For instance, scenes showing kidnapping are forbidden
by the police of many cities, and the introduction of that form of
crime into a film story is frowned upon by the National Board. The
point is that scenes of crime and violence are not absolutely barred,
nor are offenses against the moral law, but where permitted these must
not be presented offensively, and they must be _essential_ to the
story, rather than the _purpose_ of the play. This is a difficult
point which nothing but common sense and experience can perfectly
interpret.

As an example, a story written about a murder or a robbery will not be
passed, but such an incident may be allowed in a story in which it is
not the leading feature. In any event, the incident must serve to
point a moral and not serve as a spectacle.

Another thing to remember is that--aside from the moving-pictures
exhibited in the various "regular" theatres--dozens of incidents
which are shown on the regular stage without being questioned in any
way, would never be allowed on the screen. This is partly due to the
fact that such a large percentage of the attendants of moving-picture
theatres are children and undiscriminating adults. The writer of
fiction entering the field of photoplay writing will do well to bear
this further fact in mind: the very incident that might be the means
of selling a story to a certain magazine might be the cause of a
rejection if introduced into a moving-picture plot. The photoplay has
standards all its own.

"One type of the unpleasant drama," says a writer in the _Photoplay
Magazine_, "is the kind showing scenes of drinking and wild
debauchery, where some character becomes drunk and slinks home to his
sickly wife, beats her, and then, finally, after reaching the last
stages of becoming a sot, suddenly braces up and reforms." The same
writer also remarks: "The only time that murder should be shown, _and
that very delicately_, is either in a detective drama or else in good
tragedy, where the removal of some character is essential to the
plot." "Every one of Shakespeare's tragedies tells of crime," says an
editorial in _The Moving Picture World_, "but does not exploit it, and
never revels in the harrowing details to produce a thrill."

It is not to be denied that careless and unthinking directors are
responsible for a good deal of what is objectionable on the screen. At
the same time--and this is especially true of comedy subjects--the
director is merely, as