the awful fate that is to be his, he (Montresor) pretends friendship for his victim. After Montresor's revenge has been accomplished by walling up Fortunato in a subterranean vault, the perpetrator feels no remorse. He has completed what he set out to do, and is satisfied. He has "punished with impunity" and he has made the fact that he is the redresser felt by "him who has done the wrong."

What chiefly impresses the reader is the lack of motive for Montresor's crime—for crime it surely is, whatever his real or fancied wrongs—other than the motive of a madman. At the conclusion our sympathy for the unfortunate victim of Montresor's hate is perhaps as great as is our pity for Montresor himself.

But note that Doyle's story is not only an original piece of fiction—as we have just interpreted that expression—but also one in which we recognize that the seeker after revenge is thoroughly deserving of our sympathy, even though we do not entirely approve of his bringing about the death of even so unworthy a creature as we know his enemy to be. In Doyle's story, as in Poe's, the background is Italy, but Italy of the present day, so we feel that we understand the motives of the characters better because they are of our own time. There is a definite and grievous wrong committed against the young woman with whom the central character is in love, therefore the wrong is committed indirectly against the lover himself. We are made to realize the despicable nature, the utter heartlessness, of the young woman's betrayer, and we actually hate him as soon as the facts are made clear to us. We realize how great has been the love for her cherished by the man who finally punishes the one who has wronged her, by causing him to be entombed alive in a Roman catacomb which he himself has but recently discovered.

In Poe's story, Fortunato is chained to the wall of the vault, after which he is literally walled up and buried alive. In "The New Catacomb," the redresser of the wrong takes the evil-doer down into the catacomb and leaves him while he finds his own way out by means of a trail of cord, knowing that the other, unable to follow him, is being left in what will be his tomb.

The dramatic intensity of Doyle's story is just as great as in that written by Poe; the "hero" is as much deserving of our sympathy as the "villain" merits our condemnation; and the treatment of the theme, from first to last, makes Doyle's an absolutely original story, although there is little doubt that it was suggested, or, at least influenced, either by the one written many years before by the American master of the short-story, or by Balzac's remarkable tale referred to above.

The discriminating photoplaywright will have no difficulty in making the application of this illustration of how an original story may grow out of an old theme. But be careful not to turn this liberty into an excuse for adhering closely to a borrowed theme.

2. Plagiarism

In justice to writers in general it is only fair to believe that most cases of plagiarism are quite unintentional. The fault usually is in the writer's memory. Turn your eye inward, and form the habit of tracing the origin of your inspirations—sometimes it may chagrin you to find how near to unconscious imitation you have been. You may get the inspiration for a story and write it; it may be accepted and produced; then, after its release, some friend will casually remark that it reminds him of a Vitagraph picture that he saw a year or two ago. And only after he has called your attention to it do you realize that that Vitagraph story, seen and forgotten, was the source of your "inspiration"—and perhaps you have committed an unconscious theft.

In an earlier chapter we have urged photoplaywrights to keep in touch with the market so as to avoid writing on trite themes. But that practise will not help the conscious plagiarist. Why should he invent a new twist when he can steal one? This would seem to be his short-sighted logic. Fortunately, there are not many unscrupulous writers who deliberately attempt to sell to editors stories which are simply adaptations of more or less well-known stories or plays. A great deal has been said about editors and their assistants being familiar with standard literature and current books, plays, and magazine stories. But no editor is infallible, and once in a while a stolen story "gets by." We know of two companies, each of which within the space of six months produced stories that were plainly recognizable as adaptations of "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder," the second story in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes." Another company released a picture that was simply Maupassant's "The Necklace" so carelessly re-dressed that we wonder the editor did not recognize it after reading the first paragraph of the synopsis.

The final test of whether a story really resembles another closely enough to suggest intentional plagiarism is when the similarity between the two is recognized immediately by people in many different parts of the country—yet that is too late to help any one involved! The short-stories of "O. Henry" have been so widely read that when a new story appears that closely resembles one of his it is not long before comparisons are made. Three or four years ago a certain company made a two-part picture that so closely resembled O. Henry's "The Reformation of Calliope" that after its release one of the present writers received letters of inquiry from photoplaywrights in five different cities commenting upon it, three of the letters being from young writers who, recognizing the resemblance, asked if it were "permissible to take the principal plot-idea of a copyrighted story and, by changing it about slightly, make it into a salable photoplay." As might be supposed, they were earnestly advised to refrain from doing so.

