Judge — March 19, 1921 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GTRATYURD +630 Drawn by F. P. Staats COMME, Hane by GS. Dexmse, Cornell, °22 A World’s Record Price-Vault By Myron M. Stearns (“Lexso”) R. METRO, the well-known motion picture producer is reported to have paid, the other day, a small matter of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000 count ‘em, $250,000) for the film rights to a play named ** Turn to the Right.” ” This is regarded as a highly satisfactory deal. Mr. Metro when interviewed, remarked that the play was unquestionably worth a great deal of money. His only wish, he said, was that the authors had more of the same that he could buy at the same price. The authors, named as Messrs. Smith and Hazzard, refused to be quoted, but smiled enigmatically. The impression is gaining ground that they also wish they had more of the sime, to sell at the same price. Other prices have previously been paid for motion picture rights—but never before has the tide swept quite so far up the beach. Mr. David W. Griffith is said to have paid one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars ($175,000) for “Way Down East’’—only seventy-five thousand less, to be sure, but even a paltry seventy-five means a new record. Then we drop still lower, to only one hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($130,000) reported paid by the same Mr. Griffith for the m. p. rights to “*Romance’’—before the same was done into a film by various and sundry members of his organization. Then the mind turns backward, and lists are made up. Famous Ilayers, they say, bought ‘ Experience” for $150.000 cheap at the price, if they really got it. Mr. Goldwyn is recorded as having paid some few thousand above the hundred mark for ‘A Tailor- Made Man.” Many a woman has paid more than that. ‘The Wanderer” is reported to have nicked the same cor poration for an almost equal amount even money, at figures (not counting Woolly West any kinds of cents). Then we drop twenty THE KID* Pictures Worth Seeing: THE WILD GOOSE Nek for $76 Tangled domestic drammer, with chee for $150,000. near-philosophy O'MALLEY OF THE MOUNTED Wm. S. Hart of the Wild and Of course, what Mr. Metro and the other gentlemen were buying wasn’t merely story material for pictures. » indeed! Each one of ‘em had storics offered to him in wheel-barrow lots for less than a quarter of a_ million Lots less; one thousand ars, say, or a hundred; or twenty-five, or five. What the gentlemen were really buying was judgment—the judgment of Gen. Public that these par ticular stories were particularly worth watching. A quarter of a million, or thereabouts, more worth watching than other stories of which less had been heard, Mr. Metro, for instance, ntly believes that the General will pay a quarter of a more to see “Turn to the Right” than, say, ‘‘ Lorna Doon,” or perhaps * Vanity Fair,” which could probably be had for the taking. That brings us to an interesting point, a point that is, to me at least, both baffling and intricate. Can these quarter-of-a-million stories be transferred to the screen, intact, as automobiles are shipped from Detroit to the ‘acific Coast? I doubt it. The R. A. Walsh picture, for instance The Deep Purple.” It was merely another movie; nothing more. **The Virginian” on the screen was no longer ‘The Virginian,” but Douglas Fairbanks. Like a valuable mosaic bought for shipment to foreign parts, it had come apart, and been (yes, of necessity) reconstructed in a new image. “Daddy Long Legs’ was neither above, nor below, the neral run of Mary Pickford’s better on the screen no ge pictures. *‘ Romance” longer looked the equal, as a story, of a If a play could be transferred to the screen intact,—why, that would be some- thing different again. But it can’t It has to be taken apart, and the wheels five thousand, and come to “The Sign | pyserows “Wrlersee adjusted in new positions, before it will on the Door,” which one Mr. Schenck U pemotional spéctecterdrema tick in the new medium. And the men coo. “The W so they say, bought for $7 SCRAMBLED WIVES who do the work—who have the retelling ing on the Wall” might well be worth even Rather long farce with some | of the story in their own hands—deter- more to many a stout-hearted producer and | gugieo TREASURE mine what the eventual popularity of that strong. Douglas Fairbanks concluded “The Marion Davies experiences with pirates * THE OLD SWIMMING-HOLE Purple” seemed a bargain to R. A. Walsh Without titles. at $45,000. Mary Pickford congratulated WAY DOWN EAST J-ring melodrama $1 THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS Tourneur Indian story. Virginian” worth $53,000. ‘The Deep herself heartily on being able to secure film rights to “Daddy Long Legs” for only $40,000. And so on, coming gradually THE WHISTLE down to earth. Gentlemen of the Jury: Do A father t wu judge this man sane? Personally, aside from the pl secing writers get theirs, I hate to g even $200,000 for a story, unless it’s ex ceptionally good above Fine but rather draggy drama of of turning out Kentucky. *Exceptionally good. on the screen, will be. Griffith did not need to pay $175,000 for a story worthy of his genius; quite the reverse—unless he needed the stimulus of a coo handicap at the start of his picture, he could have taken a story f which he paid perhaps four hundred dollars? recalls former story, revenge and done quite as well with it BLACK BEAUTY Horses watch a melodrama. asure of THE _KENTUCKIANS And on the other hand, unless the men who handle “*Turn to the Right” are capable 1 quarter-of-a-million-dollar product anyway, the $250,000 is a pretty expensive outlay — > comicbooks.com