gain visible on the screen in the hands of the rightful owner.

In brief, the actors hurry through what would be tremendous passions on
the stage to recover something that can be really photographed. For
instance, there came to our town long ago a film of a fight between
Federals and Confederates, with the loss of many lives, all for the
recapture of a steam-engine that took on more personality in the end than
private or general on either side, alive or dead. It was based on the
history of the very engine photographed, or else that engine was given in
replica. The old locomotive was full of character and humor amidst the
tragedy, leaking steam at every orifice. The original is in one of the
Southern Civil War museums. This engine in its capacity as a principal
actor is going to be referred to more than several times in this work.

The highest type of Action Picture gives us neither the quality of
Macbeth or Henry Fifth, the Comedy of Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew.
It gives us rather that fine and special quality that was in the
ink-bottle of Robert Louis Stevenson, that brought about the limitations
and the nobility of the stories of Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and the
New Arabian Nights.

This discussion will be resumed on another plane in the eighth chapter:
Sculpture-in-Motion.

Having read thus far, why not close the book and go round the corner to a
photoplay theatre? Give the preference to the cheapest one. _The Action
Picture will be inevitable. Since this chapter was written, Charlie
Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks have given complete department store
examples of the method, especially Chaplin in the brilliantly constructed
Shoulder Arms, and Fairbanks in his one great piece of acting, in The
Three Musketeers_.

CHAPTER III

THE INTIMATE PHOTOPLAY

Let us take for our platform this sentence: THE MOTION PICTURE ART IS A
GREAT HIGH ART, NOT A PROCESS OF COMMERCIAL MANUFACTURE. The people I
hope to convince of this are (1) The great art museums of America,
including the people who support them in any way, the people who give the
current exhibitions there or attend them, the art school students in the
corridors below coming on in the same field; (2) the departments of
English, of the history of the drama, of the practice of the drama, and
the history and practice of "art" in that amazingly long list of our
colleges and universities--to be found, for instance, in the World
Almanac; (3) the critical