lays with unusual scenic setting where the beauties of the tropics or
of the mountains, of the ocean or of the jungle, are brought into living
contact with the spectator. Biblical dramas with pictures of real
Palestine, classical plots with real Greece or Rome as a background,
have stirred millions all over the globe. Yet the majority of authors
claim that the true field for the photoplay is the practical life which
surrounds us, as no artistic means of literature or drama can render the
details of life with such convincing sincerity and with such realistic
power. These are the slums, not seen through the spectacles of a
litterateur or the fancy of an outsider but in their whole abhorrent
nakedness. These are the dark corners of the metropolis where crime is
hidden and where vice is growing rankly.

They all are right; and at the same time they all are wrong when they
praise one at the expense of another. Realistic and idealistic,
practical and romantic, historical and modern topics are fit material
for the art of the photoplay. Its world is as unlimited as that of
literature, and the same is true of the style of treatment. The
humorous, if it is true humor, the tragic, if it is true tragedy, the
gay and the solemn, the merry and the pathetic, the half-reel and the
five-reel play, all can fulfill the demands of the new art.

CHAPTER XI

THE FUNCTION OF THE PHOTOPLAY

Enthusiasts claim that in the United States ten million people daily are
attending picture houses. Sceptics believe that "only" two or three
millions form the daily attendance. But in any case "the movies" have
become the most popular entertainment of the country, nay, of the world,
and their influence is one of the strongest social energies of our time.
Signs indicate that this popularity and this influence are increasing
from day to day. What are the causes, and what are the effects of this
movement which was undreamed of only a short time ago?

The economists are certainly right when they see the chief reason for
this crowding of picture houses in the low price of admission. For five
or ten cents long hours of thrilling entertainment in the best seats of
the house: this is the magnet which must be more powerful than any
theater or concert. Yet the rush to the moving pictures is steadily
increasing, while the prices climb up. The dime became a quarter, and in
the last two seasons ambitious plays were given before audiences who
paid the full t