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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 95 -- November 2000 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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The Motion Picture Directors' Association
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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The Motion Picture Directors' Association
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Between 1915 and 1922, William Desmond Taylor was a prominent member of the
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Motion Picture Directors' Association. He was instrumental in its founding
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and he served as its president for three years. The following are a few
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contemporary items about that organization, including a partial transcript of
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one of their meetings, over which Taylor presided. Some other items on the
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Motion Picture Directors' Association can be found in TAYLOROLOGY 20 and 75.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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January 27, 1917
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MOTOGRAPHY
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The Directors' Association of Los Angeles, which numbers among its
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members most of the big directors in the country, was formed by four men who
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just talked it over one evening and brought it into being--William D. Taylor,
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now with the Fox company, Alan Curtis, the Universal comedy director, Joseph
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De Grasse of the Universal and Murdock MacQuarrie, actor and director.
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The concern is now a national affair and nearly every director of note
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is affiliated. It is doing a lot of quiet good and is self-protective rather
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than aggressive. Taylor, Curtis, De Grasse and MacQuarrie have every reason
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to be proud of their first little talk.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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June 1, 1918
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Charles Giblyn
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EXHIBITOR'S TRADE REVIEW
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History of Motion Picture Directors' Association
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The Motion Picture Directors' Association was founded in February, 1915,
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in Hollywood, Cal.
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That this beautiful foothill annexation to Los Angeles should have been
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the birthplace of our organization was quite in the order of things, for this
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delightful little city has won its spurs as the center of the motion picture
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industry.
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The need of co-ordination among directors who at that time were
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producing pictures made itself felt in many ways. So many directors were
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totally unknown to each other; the idea of fellowship was extinct; the
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unwritten "black list" influence of the "stormy days" of the industry still
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made itself felt in covert bigotry and selfishness.
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It was recognized as "part of the game" for directors of rival companies
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to place as many obstacles as possible in the way of others. The old
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"locations" often were battlefields, and the alleged "strategy" resorted to
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was as expensive as it was asinine.
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One firm went so far as to spread broadcast the statement that it had
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the exclusive right to photograph all the Spanish Missions in the State of
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California. But we found, upon investigation, that the "padres" in the
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various missions were always willing to extend the privilege of "take de
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movee" for a liberal contribution to the poor box. And the same "padres"
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were not at all slow in getting wise to the "easy money," and the amount
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advanced each time the "location" was required.
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Another company, whose studio faced the ocean, repeatedly "bluffed"
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competing directors into believing that they had no right to take pictures of
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a rocky formation that had, by the hand of the Creator, been placed
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advantageously for pictures, and which was part of the shore acres forming
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part of the United States Government land! But incidents of this character
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are too numerous to dwell upon, having since passed into the discard.
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Envy and malice caused a wave of slander to bring the entire motion
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picture population of the West Coast to a sudden awakening a few years ago.
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The studios were referred to as "camps," "cesspools," "habitats of criminals
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and vagrants," etc. It was charged that the reputation of a woman or girl
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was at stake if she accepted employment there. That this pernicious outbreak
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was the result of pure fabrication and a desire for revenge was a matter that
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the district attorney quickly discovered after setting an investigation on
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foot.
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After weeks of inquiry, it was found that a minister had opened the
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attack. Briefly stated, he was compelled to admit that a girl had a friend
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who knew a girl who "wanted to get into the movies." And another girl told
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her that it was "a terrible place." The minister's informant was forced to
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admit that she had never seen the inside of a motion picture studio. The
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incident caused a serious stir for some time, but according as the FACTS
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became public, the clamor died away. However, as always is the case, the
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scar remained.
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I find myself forced to allude to this near-scandal for a very necessary
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purpose. While the District Attorney still was deep in his investigation, in
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one studio, where twenty or more directors were engaged, an indignation
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meeting was held. Then and there it was decided that an organization of
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directors was necessary. We alone in one studio could not take it upon
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ourselves to fight these calumnies for the entire directors' colony.
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A meeting was called, and the exact hour arranged, and everything came off
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precisely as we planned, except--
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We had forgotten to talk the matter over with the weather man. The
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director in whose home we were to meet lived snugly on a promontory up to
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which a single road led, and in the deluge of rain that came down the road
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was of little use to automobiles or pedestrians. It was just one of those
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southern California rains. It was a "bird." My automobile started on the
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1,500-foot climb in fair shape, and was behaving well in the dark, when a
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chap coming down fumbled his car about in a mussy fashion, and in passing me
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ripped into my right fender by way of salutation and was off. Far down below
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we got a splendid view of the lights of Hollywood. A few feet off the path
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and my car would have toppled down among those lights. Yea--a fine night!
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Out of twenty odd directors, NINE took a chance with that southern
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California rain. Those nine men formed the M. P. D. A. then and there.
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A week later thirty directors attended the meeting. And thus it grew. After
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several meetings, in the following May, we became an incorporated body. One
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year and a half later, in November, 1917, the motion picture directors in the
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vicinity of New York City were called to a meeting held in the Hotel Astor,
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for the purpose of forming a branch of the M. P. D. A. When its aims were
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laid before these directors the corner-stone of the New York lodge was placed
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in position. They moved with greater rapidity than had the original body,
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for the reason they had fewer obstacles to overcome. After a second
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preliminary meeting a lodge of motion picture directors was opened in
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Carnegie Hall, where several members were initiated. The charter came along
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in good time, and today we have our own building in West 55th Street, near
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Broadway.
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The M. P. D. A. is neither a labor union nor essentially a social club.
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It is a fraternal order. Its ritual makes it impossible for the idea of
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coercion, or other methods employed by labor unions, to enter into a question
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when its members are concerned.
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That stormy night in 1915 was a memorable night for the M. P. D. A.
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The roster today shows more than 150 members. When one considers the number
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of directors in the industry, this showing is truly commendable. The
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association's board of censors see to it that an applicant for membership
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qualifies after rigid tests, and these rapidly are becoming more difficult.
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The field of desirables soon will be exhausted.
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Death has claimed three of our members thus far this year, and with the
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world war brought to our very door, several others now are in the service of
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the Government.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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October 16, 1915
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MOVING PICTURE WORLD
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The first monthly dinner and dance of the Motion Picture Directors'
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Association of America, Lodge No. 1, was held one night this week at a local
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hotel. The lodge numbers about sixty directors. Among the directors present
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were Otis Turner, Robert Leonard, William Robert Daly, Del Henderson and Al
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Christie. The list of stars included Miss Helen Ware, Ella Hall, Fritzie
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Brunette and Jack Kerrigan. Otheman Stevens, dramatic critic of the
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Examiner, in an address, congratulated the directors upon their enterprise.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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December 18, 1915
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J. C. Jessen
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MOTION PICTURE NEWS
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The most brilliant social function in the history of the Los Angeles
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film producing colony, was the first annual ball and grand buffet given by
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the Motion Picture Director's Association, Thanksgiving evening, at the ball
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room of Hotel Alexandria, Los Angeles.
