a rule, carrying out the author's
_suggestions_, if not his actual directions. The best way is not to
give the director the opportunity to adopt objectionable
features--leave even questionable incidents out of your photoplay.

For example, the elopement is legitimate moving-picture material,
provided it is not introduced in such a way as to instill mischief
into the minds of young men and women. At least one picture was
produced a year or so ago which showed two high-school girls eloping
with a couple of young rakes who in another part of the photoplay
"registered" that they were by no means the kind of young men who
would ever have received the sanction of the girls' parents to marry
their daughters. Such a picture may have been conceived innocently
enough, but as a subject that would be shown to thousands of young
people all over the world it was decidedly deserving of censure. And
yet some of the very incidents that served to make the picture doubly
objectionable in the eyes of grown people, especially fathers and
mothers, might have been the result of the director's unthinkingly
adding certain scenes that served to portray young men in a bad
light--incidents which were not even thought of by the author when he
planned his picture of a youthful escapade. We sympathize with the
lovers when Dorothy's father refuses to let her marry Jack, to whom
she is plainly devoted. But when, in another scene, we see Jack
wasting his time in pool-rooms or lounging in a saloon, we give the
father credit for being a good judge of character, and not simply a
harsh and stubborn guardian.

Writers should remember that even though a film is passed by the
National Board, if it gets into a city in which the local censorship
board objects to one or two scenes, these scenes will be literally cut
out for exhibition in that city. Afterwards, they may be put back; but
if this happens in several communities, the film is likely to be
shortened by many feet, since in cutting and re-splicing each cut
means the loss of at least two "frames," or pictures, and even more if
the operator does not know his business--not to mention the loss of
the actual scenes cut out. Suppose that two or three of a writer's
"strong" scenes are cut when his picture is shown--in Detroit, for
instance--the result on the screen is more likely to become an
illogical and incoherent jumble than the powerful "drama with a punch"
he had intended it to be. But "Censorship reali