European production, however, was beginning to regain lost ground; artistically the best European work was not infrequently superior to that produced in America. Germany's recovery seemed particularly rapid ; this was due in part to legislation prohibiting the importation of foreign films until May 1920, and even after that date the introduction of foreign films was to be strictly limited. In Eng- land producers were making great efforts to meet American com- petition, though without the aid of legislation. The manufacture of motion-pictures in Great Britain, however, suffered from the handicap of a climate which, being often dull and lacking in sunlight, was not well adapted to photography. This handicap was partly overcome by improved methods of artificial lighting. Gross receipts from all cinema theatres in the British Isles were estimated in 1920 to be about 35,000,000 annually. Data for other countries were lacking; in France, however, the official statistics for Paris show that in 1919 the receipts of cinema theatres in that city were 49,664,661 francs as compared with 26,388,292 francs in 1918 and 17,377,000 in 1917. Admission prices ranged from 1.50 francs to 2.50 francs.
In 1919-20 some of the larger American companies sought and obtained financial assistance from leading banking houses, which had hitherto held aloof from the industry. As a condition of this assistance the banking interests indicated they would insist upon greater attention to economy and conservative business practice than had characterized the industry in the past. The sudden prosper- ity of the film producers had naturally led to lavish expenditures; this is well illustrated by the amount of the salaries paid to motion- picture actors and actresses. Towards the close of the period 1910-20 capable actors of the legitimate stage were able to obtain from $100 to $400, and in relatively few cases as high as $1,000 a week; cinema salaries, however, were in most cases at least twice as large, while favourite " stars " were frequently able to command a weekly salary ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. Even these figures were surpassed in the case of a few of the best-known popular favourites ; the combined annual income of three leading stars, for example, was said to be $1,500,000 (1920). After 1920 the influence of conservative investors was beginning to make itself felt, and there was a tendency to reduce salaries and to introduce other economies. It was seen that this new influence would make for greater stability in the industry and probably for better pictures.
Mechanical Progress. The popularity of the moving-picture led to much research to determine its inventor, and the difficulties were not altogether removed by the assertion of Thomas A. Edison (see his letter to the New York Times, June 9 1921) that the honour belonged to him. It is true that the modern cine- matograph was evolved out of Mr. Edison's kinctoscope, or kinetograph, though these devices likewise owed a great deal to earlier experiments. But the prototypes of the modern projecting machine seem to have been produced by others apparently by three men: Louis Lumiere in Paris, R. W. Paul in London and C. F. Jenkins in Washington, D.C., each of whom was engaged virtually at the same time (1894-5) on the new invention. Their efforts all contributed to the final result, and the cinematograph of 1920 had not changed greatly from what it was 25 years before, when, relying on the well-known psychological principle of persistence of vision, it was first made a practical device for reproducing " animated pictures " on the screen. In matters of detail, however, great improvement had been made.
An important advance was t^ie adoption of a standard film, if in. in width, with 16 pictures, sometimes called " frames," each I by } in., to every foot of film. Near the margins of the film, on either side of the pictures, are sprocket holes by means of which the strip of miniature photographs is run through the projector at the rate of approximately one ft. a second, about the lowest practi- cable speed to give a satisfactory illusion of motion. On the reels used in the projectors about I, coo ft. of film could be wound; the term " reel " thus came into use as a unit of measure. The elimina- tion of " flicker," which caused much annoyance in early cinemato- graph exhibitions, was brought about partly by improving the mechanism which draws each succeeding picture momentarily into place and partly by increasing the number of revolving shutter blades from one to three, of which one serves to cut off the light while the change of picture is effected and the other two merely increase the frequency of the alternations of light and darkness, thus render- ing them less noticeable.
Other valuable improvements were made in the nature of the screen on which the image is thrown, in the quality of the lenses, and in the electric lamp used to illuminate the film pictures. In the early days of cinematograph projection the danger arising from the inflammable nature of the celluloid film was very great. An effort to reduce this danger was made by interposing a trough of cir- culating water between the electric arc and the optical condenser to absorb the greater part of the heat rays. A safety shutter was also devised to cut off the light from the film when the motion of the latter was halted for any reason. Strict enforcement of regulations
requiring that machines be enclosed in fire-proof " booths " while being operated greatly reduced the danger of serious fire losses when film did become ignited. After 1913 a non-inflammable film, made of acetate of cellulose, was put on the market; unfortunately films of this material were found to be less durable than those of celluloid, and were not widely adopted.
