h a whole van of
furniture. Now the mechanical or non-human object, beginning with the
engine in the second chapter, is apt to be the hero in most any sort of
photoplay while the producer remains utterly unconscious of the fact. Why
not face this idiosyncrasy of the camera and make the non-human object
the hero indeed? Not by filling the story with ropes, buckets,
fire-brands, and sticks, but by having these four unique. Make the fire
the loveliest of torches, the water the most graceful of springs. Let the
rope be the humorist. Let the stick be the outstanding hero, the
D'Artagnan of the group, full of queer gestures and hoppings about. Let
him be both polite and obdurate. Finally let him beat the dog most
heroically.

* * * * *

Then, after the purely trick-picture is disciplined till it has fewer
tricks, and those more human and yet more fanciful, the producer can move
on up into the higher realms of the fairy-tale, carrying with him this
riper workmanship.

Mabel Taliaferro's Cinderella, seen long ago, is the best film
fairy-tale the present writer remembers. It has more of the fireside
wonder-spirit and Hallowe'en-witch-spirit than the Cinderella of Mary
Pickford.

There is a Japanese actor, Sessue Hayakawa, who takes the leading part
with Blanche Sweet in The Clew, and is the hero in the film version of
The Typhoon. He looks like all the actors in the old Japanese prints. He
has a general dramatic equipment which enables him to force through the
stubborn screen such stagy plays as these, that are more worth while in
the speaking theatre. But he has that atmosphere of pictorial romance
which would make him a valuable man for the retelling of the old Japanese
legends of Kwannon and other tales that are rich, unused moving picture
material, tales such as have been hinted at in the gleaming English of
Lafcadio Hearn. The Japanese genius is eminently pictorial. Rightly
viewed, every Japanese screen or bit of lacquer is from the Ancient Asia
Columbus set sail to find.

It would be a noble thing if American experts in the Japanese principles
of decoration, of the school of Arthur W. Dow, should tell stories of old
Japan with the assistance of such men as Sessue Hayakawa. Such things go
further than peace treaties. Dooming a talent like that of Mr. Hayakawa
to the task of interpreting the Japanese spy does not conduce to accord
with Japan, however the technique may move us to admiratio