Think a moment. Would _you_ have liked it, just because it was a worth-while story, beautifully produced? Would you have liked it even though it had no particular love-story, and no thrilling adventure, and no particularly unusual scenes, and did have an unhappy ending? You would have _admired_ it, undoubtedly, if you had seen it, and admitted it was good; but you wouldn’t have _liked_ it particularly. [Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._ AN ELEPHANT ON A RAMPAGE. When animal pictures are being taken there is always a chance for things to go wrong. Animals almost always seem to be irritated by the clicking of the camera.] [Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._ HUMAN BRAINS AGAINST BRUTE STRENGTH. Whenever possible, scenes that “go wrong” are turned to account. This entire episode was photographed and eventually used in a “nature” film.] It was _too good_ a picture for the American market, at this stage. On the other hand, if a picture has certain fundamental points of popular appeal, a romantic love-story or a thrilling climax or a wonderful setting of unusual beauty or charm, and good selling-points as well, such as a famous author or a great star, it can be just as good as anybody is able to make it. Under those circumstances it cannot be too good. Look at the best Griffith pictures, or the best Rex Ingram pictures, or the best pictures that Douglas Fairbanks has made, like “Robin Hood,” or the best that Mary Pickford has made, or Charles Chaplin, or Harold Lloyd. So far, there has been one great stumbling-block in the way of better pictures. It has even affected such great producers as Griffith and Ingram. They have been afraid of doing the very best they were capable of, for fear of being “too good.” They were afraid of being “over the heads” of too many people in the audience. They were afraid of not having enough “popular appeal.” That is why, in “Way Down East” Griffith stooped to cheap “slap-stick” comedy that was really beneath, and incidentally really less funny than, what he might have done. It was why Rex Ingram, in “Turn to the Right” made a picture that was about down to the level of an eight-year-old child, in spite of its beautiful production. It was why such pictures as Universal’s “Merry-go-’Round” drop to cheap and overdrawn sentimentality in places, instead of sticking to the real thing. The danger with distributors and exhibitors as well as producers, is that they are afraid of losing money on pictures that are “too good.” What they are afraid of is a real danger: it is true that pictures may be “too good.” That is, not interesting enough in a popular sense, in spite of their artistic excellence. If only producers and distributors and exhibitors could all get pictures that were just as good as they could possibly be without being “too good,” we’d be all right.