SATURDAY, 'APRIL 2, 1921. THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG. ARE MOVING PICTURES PUNK? By Stephen Leacock I observe that new controversy has broken out about the moving pic- tures. Somebody has just calculated that on this continent twenty million -.Reople attend Lg RCL 101 gs avery day, and the public¥®s agha And even this figure, it seems, doesn't include. the Mexican the Californians and the Canadians and the Esquimaux, It appears also that $250.000,000 of new capital is being put into mov- ing pictures every year; either that or-$250,000,000,000; I forget which, but it doesn't matter, It is freely stated that the moving pictures are four-fifths punk and the other fifth poison: and that they are made up altogether of sex stuff, sob stuff, ¢rime stuff, and hysteria and vanity all mixed up together. I do not wish to take any personal part in this controversy. Indeed as one who has made not one moving picture scemaria but hundreds of them, I should feel a delicacy in do- Ing so. But it may be of interest to know just exactly how we Scenario- makers make scenarios may be able to prove that even a moving pleture may move on a high plane. The first thing that a writer has to do to make a scenario is to get a general topic gr story. This is ab- solutely easy. "There is no need to invent a new one: and it is {mpos- sible anyway. All the stories were invented long ago. Open any book of folklore or fairy tales or nursery rhymes and you can pick them out like plums. You could seleet "Little Bo Peep" or "Old Mother Hubbard" or "Jack Spratt" or any of them as the basis, Suppose we take "Jack Spratt." The original text of the rhyme rans: " "Jack Spratt could eat no fat His wife could eat no lean, And so it was between them both They licked the plater clean." That's the ground work to begin upon, The next thing is to find the general name of the picture, That suggests itself at once from the rhyme. THE PLATTER OF LIFE or PARTED AND REUNITED (Authorized by the board of cen- sors of the . ). After that it is necessary to work A AAA Ape sti eres rar roe to Purify the Bleed and Build Up Strength. Few come to: these trying spring days without weariness, debility, that "tired feeling." caused in large part by impure, de-vitalized blood. Change of season often "taken - the strength out of me," as many people say. The tonic and blood purifier needed is Hood's Sarsaparilla It Lower | Perhaps I | | out the descriptive stuff that goes along with the title for advertising purposes, This is where the highest part of moving picture magiig comes in, It is done more or less like this: "Have you ev r feit your hushand turning cold? Cold as untasted bacon fat upon platter? Or you, | have you ever watched your wife {growing fat? Have you seen her ex- pand hour by hour? If so? You must not miss this very new heart-throh- bing, pulse-aceelerating picture. In it you will see an aesthetic tempera- mental lean-eating man, yoken to a the { full-blooded, double-chested woman, | vibrating with the joy of eating eat !by the pound. What will happen? Can they do it? It is a beautiful wholesome picture .of modern life. | The clergy o all denominations have come to it' in thousands and shed tears. Now let the pictures begin to spin and they show the familiar interio |called The Spratt Mansion, well i known also as the Anstruther Resi- | dence or The De Kuyper Home. It stands for high society as seen in the movies. It has in it, a wooden butler {who takes Spratt's coat and stick | each time he goes in and out, and & {hundred dollar house-maid much prettier than Mrs. Spratt. | Somewhere in here put ing the leg- lend: John Spratt, Aesthetic, Tempera- binoree a poet, and a graduate of Oberlin College is married to Gloria Spratt' his wife. The pictures rippie The Spratts at breakfast. Jack Spratt has 4 manuscript poem spread in front ot him. He keeps raising his eyes to the ceiling and nibbling lean bacon. This means that he js making up poetry. Gloria Spratt is eating fat pork with molasses in it. She comes over to kiss Spratt, He repulses hef. She wants to bite his ear. He won't let her. She tries to pick him up and hug him but he slips out of her arms and darts cut of the room, . At this point the legend is put on the screen. This great big yearning fullblooded overballasted woman is not satisfied. Her love turns cold. 5 Mrs. Spratt, now cold, writing at a letter table, a telegram to a former lover. You can see the address Wil- liam de Bulk, New York, and the message is put right on to the screen to read: on, re pring Medicine + Now Needed by Nearly Every One guickly dispels that exhausted etling. enriches the blood and ben- efits the mental, muscular and ner- Yous systems. In a word, sys a druggist, "Hood's Sareaparilla is ' our most dependable restorative. Only the best tonic ana purify- ing ingredients used. --roots, herbs, barks and berries, such as physi- clans often p be. record of 46 years successful use, At will de you good. Try it this spring. A mild laxative, Hood's Pills. Hood's Sarsaparilla IS THE IDEAL SPRING MEDICINE. : A