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The attendance numbered more than three hundred and fifty, and included
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many of the principal people engaged in the film industry here. The committee
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on arrangements consisted of Allen Curtis, chairman, Frank Beal, William
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Robert Daly, Joseph DeGrasse, and M. J. MacQuarrie; the reception committee,
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Otis Turner, chairman, Charles Giblyn, Robert Leonard, Walter Edwards,
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Charles Swickard, Reginald Barker, Al. E. Christie, Phillips Smalley, Travers
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Vale, William D. Taylor and Hobart Bosworth, and the floor committee, Dell
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Henderson, chairman, Eddie Dillon, Jay Hunt, Frank Lloyd, Francis Powers,
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Charles K. French, Roy Clements, Raymond B. West, Lloyd B. Carleton, Henry
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Otto, Leon D. Kent, and J. P. McGowan.
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The general supervision of taking care of the big attendance was in
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charge of H. L. Massie. Music was furnished by a big orchestra, and during
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the evening buffet service was continuous. The dances were all named from
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the brands produced on the West Coast, and the ball was representative of
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practically every studio in this producing center.
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Among those present were: D. W. Griffith, DeWolfe Hopper, Mack Sennett,
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Police Judge White and wife, Marshall Stedman, Mrs. Eddie Dillon, Max Asher,
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Stella Adams, Ruth Roland, Jack Pickford, Alan Hale, Lois Weber, Mr. and Mrs.
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Harry Mestayer, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Cody, Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Allen, Mr. and
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Mrs. Robert Daly, Mr. and Mrs. A. Heffron. H. L. Massie, Mr. and Mrs. Willie
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Collier, Bessie Eyton, Mr. and Mrs. Charles French, Charles Pike, Mr. and
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Mrs. Allan Curtis, and Mr. and Mrs. Jack Cudahy.
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The net proceeds from the ball will be used to endow one or more beds in
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a local hospital to be used exclusively for motion picture people who are ill
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or injured.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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December 3, 1916
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
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The supper dance given by the motion picture directors on Thanksgiving
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night at the Alexandria ballroom was a brilliant success. Many well-known
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directors and picture stars were present, among others Directors Otis Turner,
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L. Scott, Lois Weber, William Taylor, Frank Lloyd, Douglas Gerrard, Joseph de
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Grasse, Eddie Dillon, Chester Withey, Robert Leonard and Edward Le Saint.
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Some of the stars present were Bessie Barriscale, Mae Murray, Kathlyn
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Williams, Stella Razeto, Mary Miles Minter, Fritzi Brunette, Myrtle Gonzales,
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Maude George, Ruth Stonehouse, Ella Hall, Gladys Brockwell, Gladys Hanson,
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Herbert Rawlinson, Neal Burns, Hobart Henley.
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Mrs. Eddie Dillon presided as hostess.
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Other guests beside those mentioned were J. R. Quirk, manager of the
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Photoplay Magazine of Chicago, Mabel Condon, Bessie Beatty, R. H. Jesson and
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Bennie Ziedman.
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Eva Tanguay floated in late in the evening, clad fascinatingly in a rose-
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colored evening gown, and proceeded to add her own brand of brilliancy to an
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already scintillating occasion.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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December 23, 1916
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MOVING PICTURE WORLD
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The second annual ball and grand buffet of the Motion Picture Directors'
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Association, at the Alexandria, Thanksgiving night, was perhaps the most
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elaborate event in the local film world in months. Directors and their wives
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from San Francisco and San Diego and intermediate points attended. In all
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there were approximately 250 persons at the exclusive affair.
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W. R. Daly, chairman of the Entertainment Committee, was assisted by
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Allen Curtis, Joseph DeGrasse, Roy Clements and W. D. Taylor. Otis Turner was
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chairman of the Reception Committee and R. B. West of the Floor Committee.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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March 24, 1917
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MOTOGRAPHY
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At the annual meeting of the Los Angeles Motion Picture Directors'
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Association, William D. Taylor of the Morosco company was elected "director"
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[president]; Raymond B. West, "assistant director"; Murdock MacQuarrie,
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"technical director"; Charles Swickard, treasurer, and Roy Clements,
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secretary.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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March 24, 1917
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MOTION PICTURE NEWS
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What promises to be the most successful year in the history of the
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Motion Picture Producers' [sic] Association began Thursday evening of this
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week at the first monthly dinner of the organization, held at the private
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dining rooms of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The dinner was the first step
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toward carrying out the new plan adopted at a recent meeting of the
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organization, and at this the officers recently elected president for the
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first time, William D. Taylor, president, was toastmaster. In his
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introductory remarks he outlined the general policy of the association,
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pointing out that the erroneous impression had been gained by many that the
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association was formed for the purpose of boosting salaries. This he stated
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was not the case, as the directors had bound themselves together thinking
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association and discussion of methods of production would be beneficial to
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each and every member, and therefore to the industry as a whole.
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In closing his remarks he introduced Lois Weber, the only woman member
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of the association, who was the guest of honor at the dinner. Miss Weber's
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remarks were of a very happy nature and appreciation, for the many kindness
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shown her by members of the association. Miss Weber pointed out the need of
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a press committee for the association and outlined the work such a committee
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could accomplish for the association in working with the trade journals.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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May 6, 1917
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Edward V. Durling
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NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
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The Motion Picture Directors' Association were hosts to a party of 100
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at a dinner dance given at the Hotel Alexandria this week. Mayor Woodman was
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the guest of honor. Earl Rogers and Guy Price, dramatic editor of the Los
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Angeles Herald, delivered speeches. In addition to those guests a number of
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old soldiers from the Sawtelle Home were present, a tableau entitled "The
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Spirit of '76," and an excellent vaudeville entertainment did much to make
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the evening a most pleasant one.
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The officers of this association, which is the only really active motion
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picture association on the Coast besides the Static Club, are William D.
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Taylor, president; Roy Clements, secretary, and Charles Swickard, treasurer.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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November 30, 1917
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
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A brilliant affair was the buffet dance given in the Rose Room of the
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Alexandria last night by the Motion Picture Directors' Association. William
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D. Taylor, president, and William Robert Daly, one of the directors, was in
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charge. It was the association's third annual ball.
