In other words, the human race since 1914 has been going through unprecedented experiences which of necessity furnish material for the teller of romances, the builder of plots, the novelist, the dramatist, the scenario-writer, richer, more varied, more illuminating than has been hitherto vouchsafed to imaginative genius. But, as Virgil once grumbled, “the mountains were in labor and brought forth a little mouse.” Science is going forward to-day from one startling triumph to another, the creative imaginations of its greatest minds rising to adequate control of the new and splendid opportunities recent progress has brought to them. But Art, especially that field of it reserved to the origination of dramatic tales, seems to be suffering under a blight that forces it to give birth either to monstrosities or to weaklings, and to clothe its worthless offspring in garments fashioned to delude the weak-minded into believing that what is offensive to common-sense and good taste is necessarily a child of genius. The screen, with fame and fortune to bestow upon the teller of tales, is forced to become a ghoul haunting old graveyards at night because the living are unworthy of a great opportunity, because the fictionist of to-day goes far afield in quest of strange gods instead of worshipping at the eternal and inspiring altars which gave inspiration to the master-romancers of the past. The situation confronting the photoplay producer at this moment, as outlined above, bids fair to become worse rather than better, unless some radical solution of the problem dealing with the constant renewal of worthy dramatic material for the screen can be found. The most disreputable type of movie drama has fallen into a permanent condition of innocuous desuetude, in so far, at least, as the vast majority of picture theatres are concerned. It has been replaced by photoplays of a much higher order, until to-day the screen is engaged in giving to the public splendid presentations of great masterpieces of fiction and drama entitling it to approval and sympathetic encouragement. But you can’t eat your cake and have it too. You can’t feed an audience of several millions daily with the cream of the world’s imaginative literature without shortly resorting to skimmed milk and eventually coming to the end of your lacteal resources.