en would call "a good cry." "It is a
great thing to be able to lift the spectators out of their seats with
a big, gripping melodrama," remarks Mr. Sargent, "but it is a far more
creditable thing to send them home with a tear in their eyes while a
smile hovers about their lips."

_4. The Use of Deadly Weapons_

It is understood, of course, that the use of guns, knives, and other
weapons is seldom objected to by the censors when they are employed in
a historical picture, or one that shows pioneer life. The trouble is
that some young writers, knowing that they are granted more license in
this direction when doing "Western stuff," make the mistake of abusing
this liberty. Mr. R.R. Nehls, of the American Film Company, says: "The
most noticeable fault with manuscripts dealing with Western life is
the natural inclination to run too much to gun play, stagecoach
robberies, etc. Please remember that we do not wish to distort
conditions in the great West--rather we seek to portray it as it
really exists today."

Mr. Nehls, it will be noticed, says "the great West ... as it really
exists today." It should be apparent to any writer that in turning out
stories of the present-day West there is even less excuse for
promiscuous gun-play than in a story, say, of California in the days
of the Forty-Niners. But Indian massacres, soldier warfare, Indian and
cowboy fights, usually come under the head of "historical" subjects
and are therefore permissible.

_5. Plays Offensive to Classes of Patrons_

It seems scarcely possible that any intelligent photoplay writer would
introduce into one of his stories an incident calculated to offend the
religious or political faith of any patron, and yet in the past
different pictures of this kind have been the cause of more than one
unthinking moving-picture theatre manager's losing some of his best
patrons. People as a rule have no objection to being preached to in a
mild and entertaining way when they go to a picture show, but they do
object to having their feelings hurt. A man who is over-fond of drink
may sit through a play on the screen in which the evil results of
intoxication are depicted and come away filled with a determination to
reform his way of living, but the man who after paying his admission
is asked to sit through five or more reels of film almost every foot
of which is a shock to his religious or his political sensibilities
will come away filled only with the determination to a