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Among those who took part were Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie
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Chaplin, W. S. Hart, Al Woods. R. A. Rolfe and Jesse Lasky.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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July 10, 1918
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LOS ANGELES HERALD
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A farewell banquet was tendered William D. Taylor, the well known
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director, by members of the Motion Picture Directors' association at the
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Athletic club.
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The dinner was in honor of Mr. Taylor's enlistment in the British army.
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In view of Mr. Taylor's departure, the association elected Frank Beal
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president. He will serve ex-officio until President Taylor's term expires.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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May 21, 1919
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LOS ANGELES HERALD
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The Motion Picture Directors' association will give a Homecoming Victory
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Dinner to members of the organization just returned from war tonight at the
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Athletic club.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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November 27, 1919
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Florence Lawrence
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LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
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Can you imagine swinging the girl on the corner to the flaring
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syncopated notes of the "jazz" orchestra?
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Can you picture such celebrities of the world as Bessie Barriscale, May
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Allison, and the rest in the "allemand left" or the Charley Chaplins and
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Douglas Fairbanks of the cinematic kingdom doing a grand right and left while
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the moaning saxophone, the rattles, and the whirring drums keep feet and
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pulses beating a lively tattoo to the busy music?
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Those are just a few of the remarkable dance features of the Motion
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Picture Directors' ball which was held last night with tremendous success at
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the Hotel Alexandria. Practically the entire hotel served as a "location"
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over which camera queens and megaphone emperors ruled with undisputed sway.
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Dancing in the ball room provided a panoramic whirl of the most noted
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figures in the celluloid world, and the novel and clever programs, devised,
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I believe, by Victor Schertzinger, will long be prized. They were in the form
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of a scenario, and showed the "fade in," the "flash-back," and when it came
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to "memories of old days," the entire crowd formed into groups for the old
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fashioned contra dances and tripped it merrily in quadrille and Virginia
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reel.
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Elaborate decorations of flowers and palms transformed the rooms into
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veritable bowers of beauty, and both the mezzanine floor where the dancing
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was in order and the Indian Grill where supper was served from 11 to 1 were
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constantly filled with the leaders of the film world.
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Two orchestras kept lilting music for the dancers, while the famous
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Hawaiian orchestra supplied the melodies in the supper room.
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Among the stars present were Mme. Alla Nazimova, Viola Dana, Clara
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Williams, Pauline Frederick, Wanda Hawley, Madeline Travers and Louise Glaum.
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The ball committees were under the supervision of Director Charles A.
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Giblyn and Past Directors Otis Turner and William Desmond Taylor.
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The committee of arrangements included Joseph de Grasse, chairman, and
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Reginald Barker, Wallace Worsley, Frank Lloyd, Walter Edwards, George
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Melford, Frank Beal, William Beaudine and Murdock McQuarrie.
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The reception committee were James Gordon, chairman; Norval MacGregor
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and Thomas Ricketts.
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Musical arrangements were under the care of Victor L. Schertzinger.
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The officers of the Motion Picture Directors' Association of America
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are: Charles Giblyn, director; Walter Edwards, assistant director; Frank
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Lloyd, technical director; James Gordon, secretary; Norval MacGregor,
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treasurer; Fred Kelsey, inner guard; Victor Herbert, outer guard, Board of
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trustees: Reginald Barker, chairman, and Joseph de Grasse, Thomas Ricketts,
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Ben F. Wilson, William Duncan, Frank Beal.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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September 1, 1920
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LOS ANGELES HERALD
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Members of the M. P. D. A. (Motion Picture Directors' Association) are
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going ahead speedily with their plans for a dance to be staged at the
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Alexandria on Sept. 16, the proceeds of which are to go to disabled soldiers
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now in Southern California.
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At a meeting last night the association appointed an entertainment
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committee and some of the prominent directors who will serve are: William D.
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Taylor, John Ince, Joe De Grasse, Frank Lloyd and Phillips Smalley.
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Each studio will contribute its quota to the program. Already Sennett's,
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Arbuckle's, Universal and Ince have agreed. Doraldina will do her famous
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Hawaiian dance, and, if this is any incentive to ticket buyers, this is said
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to be the season when grass is scarce. Wallie Reid will send his jazz
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orchestra and be on deck himself.
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The cause is a worthy one and the M. P. D. A. is to be warmly
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congratulated for interceding in behalf of the crippled veterans.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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September 14, 1920
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LOS ANGELES HERALD
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A ball for the benefit of disabled service men of Los Angeles is to be
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given in the Hotel Alexandria ball room Thursday night, Sept. 16, under the
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auspices of the Motion Picture Directors' association.
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Tickets to the fete were reported today to be selling at as high as $500
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each. Among the sales the following were announced today: William D. Taylor,
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$500; Frances Marion, two at $500 each; Mary Miles Minter, $500; Melodie
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Garbutt, $250; Agnes Ayres, $200, and Lila Lee, $200.
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The Los Angeles Elks' lodge has offered the services of its band for the
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evening. Four orchestras will be secured. Prominent film stars will take
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part in the entertainment program. Will Rogers, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn
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and company, Doraldina, Ben Turpin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and others have
|
|
announced their intention of being present.
|
|
A Red Cross poster autographed by hundreds of celebrities will be
|
|
auctioned off by Arbuckle and Tom Mix. It has been donated by Miss Gertrude
|
|
Gifford Hand.
|
|
War veterans from the Arrowhead government hospital, the Crocker street
|
|
hospital and the Sawtelle Soldiers' home will attend the function.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
December 1920
|
|
PHOTOPLAY
|
|
Ten thousand dollars was raised for the Disabled Soldiers of the Great
|
|
War at a ball given in September at the Alexandria in Los Angeles by the
|
|
Motion Picture Directors' Association. The affair was exceedingly gorgeous
|
|
in the appointment and entertainment and the 700 people who gathered
|
|
represented the elite of Los Angeles society as well as of the Hollywood film
|
|
colony. William D. Taylor, feature director for Realart, was in charge of
|
|
the entertainment, and presented some unique stunts. Doraldina did her
|
|
fascinating hula-hula; Tom Mix and twenty of his cowboys in full regalia
|
|
pulled a fake hold-up and separated the crowd from its spare cash; Larry
|
|
Semon paid $500 for a bat and ball autographed by Babe Ruth, and Ben Hampton
|
|
gave a like amount for a pair of crutches belonging to one of the wounded
|
|
heroes present--and then returned the crutches. Over in one corner was a
|
|
booth marked "For Men Only" at a dollar a man, which caused a good deal of
|
|
excitement, but rumor hath it that it was a blank.
|
|
Among those who graced the dance and the wonderful supper served at
|
|
midnight were Wanda Hawley, Jeanie MacPherson, Ruth Roland, Lois Wilson, Mr.
