Chats with the Players — Herbert Prior, of the Edison Company (1915) 🇺🇸
“Come on, Herbert,” said Mrs. Prior, who is known to the public as Mabel Trunnelle, “and tell the lady your whole sad history.”
Mr. Prior rose with a slow, pleased smile of greeting for the interviewer, and the grip he gave proved that he meant it when he said he was glad to meet any one from his favorite magazine.
He told me that he had been in Motion Pictures for five years, first with the old Biograph, then with Edison, a year down at the Majestic and back to Edison, where he seems to be very comfortably and permanently settled. Before coming to photoplay, he was connected with the legitimate drama for fifteen years, and, of course, the companies with which he played are too numerous to mention.
“I was born in Oxford, England,” he said, in his slow, pleasant drawl that makes him seem more of a Southerner than an Englishman. “I am English born, but American bred, and am proud of being an American citizen. My hobby? Automobiling. I am very fond of reading. Shakespeare is my favorite above all other writers. He was a wonderful man and has left us some wonderful literature. I consider the Motion Picture Magazine a great thing, both for the public and for the player. It brings them in closer touch with each other, shows the player what the public wants and likes, and then helps the public to know the player. All parts of it are interesting, but I think the Answer Man is about the best writer and has about the most interesting department. Yes, I have written scenarios. About forty of them, I think; both comedies and dramas.” All this time Mrs. Prior was sitting opposite in a huge leather chair in the handsome reception-room of the Seminole Hotel, listening with wide, brown eyes and offering wise and witty comments. Mr. Prior disapproved of the “Is life worth living?” question, and Mrs. Prior sat up in her chair.
“Why, Herbert!” she cried reprovingly, “I think that’s a perfectly beautiful question? Don’t you find anything worth living about life?”
“Why, certainly,” returned Mr. Prior; “I enjoy three meals a day and everything that goes with it, if that’s what you mean. My highest ambition? To have enough money to retire and yet to beat the income tax,” promptly.
“The Government will get you yet, Herbert,” chuckled his wife.
“Are Motion Pictures destined to outshine the stage? Never!” returned Mr. Prior, earnestly. “As to the improvements for Motion Pictures, they are innumerable, but I want to say one thing: The surest way to ruin the Motion Picture business is by the continued production of the multiple-reel pictures. People who are downtown and have perhaps an hour or less to spare will step into a Motion Picture theater. Perhaps a three- or four-reel picture is being shown. They haven’t time to wait for the first of it, should they perhaps come in during the middle of it. They leave without knowing what it was all about. And then, too, perhaps the picture is poor. If it is only one reel, we say: ‘Oh, well, that will soon be over and perhaps the next one will be good.’ But a three- or four-reel picture — that is bad. It seems to me that five hundred feet for a comedy and one thousand for a drama is long enough. Sometimes a three-reel picture only contains enough real plot to make a corking one-reel, and it is padded until the real plot is smothered.”
“Well, Herbert,” interrupted his wife, “you’ve been dying to say that, haven’t you?” So we may infer that Mr. Prior’s prejudice is deep-seated. He admitted, however, that in the future there would probably be a place for the feature as well as for the shorter plays, but maintained that the feature idea was at present being overdone.
“I spend my evenings in different ways,” said he, in response to my question. “Naturally, I don’t like to do the same thing all the time, I read, go to theaters, Motion Pictures, all that sort of thing — and beat my wife,” at which “my wife” chuckled gleefully. “The greatest living statesman? Myself, of course. Politically, I ‘m for any good man. I think Woodrow Wilson is a fine man. I consider him the right man in the right place and at the right time. My religion? I’m Protestant — Episcopalian born and bred. I believe in all Nature as a religion.”
He is six feet and a half inch in height and weighs one hundred and ninety pounds. He does not approve of the censorship of films, for he thinks it is the right of each studio manager to choose what shall and shall not be produced, and he is quite sure that very rarely would the various companies overstep the bounds of decency and propriety.
“The public, after all, is the real censor, the court of last resort,” Mr. Prior added, “and while I do not object to the National Board of Censors. I feel that even that distinguished body would die a natural death if they were to adopt a policy that was not in accord with the demands of the public. There is no excuse for official censorship.”
I left, after the pleasantest evening I can recall, with the silvery voice of Mrs. Prior urging me to call again.
Pearl Gaddis.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, April 1915