A Al si I KNOW lam a womar. What I have suffered is a far better guide {haa any MAN'S experience gained second. and, 1 know your need for sy: And the treatment that gave me health and strength, new intere, life, I want to pass on to you, that you, too, may enjoy the priceless boon of health, Are you unhappy, unfit for your duties? Write and tell me how you feel and I will send you ten days' FRER trial of a home treatment to meet your individual needs, together with references to women in Canada who have passed through your troubles and Thained health; or you can secure this FREE treatment for your daughter, sister or mother, in in the head, back, weight aud dragging alling or displacement ol pathy and health. her, If you suffer from or bowels, feelin; down seasations, internal organs, bladder irritation with fre- quent urivation, obstinate constipation or jikew in the sides regularly or irregu. arly, ting, dyspepsia, extreme nervous. ness, spirits, melancholy, desire to cry, of Something oil about to hi eepin eeling up the spine, I pitaklon, hot er weariness, ine pa plexion, with dark circles under the eyes, pain i ie left breast or a general feeling that ifs not worth living, I invite you to send ment ef v for my complete ten days' treat. 1 and postpaid, to prove to yourse! thal these ailments can be easily and surely overcome at your own home, without the expense of hospital treatment, of the po An operation. Women every. where are escaping the surgeon's knife by knowi of my Rmple method of home m and when you have been bene. my sister, I shall only ask you to pass h food word along to some other sufferer, ome treatment is for all, --young or old. MRS, M. SUMMERS. Box 971 MATHIEUS SYRU A WOMAN'S SUFF RINGS Offer: To Mothers of Daughters, I will * simple home treatment wh ~ ly and e! 8 greca-sickn y frreguis iY Slepglagiecns and hare, y and restores them to plump. d bh , Tell mu if you a; about your daughter, othing to give my method You wish to continue, it costs only a few cents a week to do so, and it does not inter- fere with one's daily work. Is health worth asking for? Write for the free treatment suited to your needs, ahd I will send it in plain wrapper by return mail. Cut out offer, mark the places that Sell your feelin and return to me. Write 'and ask for t f 3 HE dad - - Windsor, Ontarie -------------- 2 or badly treated give rise to : onacduences Of sucha grave character mot using inferior prepara MATHIEU'S SYRUP is the only gutation has caused to crop up that you should remedy 40 of He '| All this week. My marriage is a mistake. Come | 10 me. | This is the point, I think, at which | the clergy begin to weep. But before {they have time to weep much the | scene changes with a sudden flip. A | title is written } Spratt in his study, dictates his {poem to his signographer, Clemen- tima Click, ! ba! do you notice his stero- | grapher, as thin as a meridian of | de Merode forehead flaps and with eyes like a cow. Something will be doing here The gentle girl. As thin as she is good, hangs on the poets words. Then the picture changes again. | Arrival of William de Bulk. You see {him buzz up in his motor. You see [ the wooden Butler take his stick. | Then you see him enter and greet Gloria. William! how stout you have grown! He has a big blue face like a thug but-he must be all right be- cause the writing says. The big true hearted man has come at once to the woman he had loved. William takes Gloria Spratt away in his motor. It is made to look like an elopement but if you follow it closely it is all in the same day. It has to be, or the clergy would stop crying. Take me away Wiliiam I want to forget. I want to plunge into the vortex of gayety. He plunges her in. William and Gloria in a restaurant eating beef- steak; Wild scene of gayety; Hawai- fan orchestra;-near beer; Greek wait- ers; gramophones; all the fierce vor- tex of Metropolitian life. William tells the story of his iife. You ean see him do it in side pictures. Yes, Gloria? after you left me I married. But I grew stout and my wife aban- doned me to seek a more intellectual life than I could give her. William is seen to bow his head in grief. Then the picture changes back to the Spratt mansion. Freed from the pressure of his wife's society, Spratt abandons him- self to his poetic dreams: The pictures spin. Spratt (at 10.30) writing a sonnet. Spratt in the Bar- den of the Spratt mansion (11.30) reading the sonnet to his stenogra- pher. Spratt at lunch with his steno- grapher, reading the sonnet again. Ease and a tranquil mind are chang- ing bim already. At 11.30 he is dis- tinctly stouter than he was. A} 1 p.m. he is quite fat. @ scene changes. Gloria and Wil- liam at afternoon tea (4 pm,). But even in the whirl of gayety this great big, true hearted, able bod- ied woman cannot forget. She pines, Pictures of Mrs. Spratt pining. She is losing flesh. At 4 p.m. she js far less stout than she was at 3.30. At 4.30 it is still more noticeable. The picture changes. Spratt with Clementina Click in the garden, He is reading her his sonnet for the tenth time. He