A dozen years ago there appeared in the English edition of The Strand Magazine a story in which a retired Indian officer, at a dinner given to a party of his friends, displays a remarkably fine diamond. The jewel is unset, having been taken—as most jewels in stories of this kind are—from the head of an Indian idol. The stone is passed around for inspection. The Hindoo servant is clearing some of the things from the table, and the diamond has just been admired by an old gentleman in a rather frayed dress-suit, when the attention of everyone present is drawn away from the table for a moment or two. When they turn around, the diamond has disappeared. Naturally, the guests are embarrassed, but they all offer to allow themselves to be searched, with the exception of the shabby-genteel old gentleman. While he protests that he knows nothing of how the stone has disappeared, he stubbornly refuses to allow them to search his clothes. The effect upon the other guests may easily be imagined. Later, however, one of the guests having followed him home, it is discovered that the poor old man has merely filled his pockets with different delicacies from the table, and has taken them home to his sick grandchild. Subsequently it is discovered that the Hindoo servant has taken the jewel, and he is arrested and punished. In the moment that the attention of the guests was directed elsewhere, after the old gentleman had laid it on the table, the servant had snatched up the jewel and dropped it into a half-filled water glass, where it remained undiscovered while the servant was searched with the others. It is pretty generally known that an unset pure diamond, if dropped into a glass of water, becomes invisible.

Some time during 1911, one of the producing companies released a picture entitled "The Class Reunion." To get the plot of the photoplay story, simply substitute an impecunious professor for the old gentleman in the short-story. Instead of the Hindoo servant, have one of the pupils—if our memory serves—turn out to be the thief, and have him drop the jewel—which is a ruby, and not a diamond—into a glass of red wine instead of into a glass of water. In all other particulars the two stories were identical.

Only a few months later, this plot cropped up again—in fiction form—in a prominent American magazine. Then, in the release of another well-known company, of January 13, 1913, it again did service in the photoplay "The Thirteenth Man," where the inevitable banquet is the annual reunion of "The Thirteen Club." The theme has now become so hackneyed that, as the list given in Chapter XVI shows, it is no longer serviceable for photoplay purposes.

Obviously, these facts are cited not to discredit the companies referred to, but solely to emphasize the difference between the genuinely new twist as exemplified in Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb," and the dangerously close similarity as exhibited in at least one of the two photoplays just referred to as following the plot of the Strand story.

It must not be inferred, however, that all cases in which the themes of short-stories are developed into photoplays with very little change are plagiarisms, either conscious or unconscious. Many important companies are negotiating constantly with the magazines for the right to photodramatize their most suitable short-stories. Sometimes this is done with the consent of the author and the plot of the story used substantially without change, while in other instances the plot is freely changed, only the germ being used. It is particularly in such cases that we must be careful not to charge plagiarism.

In this connection it is important to note that the photoplaywright cannot be too careful in respecting the rights of publishers and authors in their fictional properties. To many writers it is not clear precisely what rights an author parts with when he, without any other stipulation, sells a short-story or a longer piece of fiction outright to a magazine, so he must be careful in offering moving-picture rights to a company unless he is sure, from a clear understanding with the magazine publisher, that he is at liberty to do so. If these points are not altogether in the clear to you, nevertheless it is certainly wise to be definite in securing your own copyright on stories, when that is possible, by agreeing with your publisher for the release to you of all dramatic rights.

To return once more to the subject of originality, in W.W. Jacobs's story, "The Monkey's Paw," the thrillingly terrible crisis begins when the father, much against his will, makes use of the second wish granted to him as the possessor of the fatal paw and wishes his dead son alive again. In the night he and his wife are aroused by a familiar knocking on their door. The mother, believing it to be their son returned to life, rushes to let him in, but while she is trying to unlock the door, the husband, remembering the terrible condition of the son's body, he having been crushed to death by some machinery, utters the third and last wish. The knocking ceases, and when the woman succeeds in getting the door open, the street lamp flickering opposite is shining on a quiet and deserted road.

