THE STANDARD MAGALil' SLi-Ci OLn, uVAIi,
I BY. JL H. GIEBLER.
er ECAUSE of our habit of be
stowing picturesque names
mmy on things, we have unthink
3 ingly called the movies "The Silent
I Drama," when as a matter of fact the
movies have given the drama a dozen
i new tongues.
Before the moving pictures the stage
yy was Dound and fettered by languages.
! jJBfjf No matter how great a play might be,
'JHI it was so hedftd about by the bar-
fll riers of words that it was confined in
ID its true greatness to the language in
which it was written.
Actors, however great and compcll
i ing in their art, could not hold or
jl s thrill the people who did not know
1 their speech.
jH Plays could be translated, it is true,
but translations always leave some
jB thing to be desired. The fine edge, the
subtle shading, the play on words used
jjHf by the author a master in his own
Hf language can never be registered
JBl with the same effect
jH Plays that were made great by their
'jaB interpreters were never carried over
'IHff to a new tongue with the same force
gK because their interpreters could not
D! be carried along with them.
aH The movies broke the vocal bar-
,H9 riers with the application of the unl-
KflH( versal language of action, which al-
fSKLr' ways did and always will speak loud
er than ords' and today the actor is
nBI as wel1 undcrsto0(1 n Hindustan as he
dW is in High Bridge, Conn., although he
fjMj may not bo able to speak the language
reM common to the people of either land.
In the early days of movie making,
tjjjjjfl all of the films in this country were
made In Europe, France and Italy
furnishing the largest number, with
! players who could not speak English.
LH When American producers began
: making plays, the foreign films began
iH - to lose their popularity, not because
1B were made by people who could
: our language, but because the
e.B American audiences liked the homo
l0SM stories better tha'n they did those -with
)USB foreign locations and atmosphere.
UgH Foreign Film Makers.
As soon as the European makers
'JB found their sales falling off because of
this, they sent companies of players
'jB to this country, who took plays by
i39H American writers and set them in
1 KW E" -js- Amerlcan scenes and successfully
nflfrvTv competed with the home producers, al
tIM though many of the directors and play-
' 1 ers who made the plays could Hot
BBlB I speak a word of our language. Patho
Freres were among the earliest of the
hu5 foreign film makers to come to this
tffiTilB 1 country, and Ernest Maupain was
71 among the number of French actors
H ' they brought over with them.
. jB M. Maupain was a celebrated actor
jokB in his own country, and at the time of
JH his coming to this side, could, speak
only the limited English of the edu
cated Frenchman who has learned the
language from a book. He would have
been entirely out of the running in a
speaking stage play, but on the screen
he was as much at home as in his na
tive "Parce." Maupain is an actor who
has the rare gift of dramatic person
ality, and is able to put great force in
bis work because of this. He is also
unique for his ability to weep at will.
M. Maupain once enacted a part
where he was supposed to drown his
own son to save him from disgrace. He
wept very realistically on the occa
sion, and a critic, commenting on the
fact, said that the actor brought tears
to his eyes by praying for the success
of the French armies.
This Maupain denies.
"If I have prayed for those who are
fighting for us, which I have done," he
says, "it was not before the camera.
If I have cried, It was because the sit
uation demanded it, or it would have
been impossible to let my tears flow. It
is impressionability."
The work of such artists as Maupain
would have been lost to American au
diences if it had not been for the
movies, which made all tongues as one.
Following Demands of Market.
Mme. Alice Blache came to this
country' and established a studio at
Fort Lee, N. J., in 1910. This clever
French-woman at once adapted herself
to the demands of the American mar
ket and made many fine and artistic
films.
Herbert Blache, her brother, adapt
ed the poems of Robert W. Service to
the screen, and although Service is
distinctly local and very much Ameri
can in his work, M. BJache caught the
spirit of the poems perfectly and made
the plays register as. well, If not bet-'
ter, than many an American producer
would have done. Blache used Amer
ican players in these films, however.
Lou Tcllcgcn is another foreign
actor who has come to this country
and registered very effectively in the
films. Tcllegen was leading man for
Sarah Bernhardt in many of her great
est successes, and although he is dis
tinctly French In his mannerisms and
habits, his work on the screen is fin
ished, and as easily understood as
though he were a native of the United
States.
Even the divine Sarah herself has
beenseen in several screen plays, and
there is no doubt but that the peoplo
who watched her hold the mirror up to
nature on the screen enjoyed the per
formance as much if not more than
when they paid two or three prices to
hear her in a language they could not
understand.
While most of the foreign actors
who have made' names for themselvcG
on this side are French, there are scv-
eral of other nationalities.
Antonla Moreno was born in Spain
and came to this country when he was
in his 'teens. Moreno is a 'capable ac
tor of the heroic type and has a wide
following. Owing to the fact that he
came to the "United States a number of
years ago, he now speaks our language
like a native.
The Funtomimists.
