Part 12 (1/2)

I cannot pretend to have learned much about the cinema on such a brief visit, but I acquired a few facts One is that there is no need for any continuity to be observed by the photographer, because the various scenes, taken in any order, can, in some wonderful way, be joined up afterwards, in their true order, and made consecutive and natural

Indeed, I should say that the superficially casual and piece draht away froically fluid narrative as unreeled on the screen and the broken, zigzag, and apparently negligent preparation of it in the studio is the sharpest I can iine And it increases one's admiration of the man with the scissors and the thread (or however it is done) who unites the bits and makes them smoothly run

Another fact which I acquired is that unless the face of the cinema performer is painted yellow it comes out an iht is to have the impression that one has stumbled upon a house party in the Canary Isles And a third fact is that the actors, while free to say what they like to each other at many times, must, when in a situation illustrated by words thrown on the screen, use those identical words One reason for this rule is, I ao, in an American film, the producer of which was rather lax, one of the characters spoke to another with an i the picture palace ”lip-read” the awful result The consequence (A a wonderful country, with a sufficiency of deaf-and-dumb to warrant protective measures) was the withdrawal of the film and the punishment of the offenders

Meanwhile, what of the horse? I will tell you

The ca taken as much of the fast life in the swell hotel (with the hollow colu a ”still” (as it is called in the raph in the ordinary sense of the ternifying a blend of depravity and triumph, turned his attention to the loose-box which so, chiefly with the assistance of a truss of straw Into this aparte, and at enormous risk to its plaster masonry) a horse--the horse, in fact, which was to defeat Edison Of the plot of the play I know nothing (How could I, having seen it in preparation?) But this I can tell you: that the hero's horse had to be ill; and this also: that the horse in question refused to be ill In vain for the groom to shake his head, in vain for the hero to say that it had the shi+vers; never was a horse so far removed from malady, so little in need of the vet Nor could any device produce the desired effect If, then, in the days to come you see on the films a very attractive story with a horse in it, and the horse shi+vers only in the words on the screen, you will knohy It is because the movies for once met their master

THE NEWNESS OF THE OLD

In an A shown the spot on which a hero fell 'I don't wonder,' she replied 'It's so slippery I nearly fell there land, and is familiar here to most adult persons, is usually told of Nelson and the _Victory_ Indeed it is such a commonplace with facetious visitors to that vessel that the wiser of the guides are at pains to get in with it first But in A a new lease of life; it will probably go on forever in all English-speaking countries, on each occasion of its recrudescence finding a few people to whom it is new

It is a problem e tend to be so resentful when an editor or a comedian offers us a jest that has done service before It is, I suppose, in part at any rate, because we have paid our money, either for the paper or the seat, and we experience the sense of having been defrauded We have been done, we feel, because the bargain, as we understood it, was that ere purchasing novelty So that when suddenly an old, old jape, which perhaps we have ourselves related--and that of course is an aggravation of the grievance--confronts us, we are indignant But what, one wonders, would a co old in it be like We can never know

The odd thing is that we not only resent the age of the joke, even though it is in our own repertory, but we resent the laughter of those to whom it is new--perhaps three-quarters of the audience How dare they also not have heard it before? is our unspoken question Not long ago, seated in a theatre next a candid and nor at what struck me as a distinctly humorous reed in a coerthat he personally could ree when it was a cornfield To ly; but my friend was furious with me

”Good heavens!” he exclaiue that usually accoain! It's as old as the hills” And his face grew dark and stern

What we have to reer had he re to who of thoughts to those who are a little fastidious about ancientry in humour; but it is nature and therefore a fact Just as every moment (so I used to be told by a solemn nurse) a child is born (she added also that every er and hush!+ for ht), so nearly everyfor a certain ae when it can understand and relish a funny story To those children every story is original With this new public, clamorous and appreciative, why do humourists try so hard to be novel?

(But perhaps they don't)

I suppose that there are theories as to what is the oldest story, but I am not acquainted with them That people are, however, quite prepared for every story to be old is proved by the readiness hich, when Mark Twain's ”Ju” was translated into Greek for a School Reader, a number of persons reone to ancient literature for his jest For by a curious te are all anxious that stories should not be new Much as we like a new story, we like better to be able to say that to us it was faain Such, for exaround I reto enlist, and was rejected because his teeth were defective ”But I want to fight the Boers,” he said, ”not eat theain, only this ti man said that he did not want to eat the Germans I have no doubt that in the Crimean War a similar applicant declared that he did not want to eat the Russians, and a hundred years ago another was vowing that he did not want to eat the French Probably one could trace it through every war that ever was

Probably a young Hittite with indifferent teeth proclaiht the Aood each time; and there has always been a vast new audience for it And so long as war continues and teeth exist in the hu will this anecdote enjoy popularity After that it will enter upon a new phase of existence based upon defects in the applicant's ratelier, and so on until universal peace descends upon the world, or, the sun turning cold, life ceases

AUNTS

The story is told that an English soldier, questioned as to his belief in the angels of Mons, replied how could he doubt it, when they ca theh; but had the soldier said that anised his estions of beautiful affection and touching deathbeds would then have been evoked, and our sentimental chords played upon But the word aunt at once turns it all to comedy Why is this?

I cannot answer this question The reasons go back too far for me; but the fact reic, and even soic, aunts are comic Not so comic as mothers-in-law, of course; not invariably and irreain I say, why? For taken one by one, aunts are sensible, affectionate creatures; and our own experience of theh; they are often very like their sisters our mothers, or their brothers our fathers, and often, too, they are ame to the humourist; and especially so when she is the aunt of somebody else

That the word uncle has frivolous associations is natural, for slang has e on personal property, an aunt is not the public resort of the temporarily financially embarrassed No nephew Tommy was ever exhorted to ures in corandparents do, and is not proe One cannot, therefore, blareat aunt joke, nor does it see what novels I can with aunts prominently in them, to be the creation of the novelists dickens has very few aunts, and these are not notorious Betsy Trotwood, David Copperfield's aunt, though brusque and eccentric, was otherwise e to pattern and Miss Rachel Wardle even more so; but the comic aunt idea did not commend itself to dickens whole-heartedly Fiction as a rule has supported the theory that aunts are sinister Usually they adopt the children of their dead sisters and are merciless to theht of the novelists is in favour of aunts as anything but coure, the ”Aunt Anne” of Mrs W K Clifford, stands forth triuhby Patterne's twittering choruses are nearer the aunts of daily life But even they were nigher pathos than ridicule

I believe that that wicked , Captain Harry Graham, has done more than most to keep the poor lady the aunt in the pillory This kind of thing from his ”Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Ho well, Which the plumber built her, Aunt Eliza fell-- We must buy a filter

How can aunts possibly survive such subtle attacks as that? And again:--