|
|
and Mrs. Conrad Nagel, Mary Miles Minter, who entertained a party of twelve,
|
|
Tony Moreno with a number of society people from Beverly Hills, Pauline
|
|
Frederick and her mother, Bebe Daniels, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Forman, Elliott
|
|
Dexter, Mr. and Mrs. Wally Reid, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Eyton (Kathlyn
|
|
Williams), Irene Rich, Margaret Loomis, King Vidor and his wife, Florence
|
|
Vidor, May Allison, Viola Dana, Colleen Moore, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Holt,
|
|
Priscilla Dean and Wheeler Oakman, Mr. and Mrs. Willard Louis, Mary Alden,
|
|
and William Duncan and Edith Johnson.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
December 16, 1920
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
A special meeting of the Motion Picture Directors' association is called
|
|
for tonight at the association headquarters in the Alexandria.
|
|
Action will be taken at this conference on the Blue Sunday law campaign
|
|
which proposes to close motion picture theaters on the seventh day of the
|
|
week.
|
|
The directors' association is heading the opposition.
|
|
Addresses will be made by Vice President Frank Lloyd, William D. Taylor
|
|
and others and a communication will be read from President Reginald Barker,
|
|
who is in Canada.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 12, 1921
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
For the third time William D. Taylor was elected director of the Motion
|
|
Picture Directors' Association when officers were elected for the sixth year
|
|
of its existence.
|
|
Reginald Barker is the retiring director.
|
|
The names of officers are patterned on the executive nomenclature of a
|
|
movie producing unit.
|
|
The other officers are: Henry King, assistant director; Wallace Worsley,
|
|
technical director; Roy Clements, scenarist, and Norval MacGregor, treasurer.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
February 13, 1921
|
|
LOS ANGELES TIMES
|
|
Plans for a $200,000 motion picture directors' lodge of modern Spanish
|
|
architecture, to be erected in Hollywood this year, became known when
|
|
articles of incorporation were filed in Sacramento by George Clark, attorney
|
|
for the Motion Picture Directors' Building Corporation.
|
|
The corporation grew out of the Motion Picture Directors' Association,
|
|
which is headed by Reginald Barker. The charter names the seven trustees of
|
|
the association as corporation directors. These are Reginald Barker, William
|
|
D. Taylor, Frank Lloyd, William Duncan, Ben Wilson, Joseph De Grasse and
|
|
Thomas Ricketts.
|
|
The structure will be of stone and cement and will stand four stories
|
|
high. The site is on Highland Avenue, and is owned by the directors.
|
|
An elegantly appointed cafe will be maintained on the ground floor.
|
|
Sixteen offices, a banquet hall and ballroom will occupy the second
|
|
floor, which opens on a roof garden. The third floor will contain lodge
|
|
rooms available to such motion picture organizations as the cinematographers,
|
|
the assistant directors, the art directors, the screen writers and the
|
|
advertising men. A fourth floor will be devoted to affairs of the motion
|
|
picture directors' lodge.
|
|
According to members of the board, the building will be financed by two
|
|
$100,000 bond issues, subscribed by members and bankers.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
August 8, 1921
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
When the Motion Picture Directors' association holds its August meeting
|
|
next Thursday, President-director William D. Taylor will be welcomed back to
|
|
the chair after three months' absence in the hospital here and in
|
|
convalescence abroad. Reginald Barker, last year's chieftain, has been
|
|
presiding over the Los Angeles lodge.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
August 10, 1921
|
|
LOS ANGELES HERALD
|
|
In Nashaipur Saturday night the A. S. C.'s entertained the M. P. D. A.'s
|
|
under the auspices of Omar Khayyam.
|
|
Translated into better Los Angelese, the American Society of
|
|
Cinematographers had as dinner guests the Motion Picture Directors'
|
|
association on the huge Persian street setting for the Rubaiyat being filmed
|
|
by Ferdinand Earle at the Hollywood studios.
|
|
Larry Semon, director-comedian, was toastmaster of the evening, William
|
|
D. Taylor, president-director of the M. P. D. A.; Reginald Barker and other
|
|
noted members of the Los Angeles lodge of megaphonographers were present.
|
|
So were H. F. Koenenkamp of the Semon comedies, Georges Benoit of the Earle
|
|
entertainments, Fred Jackman, the A. S. C. president, and other noted
|
|
cinematographers.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
January 24, 1922
|
|
HOLLYWOOD CITIZEN
|
|
Welcoming comparison of American motion pictures with foreign-made
|
|
productions, but expressing a desire to protect thousands of American workers
|
|
from what they believe to be retrenchment policies of domestic producers, the
|
|
Motion Picture Directors' Association, through its director-president,
|
|
William D. Taylor, has wired the Senate Finance Committee, urging that
|
|
imports of foreign films be either limited in quantity or taxed on value,
|
|
with volume and cost of film production in the United States, as a basis.
|
|
In the telegram sent by Mr. Taylor it is stated that motion pictures are
|
|
being produced abroad far cheaper than they can be made here, and that
|
|
producers are now establishing units for making affiliations abroad and are
|
|
drastically cutting down domestic production.
|
|
The eleven months ending May, 1921, compared with the previous
|
|
twelvemonth, he asserts, show an increase of 36 percent in imports of exposed
|
|
film negative and a decrease of 26 percent in exports.
|
|
"Members of this association would deplore exceedingly, a situation
|
|
wherein domestic producers would find it economically profitable to make
|
|
pictures in Europe at lessened production costs and bring them to the United
|
|
States for cutting, editing, and distribution ostensibly as American
|
|
products," declares the director-president of the directors' association.
|
|
There is now being prepared by the Senate finance committee a Fordney
|
|
tariff bill, which imposes 30 percent ad valorem duty on foreign-made motion
|
|
pictures imported into this country.
|
|
The present national association of producers and distributors, it is
|
|
said, is opposing the 30 percent tariff, fearing retaliation by foreign
|
|
nations. They argue, it is reported, then American manufacturers would have
|
|
to produce abroad, to enter the European market on a basis equal to their
|
|
foreign competitors. This, they allege, would throw American actors,
|
|
directors, workmen, artisans and laborers out of employment.
|
|
On the other hand, it is stated that the actors favor a 60 percent duty
|
|
based on American valuation, and through the Actors' Equity Association
|
|
charge the producers with desiring a low duty in order to take advantage of
|
|
cheap labor and materials in producing films abroad for use in this country.
|
|
The motion picture-directors are said to favor limiting imported
|
|
negative (exposed) to a designated percentage of domestic film production,
|
|
this percentage to be divided among foreign countries in proportion to their
|
|
respective volumes of film production.