is quite stout. Clementina Click show signs of restlessness. She rises and paces to and fro. Mr. Spratt, don't read it any more. I have made a fatal mistake I do not care for poetry as I thought I did. 1 left the best husband in the world to seek the intellectual life. I want it ro longer. The picture changes. William and Gloria beside the Duck Pond in Cen- tral Park (5.30 p.m.) She is now quite tall and thin. William I have done wrong. Even in this mad world of gayety, among these ducks I cannot forget. Take me home." Concluding scenes. Arrival of the motor at the Spratt mansion (6 p.m. daylight saving time). Entry of Wil liam and Gloria. The Spratts meet. They each weigh 150 pounds now. They fall into one another's arms. William and Clementina meet. They fall into one another's arms. She is his wife. William I have been wrong: Take me back. Mrs. Spratt leads them all to the supper table, Come, we will eat the platter clean. and the picture concludes with the legend. And from the dead ashes of their pastglives these renewed souls lift themselves into a higher being. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, - "and-with her Nil Th Cleo | in the either e members of problem--viz., ere reproduced, with deliberation 3 GOVERNMENT CONTROL rganization comprising men of highest standi The Citizen's Liberty League is an o e of the Province,~men who are not intereste ofessional and business lif. ectly or indirect] strated -integrity and sinc what they conscientiously Government control. ty entirely in the hands of the Government, that the sale of alcoholic beverages will be safeguar. n consistent with life in a democratic country. its attainment are embodied in the Memorial which every serious-minded man and woman is asked to study decision. By B res] the responsibili of Ontario may rest assured and regulated in every directio The League's views on temperance and Signatures are being obtained throughout the Province the Ontario Government. Copies can be obtained from - E by before making any bo Hon. President : Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill President : LF. Hellmuth, KC. Vice-President ; Col. William Hendrie Treasurer : F. Gordon Osler Organizing Secretary : C. D. Boyce Committee : TORONTO W. R. Johnstor R. J. Christie HAMIL'TOY Col. A. F. Hatch H. J. Waddie NIAGARA FALLS D. W. Kennedy KINGSTON Col, J. N. G. Leslie, C.M.G. OTTAWA J.P. Crerar J. U, Vincent, K.C WINDSOR E. S. Wigle, K.C. W. H. Adams BELLEVILLE L. W. Marsh COBALT A. A. Amos Vote Total prohibition is as unnecessar practicable and you are trged. to in all things, hereby being placed u; the Statute @ great mass of the army of spies and informers. from the total prohibition surely obtained by evolution, for punishment but on the stro mocracy sprang from a security of individual liberties dictating what men should eat or of those voting on a Referendum, Especially is that is bet. snd a necessary safeguard to dem (1) 2) (3) conditions, as patients, thus minimising (4) the formation of a by education and example. y in the manufacture or sale ty afford sufficient the poi are devoting t feel will prove the for the following Memorial, which is to be presented to the Secretary, 104 Mail and Empire Bldg., Toronto. To the Honurable the Premier of the Province of Ontario We, the undersigned residents of the desire to express our ve: grave concern at the yey of this P eople and must be enforced b any serious-minded and well-informed citizens, including ministers of the est positions in the community, while fully appreciat of the sale of liquor, agree wi to interference by the State with individual conduct. They believe that a temperance country can be more than by legislation and that total temperance and opposed to Christian morality, which is based not er force of love. esire for individual liberty. properly used. drink unless it has the support of a substantial majority not merely but of all the people in this true when the prohibitory forces are highly organized at the polls. enforced, all law is brought into contempt and It is a fundamental of democratic against abuse, not prohibited. It is wel to regulate into a power to prohibit, no reason why we should shirk the uor traffic, and blindly throw to the winds ocratic civilization. We believe that the cause of Christian temperance and of stabilized democracy can best be served, - By Government control of the licensing of individuals to purchase spirituous liquors. By the treatment of those who have not not as criminals. By permission to purchase beer and wines under a system to be devised by the Government, the evil of illicit stills and the illegal are not advocating a return to the "open bar." By voluntary organization similar to the Blue Ribbon Army in Great Britain, whereby all available energies and The CITIZEN'S LIBERTY LEAGUE Stands for oS A Sr ee AD of liquor, and whose demon- arantee as to unselfishness of motive. J whole effort towards obtaining soundest solution of Ontario's liquor . the people ded A Memorial believers in temperance and moderation prospect of any legislative