this future art. And a well-known American
painter was talking to me of a midnight scolding Charlie Chaplin gave to
some Los Angeles producer, in a little restaurant, preaching the really
beautiful film, and denouncing commerce like a member of Coxey's
illustrious army. And I have heard rumors from all sides that Charlie
Chaplin has a soul. He is the comedian most often proclaimed an artist by
the fastidious, and most often forgiven for his slapstick. He is praised
for a kind of O. Henry double meaning to his antics. He is said to be
like one of O. Henry's misquotations of the classics. He looks to me like
that artist Edgar Poe, if Poe had been obliged to make millions laugh. I
do not like Chaplin's work, but I have to admit the good intentions and
the enviable laurels. Let all the Art Museums invite him in, as tentative
adviser, if not a chastened performer. Let him be given as good a chance
as Mae Marsh was given by Eggers in Fullerton Hall. Only let him come in
person, not in film, till we hear him speak, and consider his
suggestions, and make sure he has eaten of the mystic Amaranth Apples of
Johnny Appleseed.

CHAPTER II

THE PHOTOPLAY OF ACTION

Let us assume, friendly reader, that it is eight o'clock in the evening
when you make yourself comfortable in your den, to peruse this chapter. I
want to tell you about the Action Film, the simplest, the type most often
seen. In the mind of the habitue of the cheaper theatre it is the only
sort in existence. It dominates the slums, is announced there by red and
green posters of the melodrama sort, and retains its original elements,
more deftly handled, in places more expensive. The story goes at the
highest possible speed to be still credible. When it is a poor thing,
which is the case too often, the St. Vitus dance destroys the
pleasure-value. The rhythmic quality of the picture-motions is twitched
to death. In the bad photoplay even the picture of an express train more
than exaggerates itself. Yet when the photoplay chooses to behave it can
reproduce a race far more joyously than the stage. On that fact is based
the opportunity of this form. Many Action Pictures are indoors, but the
abstract theory of the Action Film is based on the out-of-door chase. You
remember the first one you saw where the policeman pursues the comical
tramp over hill and dale and across the town lots. You remember that
other where the cowboy follows the horse thief across the desert, spi