Photophay's "Yang Kuei-foi," how-fever, required about one year in the ' producing, In spite of an occasional merit, the pictures were dul The third trouble is also traceable to monetary reasons; buyers often refuse to pay set prices with the result that companies cannot get back their original financial output, which spells ruin for companies. with limited capital, The Dearth of Talent Fourth, is a dearth of talent in all departments. But even if there were an abundance of money, it is highly probable that there are not enough men of proper technical training to fil high salaried positions. Again, many writers are inflicted with the habit of producing ition and
foremost in mind that a reader length ys having it must spend a week on n book or a spectator must sit for many backbreaking hours in @ theatre before he has had his money's worth, hus, pictures that should be from six to eight reels in length padded and dragged out to fron nine to 12 reels with results that an easily be imagined.
The fifth reason also involves financial considerations, that is, the audiences in the Straits and in Man. It Zse-sttn, HoncKoNG soctery Annam demand historical picture fat such a low price, that accurate investigation is impossible, and sine few companies are capable of scientific work, even if they had she money, both parties close their eres to the glaring anachronisims that run riot in current product All the sacred and good things are being outraged; and historical characters must have turned over several times in their stately mausoleums. Of course, it ix a coincidence, but a colourful fact that the Thunderpeak Pagoda fell with 'a roaring crash, audible for mites about, before "The White Snake legend centring about it, was dom in the cheapest manner with modern settings and costumes, Semi-Foreign Horrors The consideration of the outraged Past Urings us to the sixth, point, remanded, the semi-foreign horrors of the present of which the kiss is a shining example. The dance, while done is sufferable E That which should be a fine art 's reduced to an absurdity. In one of the first {screen kisses, a man, who, in private [life was not ignorant of the opposite sex, breathed over the woman's upturned face as if she were a Also there was a scene in two girls acted: one the heroine, the other, dressed as the boy lover, the film version of the drama, 'The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid," in which they indulge in a horrible, Jong, kiss. The audience applauds! There are, imported from the occident, many other practices, invariably wrongly applied, which help to mar the screen, if it' were possible to mar it any more than it has been.
The seventh sin is also partly due to money: the poor, hungry critic cannot afford to say that a production is inferior and lose an occasional free dinner! If he i {sometimes paid a paltry sum, he must use flowery words to extol a celluloid nightmare. Again, there 'a school of critics who are killed vishing miles of laudatory phrases on any and everything. In the opposite camp, is a group of critics, proudly ultra-modern, who curse and defame everything with no other object than to show how much they themselves know, while actually they know nothing, especially of fair play. Mr. 8. F, Cheng of the "China Fum Pictorial" is one of the few who tells the truth and Miss Yieit 18 aN oto Costeme so tut he been, that companies refuse to give his publ tion' the photographs!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.