The Biography of a Film — From Studio to Dead Storage Vault (1922) 🇺🇸
Haven’t you often wondered what unkind fate snatched away from mortal eyes the aboriginal western thriller in which the prairie schooner and a chase by Indians featured, and which you paid your nickel to see and then went your way in the good old days before the price of living soared and the two-dollar production became the vogue?
by Virginia Thatcher Morris
Indeed, do you know what will happen to the picture you are going to see tonight when the letters on the electric sign are shifted about again to advertise tomorrow’s attraction? In compiling this biography, let us go back to the actual shooting of the picture in a studio, say in California. Usually, two cameras do the work in order that there may be two separate negatives, the best for domestic use, the other for export to the most important points in the foreign market. It is with the former, however, that we are most concerned.
As soon as the first print comes from the laboratory it is rushed by express to the company’s New York office, where it is viewed immediately by the executives, sales managers, advertising and exploitation men. This audience, or “optience,” as students of the latest thing in dictionaries are saying, puts upon the picture an appraisement of how much return can be expected from it. This does not mean profit, but the actual sum the picture will take in. This estimate usually far exceeds the cost, for producers are only human and expect to make money, like the rest of us. It is doubtful, however, that an appraisement on a recent million-dollar picture would even cover the cost, for the highest most producers ever dare to hope for is $500,000, the average picture holding a valuation of not more than $100,000.
The film may be held back for a time, contingent upon market conditions, but as a general rule is given Lo the public within six or eight weeks after its completion. It starts its career through a pre-release to some fifty of the largest theatres throughout the country. At that time it may be seen, perhaps, in the largest theatre in the world, a distinction belonging to the Capitol, New York’s most magnificent film house, where the symphony orchestra introducing and accompanying the picture is the most mammoth of its kind in existence. If the production does not obtain the privilege of playing there, perhaps its name will blaze forth in thousands of electric light bulbs at the Criterion on Times Square. These prerelease showings at times last a month or more, but there is always a day set known as the general release date.
When this day comes one hundred prints, the number generally made from the negative, will be in active service in exchanges covering every state. First runs after the general release last one or two weeks on Main Street. The second-run theatres will hold a picture two or three days and its next stop will be for a one-day engagement at the better -class neighborhood house. Prices to the exhibitor are based upon his seating capacity, running in a diminishing ratio as the picture gradually deserts the higher type of theatre for the movie palace in an obscure section of the town. Thus you might follow a photoplay making its rounds in a single city for two or three months.
By this time the film is invading the country villages, where the method of exploitation often furnishes an amusing contrast to that used at the world premiere in New York. It no longer shines in electric splendor — its advent is now heralded by slanting billboards mounted on a rickety wagon which is drawn by a dejected native mare. The more modest production does not even enjoy this form of advertising and must wait patiently for the crowd to arrive through the persuasive wording of a “one-sheet,” the smallest size poster. When our spool of celluloid is working in just such places it is performing its greatest service by bringing entertainment and instruction to thousands of people whom the most rural stock company would never reach.
After a year the usefulness of the average picture is exhausted. At the end of that time it has moved before some ten million people. The usable remains of the original hundred prints, many of which are then completely worn out, are stored away in the local exchanges which have been handling them. Perhaps sonic further use for them will arise — at any rate, storage space is cheaper in Oklahoma than in New York City.
An exceptional feature, however, will boast of a longer period of activity. “The Miracle Man” is renting just as regularly now as it was on its general, release date three years ago. “Humoresque” is still going strong. Fifty million persons is not a high estimate to set on the ultimate audience of “Over the Hill” or “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
There is a practically interminable existence for the story with an historical or literary value. The exhibition rights for such are often sold to non-theatrical companies whose trade embraces schools and churches. From such companies it is possible to secure old versions of almost every classic ever filmed, and they have all been done at one time or another in some hit-or-miss fashion. There is always a ready market for a group of the crudest conceptions of biblical stories imaginable. In spite of the fact that these one-reelers produced more than fifteen years ago would provoke the average audience of today to laughter, they are in constant demand simply because they have never been replaced by better treatments of the same subject-matter.
This is the life of the average picture in the United States. The history of its foreign exhibition varies somewhat. England is usually the first country to use a picture of which a negative for export has been made. The cinema in Great Britain does not hold the popular appeal it does here, and consequently the supply often exceeds the demand. Pictures pile in so fast from America that it is impossible to find an early release date for them, with the result that they reach the British public about a year and a half after their completion. They gradually find their way across Europe, until they finally reach the Orient, at least three years after we have labeled them old. Only a special type is suitable for Asiatic use. In spite of the fact that one block in Yokohama, known as the Cinema Street, contains more than twenty-five movie houses, the patrons are not at all liberal in their approval and are extremely partial to the Eddie Polo or Tom Mix variety, scorning all else.
A film never intended for export may find its way to China or South America when it has become utterly worthless in this country, and is sold by its owner to someone speculating in the foreign market.
Circumstances, too, may recall a picture into service in the United States. We are all perfectly familiar with the “revival.” The Birth of a Nation,” I hope, will enjoy many of them. Old screen interpretations of “La Tosca,” “Sapho” and “Carmen” have recently been re-cut in a new scheme to synchronize opera with the filmplay. Caruso’s death brought his only work before the camera, “My Cousin,” into circulation again at good rentals. Probably the most frequent reason for digging up a picture long dead and buried is commercial greed, in an attempt to benefit by another’s advertising or reputation. A notable example of this was the revival of “The Three Musketeers” made years ago when the publicity campaign for the Fairbanks picture was launched. The same thing occurred when D. W. Griffith presented “Way Down East,” and when a repetition of it threatened “The Two Orphans” he changed the title to “Orphans of the Storm.” The one-reel stories which Mr. Griffith made for Biograph were put out again and his name exploited when subsequent effort had established him as the master director.
Shortly after the movies were born, William S. Hart made a lot of poor-grade Western stuff when he was a much less finished actor, when his salary was paltry and his name unknown.! Today, when he is at the pinnacle of his fame, his latest production may be running on Broadway, while a cheap downtown theatre is showing three ancient films recut and titled to make one story of feature length. His name here figures as prominently as elsewhere, with nothing to indicate that the picture wasn’t photographed after the one on Broadway. Legislation should right these wrongs.
Four thousand features apart from scenics, educational, and the like, have been produced in the last five years. How many can stand the test of time? With the advancement of the mechanics and the art of the cinema, let us hope that some day the screen will have its classics and film libraries will be instituted so that what we strive to make perfection today will be enjoyed by others a hundred years hence.
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During the first few weeks of its life, the name of the film will blaze forth in thousands of lights on Times Square
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Above: The second stage comes when the film is shown at the better-class neighborhood houses.
Right: Later on its advent is heralded on slanting billboards mounted on a rickety wagon.
Below: Finally it reaches foreign lands, where it is welcomed as the newest picture from the States
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Collection: Filmplay Magazine, June 1922