Mme. Olga Petrova is Russian by
birth and speaks French, German and
English, but without the language
leveling movie American audiences
would no doubt have never known her
artistic rendition of parts as It does.
The moving picture players object
to being called pantomlmists, but their
art is a kind of modified pantomime,
refined and made perfect by the de
mands of the screen.
The old-time pantomimist expressed
himself with exaggeration. Ho was
much in evidence In the earlier films,
and, unfortunately, there are a few of
him still on the screen stage.
The old-time pantomimist is tho ac
tor who thumps himself on the chest,
tears his hair and walls up his eyes
to express his emotion; the player who
stops when he gets to the door leading
to the room where the heroine is be-
ing robbed of the papers, and faces
the camera with a look of grim de
termination on his face, instead of get
ting down to business and kicking the
door off its hinges and foiling the vil
lain in the shortest possible time.
This kind of screen acting repre
sents the hang-over from tho time
when all movie acting was pantomime,
and it was one of tho first things most
of tho foreigners in the films- had to
unlearn when they began working for
English audiences.
Tho foreigners, and especially the
French, were given to gesticulation,
and If there Is anything other than lo
cal color that makes the French films
less popular now than other foreign
makes it Is this characteristic, which
still persists in the work of many of
the French players.
The movies have, of course, opened
up a big field for the foreign film actor.
He can register his work just as clear
ly in ono country as another, whilo if
he were confined to his voice as the
solo means of expression, he would
probably never bo known outside of
his native country.
The Little Touches.
Few actors aro great in another
language. They may learn other lan
guages, but they never master' them
perfectly enough to give all of the lit
tle dcllcato shades and -touches that
they can give to their native speech.
In the pictures thero are- no stum
bling blocks of unfamiliar and unpro
nouncablc words.
Tho French player on the speaking
stage can look the heroine in the eyes
and say, "Je t'adore," with all of the
passion in tho world in his voice, in
French.
But let him try it in English, and tho
"I love you," which would be tho only
English equivalent, would sound tamo
and flat and funny, unless his pronun
ciation was perfect and his inflection jH
without flaw. IH
And yet, that actor could step from H
the gangplank of fhc steamer that IH
brought him over to the studio, and H
register "I love you" with one look of H
his eyes that would be understood and H
appreciated from one end of this land jH
as well as of all other lands of tho IH
earth to the other. H
The only difficulty of the foreign
film actor who cannot speak any other H
language is in understanding the di- H
rector's orders. In some case3 an in- H
terpreter has to be employed. This is H
not necessary very often, however, as H
there are a number of foreign direc- H
tors as well as foreign players. H
Emile Chartard and the Capcllard
brothers are well-known French direc- jH
tors, and there arc many others, of H
nearly all nationalities. H
O
Answers to !j
Picture Fans H
JW. Ann Pennington will work
in Paramount pictures all sum- IH
mer, but she will go back to the "Fol
lies" In the fall. Billio Burko will also
return to the stage in the fall.
RANDOLPH STREET. Have for
warded your letter to the Tri
angle Company, Culver City, Cal. Al
ways prepay full postage and inclose
a stamped, self-addressed envelopo
for the return of your play in case it jH
cannot be used, when sending out
scenarios, and send them direct to the uM
studios, not to newspaper offices.
WEBSTER. Too bad you gavo IH
your pictures of the movie jH
stars away, because it is practically
impossible for you to get duplicates of jH
them now. Thero were fifteen in the IH
ANXIOUS. Clco Ridgely Is not
playing in pictures at present,
but she will get a letter addressed to
her in care of LaBky, Hollywood, Cak
Thomas Melghan is with Famous jH
Players, 485 Fifth avenue, New York.
KITTY. Kathn-n Adams and
Rosemary Theby both are St, IH
Louis girls. Miss Adams is now with.
Goldwyn, 16 East Forty-second street, jH
New York, instead of Thanhouser.
Rosemary Theby is with Pathe, 25
West Forty-fifth street, New York.
There are no studios in St. Louis. The
Essanay, in Chicago, would be the
nearest studio to you. jJ
s '
' Danger Ahead.
"Good-by, old man," 'said WJlkins at
the church festival. "I guess I can
'see my finish."
"What's up?" queried Bllklns.
"Why, I'm to judge the prettiest
baby at tho show." IH
"Oh, that's e"asy. You should havo
my
"Anil what ars you going to do?" jH
"Why, I am at tho fortune-telling
booth and have to guess girls' ages."
a
Entirely Sufficient. ,
First Boy "I'm going to study
French this summer.
Second Boy -Well, I can speak two
languages now.
First Boy What are they?
Second Boy English and baseball.
) a
Yhy'Tlo Kicked.
Stella "My fiance refused to let mo
take charge of a booth at the church
fair last week.
Mabel What were you going to'
sell?
Stella Kisses at a quarter apiece.
91 S P sf ? -" f when it loom, on the torlwn. A " L 1
-J 1
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