Substantially the same plot is used in a story published in The Blue Book, "The Little Stone God," the principal difference being that, when those in the house hear the knocking on the door, they refuse, in utter terror, to answer the summons. The knocking ceases; and the next morning they learn that a telegraph messenger boy called at the house with a message on the previous night and, after knocking several times in vain, went away again.

The foregoing are only a few examples of plots which strongly resemble one another. How it comes that they resemble one another it is not our province to discuss any further—the point is that if your story is inspired by the work of another writer, give it such an absolutely original treatment that you can conscientiously refer to it as original.

"Don't waste time in rewriting other people's brain-children, for the scenario-editor goblins will catch you sure as fate, and once you get a reputation for plagiarism, not a film-maker will dare to buy any manuscript from you for fear it is copyrighted."[33]

[Footnote 33: Herbert Case Hoagland, How to Write a Photoplay.]

In photoplays as in novels and short-stories nothing is so disappointing as a story whose title is inviting, and the first few pages—or scenes, as the case may be—interesting, but which soon begins to reveal itself as nothing more than a story with which we are already familiar, though slightly changed in a few particulars in the hope that it may be welcomed as an original work. We say "slightly changed," for if the all-important new twist is not given the story cannot escape detection as being what it is—a mere copy of the original.

"The formula upon which the plot is built is of venerable antiquity," says Frederick Taber Cooper, in The Bookman, in reviewing a certain novel. Then, although he commends the purpose of the story, he concludes: "But the book is not really an important one, because there have been scores of books equally well written which have already said much the same thing. The author has not had any new twist to give to the old theme—and, worst of all, we know from wearisome past experience just how the plot will work out, just how inevitable it is that Kenneth will achieve fame, and his father will be reconciled, and Jean, convinced of her injustice, will tearfully plead for forgiveness." Don't lay yourself open to such a criticism.

3. What Is Originality?

"Popularly, we call that man original who stands on his own feet, uses the thoughts of others only to stimulate and supplement his own, and who does his best to color borrowed thought with the hue of his own personality. Such a man, if he be not a creator, is at least a thinker, and a thinker need never be a literary thief. The entrance of any thought that will set the mind to working should be welcome indeed."[34]

[Footnote 34: J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story.]

Speaking of the way in which a writer may take an old plot and work it over, Frank E. Woods, the former "Spectator" of the Dramatic Mirror, says:

"That is precisely what every author does in nine cases out of ten. He utilizes and adapts the ideas he has gained from various sources. It is when he follows another author's sequence or association of ideas or arrangement of incidents so closely as to make his work appear to be an obvious copy or colorable imitation, that he is guilty."

4. The New Twist Illustrated

As an example of the way in which an old theme may be given a new twist, let us compare the plot of Browning's "Pippa Passes"—which, by the way, was wonderfully well produced in motion-picture form by the Biograph Company in 1909—and James Oppenheim's photoplay, "Annie Crawls Upstairs," produced by the Edison Company.

In each, the theme is the spiritual redemption of several different characters through the influence of the heroine, who in each case accomplishes this worthy end quite unconsciously. Pippa, the mill-girl, spends her holiday wandering through the town and over the countryside, singing her innocent and happy-hearted songs. It is the effect of those songs upon those who hear them that gives the poem-story its dramatic moments and makes up the plot. In Mr. Oppenheim's story, the heroine, Annie, is a tiny, crippled child who, wandering out of the tenement kitchen where her half-drunken father is quarreling with his wife, crawls painfully up one flight of stairs after another, innocently walking into each flat in turn, and in each doing some good by her mere presence. On one floor a wayward girl is so affected by meeting with the crippled child that she remains at home with her mother instead of going out to join a party of friends of questionable character; on another floor she is instrumental in preventing an ex-convict from joining his former pals in another crime; in the flat above, she brings together two lovers who are about to part in anger; in the next flat she comforts a busy dressmaker who has lost patience with and scolded her little girl for being in her way while she is at work, and who realizes on seeing Annie that she should at least be thankful that her child has health and strength, and does not, therefore, add the care and worry of sickness to the burden of poverty. Finally, on the top floor, a young man, heart-sick and weary of the vain search for work in a strange city, coming out of his room finds little Annie asleep, her head resting against the frame of the door. As he carries her down to her own flat, he picks up courage, banishes the thoughts of suicide which a few moments before had filled his brain, and resolves to try again. The picture ends with the mother and father, their quarrel forgotten, bending over the child.