|
|
As an alternative measure, they suggest a heavy protective tariff based
|
|
on production cost in the United States at the time of entry.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
[Thanks to Charles Higham for providing us with a copy of the following
|
|
transcript. Unfortunately, a few pages are missing.]
|
|
|
|
Proceedings of a meeting of The Motion Picture Directors' Association, held
|
|
at The Hollywood Assembly Tea Room, 7016 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles,
|
|
Calif., February 24, 1921.
|
|
* * *
|
|
|
|
MR. WILLIAM D. TAYLOR:
|
|
Brothers: it is a great pleasure to see so many of us here this evening.
|
|
We are all directors. Very few of us are going to be much more than
|
|
directors. We don't have an opportunity to get out and realize just what
|
|
this industry means. We are more or less getting into a rut and we have an
|
|
opportunity tonight to hear from a gentleman who has been thirteen years in
|
|
this business, associated with the General Film Company and at one time their
|
|
general manager in New York, the organizer of the Paramount program, a man
|
|
who, ten years ago, wrote an article outlining just exactly what has been
|
|
since that time, forecasting the multi-reel picture, the raise in prices from
|
|
five, ten, twenty, twenty-five, up to what they are today; a man with a
|
|
vision and a man who undoubtedly will help us a lot. I take great pleasure
|
|
in introducing Mr. W. W. Hodkinson. (Applause)
|
|
|
|
MR. HODKINSON:
|
|
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Motion Picture Industry:
|
|
Your president, Mr. Taylor, wrote a letter to me inviting me to come
|
|
here tonight to speak to you on the subject that is nearest to my heart, and
|
|
I think we are going to get on common ground very quickly, because I think
|
|
the thing that is nearest to my heart is nearest to your heart; it is the
|
|
possibilities and future of this great industry with which we are connected.
|
|
It is a very great industry--greater with all of its possibilities than
|
|
any of us can realize who are close up against our work seven days in the
|
|
week--and sometimes nights.
|
|
It is an industry, Gentlemen, that some day will govern the greatest
|
|
brains in the world, because it is that kind of an industry.
|
|
It is more than an industry. It is the most potent force that has ever
|
|
been let loose on this earth for the helping onward or the retarding of the
|
|
human race.
|
|
This industry will command the best brains of the world for this reason.
|
|
It offers the two rewards that brains have always demanded for themselves--
|
|
a medium for the expression of an idea and the financial return for the idea.
|
|
The wonderful part of the motion picture is that you don't have to
|
|
speculate as to the influence of your idea. We know that there are volumes
|
|
in the library but we don't know how many people are reading them. Nor do
|
|
you know how many people understand your language--but here we have a common
|
|
language. We have something where the very financial returns will let you
|
|
check up and find to what extent your ideas "got across."
|
|
We must either go along with the progress of the business or we must get
|
|
out of the way of the brains who will come in and go along with the progress
|
|
of the business, which will help its progress. I believe that the industry
|
|
is at this minute facing two conditions which will make it necessary for us
|
|
who wish to go along and make progress to take stock. I think that the
|
|
business needs co-ordination. It must be better co-ordinated. I think if it
|
|
is better co-ordinated most of the problems that confront it can be handled.
|
|
You know all of the discussion that is going on at the present time,
|
|
relative to sex movies, reformers, blue laws, censorship, etc. There is
|
|
nothing new about this agitation. It has been a rising wave. Any student of
|
|
conditions could see it coming for some time; and the industry must meet this
|
|
condition more intelligently than it has shown any disposition to at the time
|
|
I left New York, to keep from being engulfed.
|
|
I am not going into details in this matter except to say that in your
|
|
position you are in the most strategic position to help this situation--and
|
|
it is a real danger and it is a real menace.
|
|
I believe there must be some co-ordinated effort on the part of those
|
|
responsible for the putting of these things before the public in addition to
|
|
your effort. I will briefly tell you something that I noticed as I came
|
|
across the country which will show you why we are going to be hurt by this
|
|
condition, and then I will pass on and afterwards if you want to go into this
|
|
particular subject further by questioning me I would be glad to give you my
|
|
impressions.
|
|
The problem is that we are getting so many kinds of censorship prepared
|
|
for us in different communities that unless we stop opposition to us that is
|
|
making this condition possible, there will be so many police powers
|
|
exercised, so many drastic censorships, that it won't pay to make any type of
|
|
picture because you are not sure it will go into this state or that state.
|
|
Today it is possible to have pictures on the shelf that will not go to
|
|
Kansas, that will not go to Pennsylvania and to Ohio. Going through Oregon
|
|
the other day I brought with me copies of three bills that were before the
|
|
legislature that day that would effectively close the motion picture business
|
|
as an industry so far as that state is concerned.
|
|
One required only special performances for children, boys up to 16 and
|
|
girls up to 18. Another was that no picture showing any act of crime or
|
|
violence of any sort would be permitted. Now we know that is radical, we
|
|
know it is the work of fanatics in that instance. But, Gentlemen, if you
|
|
were to see as I did the method with which the local exhibitors and motion
|
|
picture powers were endeavoring to combat this you would be disgusted.
|
|
Passing on from this moral crisis, which present announcements and present
|
|
plans of the producers may or may not meet effectively, I don't see much
|
|
progress made because last night I had a bulletin sent me from New York that
|
|
is being put out by the reformers in which they quote at great length what
|
|
Mr. Brady, representing all the motion picture producers said to Mr. Cohen,
|
|
representing all the motion picture exhibitors. Each of them admits
|
|
everything that everybody has charged against the industry but blames the
|
|
other for it. Hence the necessity for some co-ordination in curing this
|
|
fundamental wrong otherwise we will have a state of civil war between the
|
|
producer on one side and the exhibitor on the other.
|
|
There is also an economic side concerning this industry. I could give
|
|
you a lot of figures as to the volume of business taken from the public and
|
|
in turn paid for films and the expense of distributing these films. But
|
|
unless you co-ordinate them and get the significance out of them--out of
|
|
broad experience in that line--probably they would not be of any value to
|
|
you, so I will not get you to figure any more than I have.
|
|
As some of you may know, I am frequently on record as opposed to
|
|
producers' control of this industry. I don't know whether you know that I am
|
|
on record to that effect. I don't know whether you know what I mean by that.
|
|
I don't know whether you think that I mean anything by it, but I assure you
|
|
that I do. I will endeavor to make clear just what I do mean by it and just
|
|
what the great fundamental fault in this business is, and unless it is cured
|
|
it will make you and me and every individual in this industry who wants to go
|
|
along on the basis of individual merit incapable of utilizing our strength to
|
|
get out of a situation which will destroy us if we cannot utilize our
|
|
individual strength.
