was not, at any point,
"padded." It might have been two reels longer--and probably would have
been three reels longer had it been produced a little later--without
giving too much of the wealth of picture-material contained in the
complete story of Edmond Dantes. We mention these two pictures solely
for the purpose of drawing a comparison between the kind of stories
put out in 1908 and those that were beginning to appear about six
years later. But "padding"--the filling up of the picture with
non-essential and often very extraneous details or pictorial
effects--has steadily increased with the yearly increase of the
so-called "features," and has unquestionably been responsible for the
falling-off in interest among countless former photoplay "fans." They
have gone into the theatres expecting to see a "big star" in a "big
story"--and have come out after having seen only the "big star." Just
who is responsible for this very unsatisfactory state of affairs it is
sometimes hard to say. Occasionally the story, if written by an
"outside" writer, is lacking in plot-material in the first place, and,
having been purchased on account of its having, none the less, several
good situations, is allowed to go into production without being built
up in plot (which is quite another thing from "padding") by one of the
studio staff-writers. Or it may be that, the logical length of that
particular story being five thousand feet, the director lets it run on
for another reel, or even two, in order to be able to work in several
hundred feet of quite unnecessary close-ups of the female "lead," who
chances to be his wife, and whose popularity he is naturally anxious
to maintain. This actually has happened; but even a conscientious and
otherwise artistic director may occasionally "stretch a picture out a
little" in order to take advantage of the beautiful natural locations
of the part of the country in which he is working.

All these things being so, it becomes more and more the duty of the
author to see that his story _has_ plenty of _story_. Give the
director a strong, well-developed plot and he will have far less
opportunity and much less excuse for introducing anything that will be
in the nature of padding. Moreover, so evident is it that photoplay
audiences have come to recognize the padded story when one is shown,
that the producers have started to call a halt on this foolish
practice, and as a result stories accepted from the outside are
clo