hese things to the climax, as
in a policeman picture it whirls past blossoming gardens and front lawns
till the tramp is arrested. The difficulties are commented on by the
people in the audience as rah-rah boys on the side lines comment on
hurdles cleared or knocked over by the men running in college field-day.
The sudden cut-backs into side branches of the story are but hurdles
also, not plot complications in the stage sense. This is as it should be.
The pursuit progresses without St. Vitus dance or hysteria to the end of
the film. There the spoilers are discomfited, the gold mine is
recaptured, the incidental girls are won, in a flash, by the rightful
owners.

These shows work like the express elevators in the Metropolitan Tower.
The ideal is the maximum of speed in descending or ascending, not to be
jolted into insensibility. There are two girl parts as beautifully
thought out as the parts of ladies in love can be expected to be in
Action Films. But in the end the love is not much more romantic in the
eye of the spectator than it would be to behold a man on a motorcycle
with the girl of his choice riding on the same machine behind him. And
the highest type of Action Picture romance is not attained by having
Juliet triumph over the motorcycle handicap. It is not achieved by
weaving in a Sherlock Holmes plot. Action Picture romance comes when each
hurdle is a tableau, when there is indeed an art-gallery-beauty in each
one of these swift glimpses: when it is a race, but with a proper and
golden-linked grace from action to action, and the goal is the most
beautiful glimpse in the whole reel.

In the Action Picture there is no adequate means for the development of
any full grown personal passion. The distinguished character-study that
makes genuine the personal emotions in the legitimate drama, has no
chance. People are but types, swiftly moved chessmen. More elaborate
discourse on this subject may be found in chapter twelve on the
differences between the films and the stage. But here, briefly: the
Action Pictures are falsely advertised as having heart-interest, or
abounding in tragedy. But though the actors glower and wrestle and even
if they are the most skilful lambasters in the profession, the audience
gossips and chews gum.

Why does the audience keep coming to this type of photoplay if neither
lust, love, hate, nor hunger is adequately conveyed? Simply because such
spectacles gratify the incipient or rampant spee