|
|
I believe the theory of the producer of a motion picture having the
|
|
power to control the distribution of that picture is wrong. I do not say
|
|
this because I want to be a middle man who gets in between a producer of a
|
|
picture and gets a commission or a percentage that belongs to the producer
|
|
because I helped pass them to the exhibitor. That isn't primarily the thing
|
|
I am after. It is necessary to do that to get money to support the
|
|
organization machinery necessary to properly co-ordinate these two functions
|
|
of production and exhibition; and if you put this distribution channel into
|
|
the hands of either, you can create, as far as I am able to see, an abnormal
|
|
and impossible condition.
|
|
Now, let me illustrate more clearly just what I mean by that. You know
|
|
we have today some fifteen national distributing organizations. Almost
|
|
without exception the distributing companies are adjuncts of producing
|
|
companies.
|
|
We hear about the great waste in the studios--and I presume there is
|
|
great waste in the studios--but I want to tell you some waste that probably
|
|
you do not know about. Through being improperly co-ordinated, or not co-
|
|
ordinated, this business is only taking one-half of the revenue from the
|
|
public every year that it could take if it was co-ordinated. Through not
|
|
being properly co-ordinated the producers are producing twice as many
|
|
pictures today as is necessary to fill all of the theaters in the United
|
|
States.
|
|
I can tell you how many millions are wasted there. Worse than that--
|
|
or because of the first condition of a lack of patronage from the public, an
|
|
excess production of [....]
|
|
[A page of the transcript is missing.]
|
|
...obliged that I have been able to go on this far.
|
|
Did you ever stop to think what it means when the fifteen are each
|
|
trying to undo the work of the other fourteen all of the time? That is what
|
|
is happening in this business.
|
|
Did you ever stop to think how far this business can progress when we
|
|
have to create tremendous machines with all of the politics that goes with
|
|
them because we have to meet release dates and it takes a certain number of
|
|
pictures to keep one of those machines going? That is, it takes a certain
|
|
amount of product out of a production machine to keep a distributing machine
|
|
going. There is room for lots of thought on this matter. I have given it a
|
|
great deal of thought.
|
|
If what I say is true, then we are beating ourselves out of half of the
|
|
revenue that this business might have from the public if we knew what we were
|
|
doing--if that is true it is quite a startling fact. If it is true that the
|
|
industry has been producing twice as many pictures as it needs to get the
|
|
present revenue to support the theaters, on the present basis of revenue, and
|
|
to keep the same revenue at least immediately coming from the exhibitor and
|
|
from the public--that is startling if it is true.
|
|
If we are spending twenty million dollars a year to support these
|
|
distributing machines when you could do the job much better with ten or
|
|
less--that is startling if it is true.
|
|
If the total sum spent in production and running these machines is
|
|
greater than is taken out of the exhibitor--that is another thing that is
|
|
startling if it is true--and I believe it is true.
|
|
If these uneconomic conditions exist they exist for one reason: the
|
|
desire of each person in the business to play his own game, regardless of
|
|
what happens to the business as a whole. This is a business, gentlemen,
|
|
where people have been taking out, taking out, and nobody has been putting
|
|
in; and we have got to same stage in the business we would get to if we did
|
|
the same thing with grain. When we exhaust it we have to plant before we get
|
|
another crop.
|
|
I believe we are at the stage where we have to do some planting in this
|
|
business--more intelligent planting--and it has got to begin at the top,
|
|
gentlemen. You can't think of all these things while you are busy producing
|
|
the picture. It has got to begin at the top, and there must be some
|
|
architects and planners who will formulate some plan for securing these
|
|
conditions--and then cure them.
|
|
Producer control, I think, is a vicious thing. It puts the producer in
|
|
an impossible position. If I thought it could be done I would be a producer
|
|
with a production organization and a distributing organization. I don't
|
|
think it can be done. I don't think I can do it. I know all these other
|
|
executives that are trying to do it--I know them quite well. I don't see any
|
|
of them that I think can do it. For the simple reason that when we get the
|
|
balance of power by which we can force a thing which he happens to make into
|
|
a market, whether it is fit for that or not, how are we going to be guided as
|
|
to whether we are progressing or whether we are slipping--when we are
|
|
confronted with a lot of people who are on our payroll, who are telling us
|
|
how fine it is all the time. I don't know.
|
|
How are we going to know the capacity of all these people? We have to
|
|
supply the money, to hire the directors, and so forth, and carry on the
|
|
systems all the way down the line. I don't know. I don't know. Probably I
|
|
am mistaken--and when I think I am mistaken I go back to the proposition of
|
|
the producer-controlled distributing organization. Films that don't run in
|
|
first run stations, don't run out in the country--which is the proof that I
|
|
am not wrong in this viewpoint.
|
|
Why do not these producers who are requested to put out so many pictures
|
|
that they have to make them poorly in many instances to meet release dates,
|
|
and who have to have their men traveling on the same train with some other
|
|
men to sell products, or going in to unsell the product the other fellow has
|
|
sold--why don't they cut down their product and why don't they consolidate
|
|
their distribution? It is because they don't trust the others. It is
|
|
because no producer would want to put his product through another producer's
|
|
machine. He would rather carry along some organization which he calls assets
|
|
when they are liabilities; and the longer he carries them, and the greater
|
|
liabilities they are, the less anxious he is to go to the banker and tell him
|
|
that is the condition.
|
|
So much for the production part of it with the producer control.
|
|
We have the exhibitor on the other side who feels that under this
|
|
producer control he is charged all the producer can get out of him regardless
|
|
of whether it is right or not. Without saying whether the exhibitor pays too
|
|
much or too little, the undignified conditions, gentlemen, on which motion
|
|
pictures are sold is a disgrace to this business. The way they start and ask
|
|
$5,000 and take $250--it doesn't build any confidence; it doesn't inspire any
|
|
respect in the mind of the exhibitor or the men who work selling the
|
|
pictures.
|
|
We have got to have more scientific and better ways of determining
|
|
values. It is possible to determine the value of pictures. Some years ago
|
|
all pictures were ten cents a foot, and I went into New York and submitted a
|
|
proposition to change that. I knew when I was trying to buy a producer's
|
|
picture as cheaply as I could that when he sold them to me he was trying to
|
|
make them as cheaply as he could to get the margin of profit out of them.
|
|
But that was regarded as foolish then, as maybe it is foolish today--when I
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say we should get some better means of selling the pictures than we have
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today.
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But when I devised a percentage system whereby a producer owned his own
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product and had a life interest in it, progress began from that time on
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because the producer had a stake, he had an incentive.
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The exhibitor today has no confidence in the people who supply him with
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films. He organizes, buys all the theaters in the town and tells you what he
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will give you. It is civil war. It is, as I say now, a condition where
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Mr. Cohen is telling you that Mr. Brady, the Representative of the National
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Association, who, because he is a fine speech maker, is telling the
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exhibitors that things are all right whether they are all right.
