First the people. Because in the end they’re the most important of all three. What sort of a chap will we find in a really worth-while movie? One who, to begin with, is genuine. A regular fellow. Mostly, photoplays don’t have them. If we want to find regular fellows playing the big parts in a picture we have to make up our minds to pass by a large proportion of the films that come along, except in the pretty big picture-theaters. Actually, the men making photoplays hardly seem to know, as yet, what regular fellows are. In pictures you don’t often see the real thing—yet. But it is coming. Every now and then a regular fellow gets on the screen. In 1921 a preparatory school story, “It’s a Great Life,” came a little closer than most pictures do to showing what real boys may do or think. And even that was pretty far from the mark in some things. On the whole, Charles Ray and Bill Hart, and in one way, Douglas Fairbanks, have probably come closer, so far, to showing men who are “regular fellows” than any one else. Will Rogers is another, at least in a good many of his pictures. Not long ago a picture was turned out that hits the nail right on the head; “Disraeli.” It happens that the “regular fellow” in that particular film is an old man, and the story is one that will be enjoyed mostly by rather quiet-minded grown-ups, for it concerns the purchase of the Suez Canal by England, through the foresight of the great man who was premier of England at the time. It may not be the sort of picture you or I happen to like best; but we must not forget that it is the real thing, and shows what can be done. Another picture that showed real people was “The Copperhead” released in 1920. It was a tragic story, but exciting, and all the characters, from Abraham Lincoln down, were convincing. “Humoresque” was another. Whenever you find a picture that has regular fellows in it, whether they are young or old, encourage it. If they have the stamp of genuineness—if they do the things that you or I would do, and think as you or I would think, the people that produced the film are on the right track. But when, if you stop to think, the old men in the pictures are not natural, and the women are not natural (young girls playing the parts of married women of thirty or forty and so on) and the men and boys are not doing what everyday men and boys would really do, we can classify the picture as a second-rater at the best. [Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._ DRAMA ON AN AEROPLANE. The use of aeroplanes has become almost commonplace in movies on account of the opportunities they provide for hair-raising stunts. Note that, as usual, there are two cameras on the job.] [Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._ A GRUESOME AEROPLANE WRECK. Of course all carefully posed. When “blood” is needed for movie wounds, catsup and glycerine make a great combination.]