Thus, consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Oppenheim has used the same theme that Browning used; but he has given it a new twist with the introduction of each new incident in the story. The little lame child of the tenements does not seem to speak a word in the picture, and the scene between the two young lovers parting after their quarrel is totally unlike the scene between Ottima and Sebald in Browning's poem, yet we feel that the good influence that changes the heart of the burglar, as he sits there planning the new crime, is the same as that which shakes the guilty wife and her lover when Pippa passes beneath the window of Luca's house, singing:

God's in his heaven— All's right with the world!

We have read of a Western script in which the outlaw, wounded and bleeding, is given shelter by the heroine. When the sheriff arrives, he sees the basin containing the bloody water and inquires how it comes there. Even while he is looking at it, the girl cuts her hand with a knife, and declares that, having cut herself before the Sheriff's arrival, she has just washed her hand in the basin.

This incident, or situation, is almost identical with one in the Ambrosio Company's "After Fifty Years," which won the first prize of twenty-five thousand francs ($5,000) at the Turin Exhibition, and which showed as one of its many thrilling situations the Italian heroine gashing her hand with a knife held behind her back, to explain to the Austrian soldier who is in search of her lover the presence of blood on her sleeve.

Yet this could not be called a theft, or even a re-arrangement of another writer's plot. The plot, characters, and setting were entirely different in each play—it was only that one situation that was made use of; and it seems likely that it was from the Ambrosio picture, or the account of it, that the author of the Western story got his inspiration. Yet who can really tell? Thoughts are marvellous things, and both writers may have gotten their ideas from some other original—or even conceived them in their own brains.

After all, as has been pointed out, the trouble with many young writers is that they are not content with copying a single situation. They have not been "in the game" long enough to realize either the risk that they are taking or the wrong that they are doing a fellow writer, so they not only adapt to their own needs a strong situation in another's story but precede and follow it with other incidents and situations which are substantially the same as those surrounding the big situation in the original story.

But giving an old theme a new twist is a trick of the trade that comes only with experience, and experience is gained by practice. Experience and practice soon teach the photoplaywright not to rely too heavily upon the newspaper for new ideas, for almost every day editors receive two or more plots which closely resemble each other, simply because the writers, having all chosen the same theme, have all worked that theme up in the same way—the obvious way, the easiest way, the way that involves the least care, and therefore the least ingenuity.

"Where do the good plots come from, anyhow?" asks John Robert Moore. "We people in universities often amuse ourselves by tracing stories back to their origins. The trouble is that we often reach the limit of our knowledge, but rarely find the beginning; for the plot seems to be as old as the race. What, then, has been changed in a story which has been raised from a mediaeval legend to a modern work of art?

"In such cases, the setting and the moral content are almost invariably altered. An absurdly comic story about an Irishman and a monkey, which was current a couple of centuries ago, became 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' in the hands of Poe. The central plot remained much the same, but the whole of the setting and the intellectual content assumed a new and vastly higher significance. 'The Bottle Imp' harks back to the Middle Ages; but Stevenson made a world-famous story of it by giving it the flavor of the South Sea Islands which he knew so well."

So there are both discouragement and cheer for those who accept the Wise Man's dictum that there is nothing new under the sun. In the one aspect, there seems little chance for the novice since the primary plots are really so few; but in the other view, fresh arrangements of old combinations are always possible for those who see life with open eyes, alert minds, warm hearts, and the resolve to be as original as they can.