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They are all right, I presume, so far as Mr. Brady knows. He is telling
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them they are all right and the exhibitor is retorting by saying "We dealt
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with your National Association and you went back on your agreement; you broke
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your promises."
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Gentlemen, do you think that a great, big, dignified--what should be a
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dignified--industry like this, which gives us such a field for talent and
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brains is going to go along standing all of this mistreatment? It is not.
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It is not.
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It is either going to cave in and close up or it is going to get in some
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hands that will run it properly, I'll bet you.
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I walked away from the biggest thing in this business and staked my
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personal fortune, every dollar, three years ago, against the written advice
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of my attorney and my former associates, that this condition would whip
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itself--and it is doing it very properly and very promptly at present.
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My function today: I am trying to help some worthy element on either
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side of this proposition to co-ordinate and function, and if we can help the
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rest to see the same thing and guide them and shape them--fine!
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There is no patent on anything that I think. I am telling you what I
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found in a back lot in 1917 when I came back and said "What shall we do with
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the motion picture industry?" and told of this civil war that is happening
|
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now--between Mr. Brady and Mr. Cohen and I was predicting and showing that it
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had to lead inevitably to that.
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It is very hard to want to do things for an industry for a lot of people
|
|
in that industry and to be misunderstood. If you gentlemen here are
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producers I am not interested in getting in-between you and your market after
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a commission. I am interested in getting you that hundred percent increase
|
|
in revenue you are missing now, and getting mine out of that. I don't want
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any of your commissions.
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|
Gentlemen, I am forcing into the exhibitor in conferences with him,
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individually and collectively, across this country, these facts--and the fact
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|
is that I have a mechanism. It is a fine theory that these things are all
|
|
wrong, but what are you going to do to better them? I have got a mechanism
|
|
that can be used with the exhibitor on one hand--because I don't put myself
|
|
in a relationship with a producer where I have to be dishonest with the
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|
exhibitor--and furthermore I want to put myself in a relationship with the
|
|
exhibitors where I can be honest and fair with the producer who deals with
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|
me.
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|
If that doesn't solve the thing as far as we are concerned, if that
|
|
isn't the type of adjustment that must come into the industry, then I will
|
|
say that I have wasted thirteen years in which I have studied this thing as
|
|
carefully as any student ever studied an engineering problem--I have wasted
|
|
these years and will take off my coat and go to work for the fellow who has
|
|
the plan that will straighten this thing out.
|
|
I think that right now the producer-controlled organizations are
|
|
beginning to disintegrate. I think that within a very short time, instead of
|
|
the factory system of production, we will have individual units of production
|
|
on their own; on their own merits--sinking or swimming on their merits, not
|
|
carrying anything and not being carried.
|
|
All I want is an opportunity to keep on trying to beat a system that is
|
|
carrying a lot of surplus, excess weight, whether it is wasteful, duplicating
|
|
system, or whether it is excess capitalization, or any of these factors.
|
|
I can put that money they are wasting in the hands of the people who have
|
|
confidence enough to go along on the basis of their individual merit.
|
|
I haven't any rough and ready rule as to what makes an efficient
|
|
production unit. I don't know. The director says to me "It is the
|
|
director." Somebody else says: "It is the producer" and somebody else says:
|
|
"Why, I am the author: I wrote it" and somebody else says something else.
|
|
I think, as a matter of fact, that we are going to get good product from
|
|
various concerns under varying schemes and varying systems.
|
|
I think there are going to be men who are competent to do the production
|
|
thing straight through and I think there are others who are going to need to
|
|
be supplemented. I think [....]
|
|
[A page of the transcript is missing.]
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: The best answer to that, Mr. Taylor, is to say that the
|
|
saloon was quite a success financially until the reformer used the excesses
|
|
to smoke the public out in the open, and say "do you want them or do you
|
|
not?" And lots of people who patronized the saloons said "We do not." And
|
|
there are lots of people who go to sex pictures, who if the reformers brought
|
|
it to an issue would say "we do not want them."
|
|
It is true that these pictures are successful--commercially successful.
|
|
It is true, however, that that is not the whole story. An exhibitor
|
|
frequently has a 'flash in the pan' of sensational business and undermines a
|
|
clean family business that gradually falls away from him and he cannot hold
|
|
his sex business because after they get it all they can't take any more of
|
|
it. They go as far as they can and they can't go any farther, and if you are
|
|
going on with that you have to go all the way through.
|
|
MR. EDWARD SLOMAN: "Is there any way the director, himself can help?"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: I believe so, Mr. Sloman.
|
|
I believe that you gentlemen, if you grasp the significance of this, if
|
|
you realize the parts that you are playing in making these elements up and
|
|
serving them out to millions of the public--shaping their minds and their
|
|
thoughts--if you take yourselves seriously to that extent and realize that
|
|
your influence is more potent than that of the school teacher or the educator
|
|
in any other branch, and fight that in your individual way. Fight for
|
|
certain standards of cleanliness and decency in this business that you want
|
|
preserved in your home and in society generally, the standards that you would
|
|
want followed in the theaters if your children were going to the theaters.
|
|
I think that if you protest--perhaps you have no more right to do
|
|
anything more than to point out to the man who hands the story to you. That
|
|
is wrong. I do not believe in that, and in many instances--the majority of
|
|
instances--I believe that the men who are dependent on you, even if you are
|
|
under signed contract or agreement, have a right to your sincere opinion and
|
|
I think you can point it out to them that it is a poor business risk for them
|
|
to do it and that it is a poor business risk for them to ask you to do it.
|
|
I think you are very powerful if you take this thing seriously and
|
|
realize what a wonderful position you gentlemen are in today.
|
|
MR. TAYLOR: "Where would you draw the line, Mr. Hodkinson? Some of
|
|
these states and community censorship propositions are so impossible that it
|
|
would absolutely stop the making of pictures."
