PICTURE NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 166, 30 November 1912, Page 6

PICTURE NEWS.

There are many well-known parsoin connected with the motion picture industry who have 'gained enviable reputations as specialists—the authors, the players, and the producers —as the profession has offered unlimited opportunities for people of genius. Rare, indeed, is the man or woman who rises above the specialist and becomes proficient ill the handling of several branches of exacting Work.

For a long time the patrons of photoplay theatres have known Miss Gene Cauntier as a leading lady of exceptional talent, and many are familiar with the fact that she is the author of most of the dramas in which she appears. Miss Uauntier's talents, however, extend to such a variety of lields that only those directly associated with her are able to appreciate her versatility. Naturally Miss (jauntier has had many surprising adventures and narrow escapes. Once in Florida she got into quicksands and sank to the waist before she was rescued. In the battle scene in ''The Girl Spy" she was kicked by a horse and nearly killed. In another war scene there was a premature explosion of a cannon that Hurled her high in the air and the fall made her unconscious, but it made a great picture.

One of the latest great pictures launched on the moving picture sea is a thretreel film bv the Ambrosio Co., Torino, Italy, of John Banyan's great allegory, ''The Pilgrim's Progress." Miss Doris Carlton, who plays in A.P>. dramas, bears some resemblance to Miss _ Phyllis Forde, another member of that company, it is recorded that a picture "fan" who had obtained permission to have a peep inside the biograph studio attached himself to Miss Carlton, under the impression that he was talking to Miss Fordo. "You know, Miss Forde," ne said in a confidential manner, "you are very like Miss Carlton when seen on. the screen." "Really?" said Miss Carlton, trying not to smile. "Sure," said the picture "fan." "I recognised you at once as Phyllis Forde, but I don't suppose anyone else not in the know would." "I hope not," said Miss Carlton, and the "lan" wondered greatly, until someone pointed out his blunder to him. Then he went outside and kicked himself, deliberately and with great detail. In anticipation, of the time when the cinematograph will find a permanent and prominent place in the educational machinery of our schools and colleges, English makers of films are directing their attention more and more to the production of moving pictures of educational and scientific interest, so Mr. Ellis, the chairman of the Warwick Trading Co., told a Daily News and Leader representative. Yorkshire, particularly the West Riding, has from time to time Tjeen productive of many surprising enterprises in the animated picture business, but none was ever so original as the one now being exploited in connection with St. Augustine's Church, Bradford, where a recently-erected building is serving the dual purposes of a children's day school in the day time and a two-shows-a-night picture hall in the evening after school hours. The concern has been devised and is managed by a real live Church of England vicar, the Rer. Sutcliffe-Tlioinas. The rapid development of the moving picture, quite apart from its entertaining value, has and is doing more to educate the young mind than all the book learning and school cramming could ever do. The industrial films when screened command an* immediate attention to every detail of the particular industry depicted, which cannot, fail to enlighten both

young and old. As to the manner in „\y|iich an article, perhaps in everyday use, is produced; or, again, to practically illustrate the wonderful advancement of mechanical devices. Historical subjects or events are by the aid of the moving picture placed before us as in real life, and how different to what we imagined! The subject of history appeals to jnany. individual patrons, and to the children especially proves both instructive and interesting.