Volume III: Biographies

JOHNSTON, Agnes Christine

Scenario writer (1916-1917)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Agnes Christine Johnson was on the staff of and wrote many scripts for the Thanhouser Film Corporation during the 1916-1917 period.

Biographical Notes: Agnes Christine Johnston was born in New York City on January 11, 1897 and was educated at Horace Mann and Packer Collegiate Institute. Early in her career she was a freelance writer. In later years she recalled that she entered the film business in 1912 with a sale of a script to Vitagraph. She was also a writer for Biograph, and her story, A Phony Chink, was released in July 1913 as A Chinese Puzzle. In 1915 and 1916 Vitagraph produced many films from her scenarios, including Tried for His Own Murder, The Shabbies, The Turn of the Road, Our Other Lives, The Lonelies, and Freddy's Last Bean, after which she went to Thanhouser, where she earned a long list of credits.

In 1916 and 1917 she was single, on the Thanhouser staff, and lived at 125 Franklin Avenue in New Rochelle. The April 12, 1917 edition of the Motion Picture News Studio Directory stated that she lived at the Pepperday Inn at the time. Miss Johnston was acclaimed particularly for her work with the scenarios for the 5-reel Thanhouser-Pathé Gold Rooster Plays. Her diversions included riding, swimming, music, and writing articles for magazines. In the autumn of 1916 she and Gladys Hulette went horseback riding. Miss Johnston's mount stumbled, and she sustained a broken wrist. Trade notices stated that the scenario writer had to type with just one hand for the next several weeks. In 1916, the Lubin film, Fooling Uncle, was based on a story by Agnes Christine Johnson, although she did not write the scenario for it. After she left Thanhouser she wrote numerous other scenarios and stories from which scenarios were adapted, including How Could You, Caroline? (Pathé, 1918), The Old Maid's Baby (Diando for Pathé, 1919), Trixie from Broadway (American for Pathé, 1919), 23 1-2 Hours Leave (Paramount, 1919), and 45 Minutes from Broadway (Charles Ray for First National, 1920; Johnston was co-author with Bernard McConville), and An Old Fashioned Boy (Paramount, 1920).

She wrote the scenario for Daddy Long Legs, in which Mary Pickford appeared, Harold Lloyd's memorable Movie Crazy, "Andy Hardy" scripts for Mickey Rooney, and scenarios for many other films in later years, including Lucky Devils, Janie, Seventeen, and Black Gold. Miss Johnston was also a prolific writer of articles for popular magazines. She married Frank Dazey. From 1956 to 1968 she and her husband lived near Guadalajara, Mexico, and while there wrote books for children. Agnes Christine Johnston died at Paradise Convalescent Hospital in San Diego, California on July 19, 1978. She was survived by two sons, a daughter, and a sister. Her husband had predeceased her.

Miss Johnston's Philosophy: An article by Agnes Christine Johnston in The Moving Picture World, July 21, 1917, told of the author's outlook on life and how it related to her writing: "What's the trouble Agnes? Bad news? Static in your picture or has your star animal actor been captured by the dog catcher again? These are the questions that greet me when I emerge from my 'writery' with my smile upside down and an expression of gloom on my face that would make a thunder cloud look cheerful. 'Nothing,' I answer, 'except that I have just finished a five-reel scenario and all my chuckles have trickled down through my fingers into the typewriter and my sense of humor is dog-tired.'

"And that's the way it is. After writing a tragic drama I'm as gay as a lark, but nothing sobers me like the composition of a side-splitting comedy. I guess it's what James or some psychologist called 'reaction.' Of course my sense of humor muscle is only fagged for the moment and every long sprint increases its power and makes it easier for me to 'funnyfy' again. A comedy is harder to write than drama, because it is more true to life, because it is simpler. And because it is harder, it is more fun, just as tennis is lots jollier than croquet. When I first started to perpetrate plots for pictures, I picked out all the things I didn't know anything about and gloomed and gloomed and gloomed. You see I haven't had much experience in the deeper emotions of life - I've never murdered anybody or been arrested or divorced or even in love. I guess every writer feels the call to write about the unknown, and of course it is easier, because he doesn't have to worry about whether it satisfies his sense of logic. He just gives free scope to his imagination.