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: That is true, but just as the pendulum swings one way it
|
|
has to swing back. There is no way we can keep from paying the penalty for
|
|
our past sins.
|
|
I could go into my files in New York and show you a letter that I wrote
|
|
to Mr. Lasky in 1915 or 1916 on this same matter. I said "By all means,
|
|
Mr. Lasky, we should not be forbidden the privilege of showing life in all of
|
|
its phases. But it is when we take an incident, repulsive and gruesome, and
|
|
distort it, it is when we take a sensational incident and build it instead of
|
|
letting it run along the regular way, when we build it up to a peak and
|
|
emphasize it and 24-sheet it, that is where we get away."
|
|
A MEMBER: "What did Mr. Lasky say?"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: I wouldn't like to quote Mr. Lasky without having my
|
|
correspondence present, but I wrote him at the time "The Cheat" was put out.
|
|
At the time "The Cheat" was put out, it made a great success on the Paramount
|
|
program and at that time I was President of Paramount--and all the time I was
|
|
watching this thing we are talking about tonight. Sensational sex pictures
|
|
were just coming out. We were very careful to see that we didn't give any
|
|
out, so far as Paramount was concerned. I suppose "The Cheat" would be very
|
|
tame today but I saw the handwriting and I wrote several pages to Mr. Lasky
|
|
telling him the same thing, Gentlemen, that I am telling you tonight.
|
|
You have got to pay in trouble in living this thing down for all the
|
|
gains you have. No use bothering about it. We just have to wait through it,
|
|
that is all. We have got to re-establish confidence where we have lost it.
|
|
I don't know, maybe we can have an overnight conversion and get
|
|
ourselves adjusted around to seeing things in their proper perspective.
|
|
I doubt it.
|
|
I find there are very few in any walk of life, who if the responsibility
|
|
isn't put directly at their door, go out of the road to worry about the
|
|
ultimate responsibility. Occasionally a damned fool comes along, like I did
|
|
in this business thirteen years ago, when they all said it was a nickel
|
|
thing, and I said "I don't believe it." I kicked along and I ran a theater
|
|
and in order to run the theater successfully I had to figure some way of
|
|
getting better pictures. The only way I could conceive was to select out of
|
|
the nickel product all the better pictures and make an admission charge of
|
|
ten cents. I had to figure out some way of getting better pictures.
|
|
I got the best 14 years ago. I tried it out and it worked. I went to
|
|
another locality and did the same thing. I commenced to think the fellows
|
|
were wrong.
|
|
And then I tried it. I got control of the distribution. I worked in as
|
|
an experiment and I have been experimenting ever since. I don't give a damn
|
|
whether I go out tomorrow. You know? Nobody owns me. Nobody's got anything
|
|
on me, "no strings." (Applause)
|
|
Running a house of prostitution is one extreme of getting money by
|
|
catering to certain instincts in a human being. Writing a sweet, delicate
|
|
little story, such as the best of people lives in their lives, is another end
|
|
of that same thing. You can go so far without offending the dignity of the
|
|
public. From one of these extremes to the other you can go so far and then
|
|
you must stop. When you go to getting people into a theatre by a title which
|
|
suggests that you are going too far, then you get an unfavorable reaction.
|
|
You build up a desire on the part of these people who are just as abnormal
|
|
one way as other people are another. It seems to be a law of nature, you
|
|
know, that she balances.
|
|
MR. HUGH RYAN CONWAY: "Don't you think, Mr. Hodkinson, the very thing
|
|
that draws the majority of people in to see a picture such as the title--the
|
|
very thing that reacts against pictures within that man's own family--the
|
|
morbid curiosity or the 'sex appeal' thing. The fellow says, 'I will drop in
|
|
and see that,' but doesn't want his family to see it. He sees the picture
|
|
and sees the title. After he sees that he is very careful after that what
|
|
his family sees. He doesn't say, 'Go down and see a picture.'"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: I will tell you an instance that shows you an angle of
|
|
this same thing. I happened to ride in a train with the wife of the
|
|
president of an exhibitors league on my way out there. It chanced that she
|
|
got on the same train. We were discussing pictures, and I asked her about
|
|
her husband's show and she didn't seem to know so very much about it. And I
|
|
asked her if she had children, and she said, "Yes," and she volunteered the
|
|
information that a lot of pictures her husband had shown she would not let
|
|
her children see, and I said, "How about other folks' children?" and she
|
|
said, "Well, that is their livelihood; that's the way we make a living;" she
|
|
just hadn't thought about it.
|
|
A MEMBER: "If censorship regulation made conditions so that it would be
|
|
impossible for an exhibitor to make any money because nobody would go in to
|
|
see the picture wouldn't the public say, 'Open up the theatres; we want our
|
|
pictures again'?"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: A few years ago they were saying the working man
|
|
wouldn't stand for his glass of beer being taken away, but where is it?
|
|
You see, there is nothing in this world, Gentlemen, that really counts
|
|
except intelligence; and if you get more intelligence on the side combating
|
|
pictures than you have on the side defending pictures, your pictures are
|
|
going to be whipped. If you have got more intelligence on the side of
|
|
defending pictures than you have in opposing pictures, you will whip the
|
|
other side.
|
|
A MEMBER: "Do you think national legislation will stop the sensational
|
|
pictures?"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: Theoretically, yes. Theoretically. Before we had so
|
|
much political scandal as a result of the war, I saw this thing shaping up
|
|
all the time and I wanted to see the power in the hands of high grade people
|
|
to regulate this thing, and I would like to see it today, Gentlemen, but I am
|
|
afraid it would get into politics, bribery, corruption, etc. Theoretically,
|
|
I would like to see decent, responsible family men handling this--men with
|
|
the same feeling of responsibility towards the public and the industry--
|
|
regulating that.
|
|
But frankly, before anything else, I would have the industry know that
|
|
it is right inside and have it delegate to some one the authority to speak
|
|
for it, and whip these people who are responsible, and who, I believe, are
|
|
willing to call of their dogs when we can convince them that we are in
|
|
earnest.
|
|
A MEMBER: "If the producer and the exhibitor cannot get together and
|
|
meet on some common ground, what happens then?"
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: Well, the producer recognizes the weakness of his
|
|
position to a great extent. In order to bolster up his position he is taking
|
|
over theatres, but he is getting himself in an awful jam in taking over
|
|
theatres. He is finding himself in a position where he has to reject some of
|
|
his own product, his own pictures, because he cannot loose $5000 in the box
|
|
office, when he only gets $1000 for his film. Yet he asks exhibitors to do
|
|
that. (Laughter)
|
|
I can tell you names, dates and places where I am renting pictures to
|
|
the producer-exhibitor, who shelves his own pictures. (Laughter)
|
|
A MEMBER: "Don't they control the industry? Don't the exhibitors
|
|
control the producers?
|
|
MR. HODKINSON: In a section, in a town, in a locality, but not
|
|
completely.
|
|
Gentlemen, if I get better pictures than anybody else you can't keep
|
|
those pictures from the public...
|
|
|
|
*****************************************************************************
|
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*****************************************************************************
|
|
Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following:
|
|
http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/
|
|
http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/
|
|
http://www.silent-movies.com/Taylorology/
|
|
Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/
|
|
or at http://www.silent-movies.com/search.html. For more information about
|
|
Taylor, see
|
|
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
|
|
*****************************************************************************
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