enactment not be binding upon the conscience of penalties with armed inspectors and an Province of Ontario, rovince which will y excessive gospel and men holding the material benefits which might be the view that there is a proper limit prohibition is inconsistent with true upon the manufacture of new crimes Stabilized democracy depends upoa the There can be no security for the observance of a law the Province whose support is necessary. If one law is not democracy itself may be imperilled. overnment that things innocent in ¢ selves should be regulated recognized in law thata municipality cannot extend a mere power If past generations allowed the open bar to become a menace, Sifeuts duty of making wise regulations to govern the an elementary principle which has hithertd been cone sale of spirituous liquors, and, if necessary, a wisely devised the strength to take care of themselves under such sale of spirituous liquors and drugs. We may be devoted to the promotion of true temperance We ask that you provide a We further scruples, rights and liberties of the subject to be co So rt mm, Tipped Her the Wink, } A good story against himself is be- | Ing told by a noncon::rmist divine of STEPHEN LEACOCK. (Copyright, 1921, by The Dominion | News Bureau, Ltd.,, Montreal.) -------------- Women Pay, (Ottawa Journal) | was travelling north. { he got to York he opened the car- the severe old school, who, however, is not without a sense of humor. He Just before riage window, with the result that he got a piece of grit in his eye. He The immense sum of $790,702,600 Was paid by 266,000 single women of | the United States last year in the] form of income tax. This not only in. dicates a colossal principal, but the important place which women now occupy in the state. The term "single" includes widows; divorcees and women who have heen separated from their husbands--which slightly alters its superficial significance. This statistical fact was perhaps not necessary to give point to the change which a century of active money- making has brought into the life of the American republic. Women are everywhere idontified with commerce and finance. They stand side by side with men in the counting house and factory, I ---- S------ What Women Are 3 (Advocate of Peace, Washington) One of the two Canadian delegates to the International Council of Weo- men recently held in Norway, defin- Ing the policy with which women generally are proposing to meet pre- sent and future world conditions, has put it thus: "Men say that the road to internationalism lies along the Path of reconstructed pationalism, but we women go to the foundation by saying it lies in the individual mentality 'and should manifest itself first in the Golden Rule of the home, the church, the gehool, and the com- munity. When this rule ig practised in these places, then national snd in- ternational friendships are assured." rubbed it and did all the usual things, put it still troubled him, and every now and again he" had involuntarily to wink. When he got to York he went into the buffet and asked for a glass of milk. This being served, he gulped it down, and then, realizing that something was wrong, he said to the barmaid, "That wasn't milk, was it?" "No, sir, rum and milk." "But I asked you for milk.' "Yes, sir, but you tipped me the wink." | AUSTRALIAN FARMHOUSES HAVE METAL ; . CATCH RAIN. The dazzling metallic roof cover in many portions of Australia brings of drought prominently before the visitor, devices are very 0 : precent rain fan for active service. Sometimes water is drawn from these storage, and Australian sions when drinking water, in remote well goes dry, the ever after four years' She might have added, "and not fore," : i he Tae 3 sixty cents a pint. ROOFS TO Jof the farm buildings € ever present danger The structures are popular, but when must be called Sjen ins history recalls occa- parts, has been sold for for an exp ask that the Ontario Tem people of this Province may be fully protected against an organized minority, and accused persons shall not asidered until he is found to be guilty. y in Ontario as it is unethical and im. stand by the League in their fight for GOVERNMENT CONTROL "NO )) in the coming Referendum and Prose Some of them are so spoiled that if everybody in the house doesn't wait ~---- ion of op onthe gq ion of Gover I, ce Act be amended as above, so that the conscientious e deprived, as they are now, of the sacred right of every British sign the Memorial. , Neem mannan on them when they get home, they pout and act like they are going out and eat worms and end it all. All husbagds are not henpecked. | "We find the best floor varnish, the most economical, be- cause it wears so much longer. Liquid Granite gave our - floors this beautiful lasting lustre you admire so much." , 55 .. » This wender-working floor varnish preserves the wood, linoleum or oilcloth, and gives a surface that withstands the hardest wear, Easily ki clean and shining with a mop or damp clo a Specify Ligsid Grapite WS TAI ---- Made by : NE Sr 4 ! AN -- R Walkerville un } a Ao S| i i