"I found, however, that when I picked out people in everyday life and used incidents and plots inspired by my own experience, the work was infinitely much better and more successful. I think the comedy scenario is the nearest to real life. I don't mean the slapstick variety, which has a use of its own, but the comedy-drama about 'just folks,' with a smile sandwiched in with a tear, each increasing the other's potency by power of contrast.

"The comedy-drama is the successful - the ideal photoplay. First of all because the moving picture is elemental. It is action and belongs to the cave-man style of entertainment. He provokes first emotions, and then thought through those emotions. And laughter and tears are primal feelings. So the comedy-drama is particularly adapted to the photoplay. For lacking the spoken word, the picture must be ever-changing, it must be vital. It must have light and shade. It must also have continuity and a certain number of screened titles to explain the action. Therefore, whenever I have scenes or titles, which are necessary only for clarity, I make a rule to 'get a laugh' out of each one. By a little humorous twist I escape that bug-bear of an intricate plot - 'dragginess.' Our old friend William Shakespeare knew well the value of comedy for contrast and was an artist when it came to 'sandwiching.' They say tears and smiles are very close together, and to provoke the one is to have an easy way for the other. When you want your audience to get a real thrill, give them first a touch of fun and your 'weepy' will be double effective, while the comedy relief from it will sparkle like sunshine after a storm.

"Another device, which is just beginning to have its place in the moving picture, is the comedy climax. The transition from tragedy to comedy - that surprises your audience, makes them sit up and gasp out, 'oh.' There is nothing that I enjoy better than teasing my audience along this way, working up an exciting incident that threatens death and destruction to my fair heroine and then ending with a simple comedy twist that saves the day. It's sweet music to my ears when I sit watching an audience watching one of my pictures and hear that sudden startled gasp, which breaks into a chuckle and ends in a roar of laughter. Aside from the fact that people want light entertainment now more than ever, because there is so much darkness in the world, is the element that humor has in all its success. Consider the stage successes of this year, of all years, the great authors, all great men, all great things. If they weren't humorous in theme they had a plentiful seasoning of fun. Even the tragic writers had a certain ironic wit. We might say that they were merely inverted humorists.

"And why is comedy necessary to all success? Because it is life. Do you know a single person in the world - except yourself, for we always take ourselves seriously - who hasn't some peculiarity, some trait or characteristic, which you consider funny? A character in a story, play or picture must be true to life and therefore must cause us to smile once in a while. Not guffaw or ridicule, but the laugh that comes from the heart. The word humor is very near the word human. The three most successful movie artists of the day make us laugh. The human interest - the heart interest play is the comedy-drama; the most appealing heroine, the dear little smile girl. Another rule I have discovered in my writing is: 'introduce your leading character with a laugh.' A little touch of laughter makes the whole world kin. A sense of humor is the most powerful asset to health, wealth, and happiness. It conquers all things. It is the beginning of smiles, sunshine, light, knowledge, philosophy! The world is crazy about it and always looking for a chance to exercise it. There is nothing that a man prides himself about more, and no one likes to admit he hasn't got it. It means courage, faith, hope and charity all in one. It is the little slingshot that's going to put all the horrible old Goliath of prejudice, hate and fear out of business. It is the little keynote of success in the comedy-scenario means the successful photoplay.

"I have my own little theory about the war, just as everyone else has. I just have a notion that if about three years ago someone had only tickled the Kaiser there wouldn't have been any war. Perhaps he was born without a funnybone, I don't know. Anyhow it's too bad he can't stop thinking up mean things to do to his enemies and see a few comedy moving pictures.''

Notes: 1. Her surname was often misspelled as "Johnson" in press notices. 2. The October 1916 edition of the Motion Picture News Studio Directory attributes a Thanhouser film, The Call of Home, to Miss Johnston. This may have been a working title for a film listed below.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1916: The Window of Dreams (6-15-1916), The Shine Girl (8-27-1916), The Fear of Poverty (9-10-1916), Prudence the Pirate (10-22-1916), Divorce and the Daughter (12-3-1916)

1917: Her New York (1-7-1917), Pots and Pans Peggie (3-18-1917), When Love Was Blind (4-15-1917), An Amateur Orphan (6-3-1917), Fires of Youth (6-17-1917), It Happened to Adele (7-15-1917)

# # #