CHAPTER XX

COMPLETE FIVE-REEL PHOTOPLAY SCRIPT "EVERYBODY'S GIRL"

Adapted from "O. Henry's" Short-Story, "Brickdust Row," by A. Van Buren Powell, and Produced in Film Form by The Vitagraph Company[35]

[Footnote 35: Used by permission. Copyright, 1918, by the Vitagraph Company of America. All rights reserved.]

The mere reading of the following photoplay script will not do you any good. To get any benefit from it you must study it.

The script, which is an adaptation—the short-story of a famous author, "O. Henry," translated into screen technique—is in the form in which it was accepted for production. An adaptation rather than the script of an original idea is chosen for two reasons: the story from which it was made is accessible in every library, and the translation into production-form offers certain problems which make it a more effective lesson in idea-building.

Pretend that you are a staff writer, and that you are to "do" a certain story by "O. Henry." Get from your library the book of short-stories by the famous author which contains "Brickdust Row"—the volume is entitled "The Trimmed Lamp." Read the story—read it until you are thoroughly familiar with its every word. Read it analytically. You are to make an adaptation of it. What must that adaptation have for its fundamental purpose?—the preservation of "O. Henry's" charm of atmosphere; the utilization of his cleverness with words, wherever possible in leaders; the emphasizing of his purpose in writing the story. What was that purpose? Was it not to show how a man's code of ethics, mistakenly clung to, resulted in his misjudging a perfectly innocent girl, with resultant tragedy? And, contributory to this, was it not the aim of the original author to emphasize and excuse the conduct of the girl—conduct arising naturally from her environment and station in life?

These things must be conveyed, then, through the medium of characterization, with the help of little human touches. The girl must be shown as sweet, clean, without a wrong thought; the man must be clearly depicted, his reason for being so seemingly churlish and careless of the duties imposed upon him by his ownership of many tenements must be handled in such a way that he will not be an unsympathetic character.

Then we are confronted with certain studio conditions. The story must be made of feature length—five or more reels. Again, tragedy is not welcome on the screen. Arguments might be offered to show that the original story will lose strength through the addition of the "happy ending." We cannot help that—in fact, we must surmount that obstacle. We must make the story equally strong and try, if we can, to add to its lesson. We cannot air our ideals, and write just as we wish; we must conform to the set rules of our particular studio, as well as to the general rules covering screencraft.

The change of title is governed by so many factors that it need only be said that the alternative title was given as possessing a greater advertising and drawing power.[36]

[Footnote 36: In Mr. Van Buren Powell's new book, The Photoplay Synopsis, published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library," he explains why this title was changed.]

Now we have dissected "O. Henry's" original story. We have decided what we must do with it. Comes the director for consultation. He feels that the story is not long enough. It need not be padded, but an additional character might be introduced to bring out and emphasize the true character of our leading woman, and at the same time the required dramatic element and the contrasting of his character with that of the leading man may be achieved by his presence.

So, agreeing with the director, we write our script.

Throughout, notes will call your attention to certain points that will help your understanding of the technical purposes of certain material.

"EVERYBODY'S GIRL"

SYNOPSIS

Florence is a shop girl, of the quiet, sweet, clean type. She finds it hard to make ends meet. Her more practical, more worldly-wise friend, Ella, the shoe-store cashier, suggests that they share her present quarters in "Brickdust Row"—a decaying tenement block. By this division of expense they can both save "enough to buy an extra pickle for lunch once in a while."

When Florence sees "Brickdust Row" she is depressed by its dull aspect, its dreary environment. But she accepts Ella's proposal, and the two girls begin their sharing of the tiny room as cheerfully as possible.

Through a terrifying experience with a male flirt Florence comes to learn that Ella has long been used to accepting attentions and escort from men outside the home atmosphere. Ella explains that since the owner of "Brickdust Row" is so avaricious that he allows the parlors to be rented out, no place is provided where the girls may entertain men properly, and so the society of the opposite sex must be sought and enjoyed "here, there and everywhere."

The idea is repugnant to Florence, who is unusually fine in her ideas of propriety; but she comes to see that Ella's way is the only outlet for youth and the desire for companionship, brightness, life.