The cinematograph camera, being in a sense merely the reverse of the projecting mechanism, was developed along similar lines; and the best models were adapted to record almost any moving scene with great fidelity. Although somewhat cumbersome they were still easily portable, making it possible to use them in remote explorations as well as in picturing current events. In commercial practice, the films, after exposure, were mounted on frames (holding from 150 to 300 ft.), developed often by means of machines, fixed and washed in large tanks, and then wound on drums, 5-10 ft. in diameter, and dried by being rapidly revolved in warm, dry air. From the resulting negative it was possible to print as many positives as might be desired. This was ordinarily accomplished by means of a printing machine in which the strip of negative, superimposed on a strip of unexposed positive film, moved past an illuminated opening with an intermittent motion, somewhat as in a projecting machine. As long as the negative is preserved it is possible to obtain fresh reproductions of the original picture.
Colour Pictures. The first colour pictures were made by colouring each small picture or frame by hand. This was laborious and ex- pensive, therefore not well adapted for wide exploitation. The most successful of the early efforts to reproduce natural colour by mechan- ical means was that of Charles Urban and George A. Smith of Lon- don, whose " Kinemacolor " pictures were for a time very popular; the Kinemacolor representations of the Coronation of King George V. (1911) and the Durbar at Delhi were displayed all over the world. Although never entirely satisfactory, the essential features of Kinemacolor had an important bearing on later experiments, and for that reason may be briefly noted. The pictures in this process are taken through a revolving screen or light filter which exposes alternate spaces on the sensitized film to the green and the red rays, respectively, so that each pair of frames represents all the colour values that may be derived from these two primary colours. The resulting negative is black and white. In projection a revolving filter corresponding to that employed in the camera is used, with the result that alternating green and red pictures are displayed; but because of the rapidity with which this is done the eye fails to dis- tinguish between the two and a colour combination is effected. The process involved additional expense for the exhibitor for the reason that special equipment designed to project the pictures at twice the normal speed was required. This objection might not have proved material if the representation were free from certain obvious faults such as false colour values, arising from the use of only two primary colours, and " fringing," due to the fact that a certain time elapses between the exposure of each negative, the result being that a moving object will often occupy a slightly different position in the " red ' frame, for example, from that which it occupied in the preceding " green " frame. Thus when the two frames are combined there is an imperfect " register " of colours.
Later experimenters endeavoured to overcome these difficulties by various means; in the process exhibited by Leon Gaumont in Paris in 1912 three lenses were used to produce three-colour images simultaneously; in reproduction, of course, the process was reversed. Another device, displayed at the American Museum of Natural History (New York) in 1917, elaborated the Kinemacolor process by exposing the negative through a four-colour red-orange, blue- green, yellow and blue- violet revolving filter; the filter used in projection, however, contained only two-colour divisions. A promis- ing development in 1921 was the process invented by W. H. Peck of New York. This is a two-colour method, but it differs from Kinema- color in that each pair of negatives is obtained simultaneously by means of a prism which splits the light so that part of the rays are directed to one frame and the remainder to the other. After de- velopment the " green " negative frames are printed on one side of the positive film, and the corresponding " red " frames on the other; the positive is then developed and passes through a series of vats and tanks, coming out coloured, dried and ready for exhibition through the ordinary projection machine. The production of the positive is a complicated process, and it remained to be seen whether it could be successfully employed commercially. The result never- theless seemed to approximate the requirements of an ideal colour film, which should consist of a series of pictures, each a complete colour-rendering of the subject in itself, so that the film could be exhibited on any machine at a normal speed. Despite the progress made in colour photography the majority of films displayed in 1920-1 were still in black and white, or in some monochrome tint which could be obtained either by dyeing the film itself or by placing a colour screen in front of the projection lens. Some colour films were made by an adaptation of the hand process in which the colouring is done with the aid of stencils.
Vocal Pictures. The invention of the phonograph had preceded the moving-picture by about 18 years; it was natural, therefore, that efforts should be made to synchronize the two in order to produce talking pictures. Encouraging results were obtained by Leon Gaumont in Paris as early as 1910 and two years later by Tromas A.
