Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 9: 1916 Edwin Thanhouser Meets the President

In The Moving Picture World, January 22, 1916, Louis Reeves Harrison treated the topic of five-reel films and gave his opinion that authors of scenarios often did not know how to divide such into five acts. To keep up with the industry preference of the time, directors were often faced with expanding skimpy scenarios to undue length.

Elsewhere in trade publications, theatre owners were complaining that there were too many multiple-reel feature films, and that the public was getting tired of them. Many major studios were concentrating on turning out long films, one after the other, with little regard for the quality of acting or for production values.

In the meantime, in New York City on Thursday evening, February 12, 1916, many motion picture officials and players had the opportunity to greet President Woodrow Wilson at a banquet given in the hall on the 19th floor of the Biltmore Hotel, when the president addressed the assembled guests from the film industry on the theme that truth will win over all. Note

After Wilson's speech Edwin Thanhouser commented to a reporter: "At last the motion picture industry is no longer in its infancy. While I have always taken great pride in my connection with the art, I feel now as if my responsibilities have increased a hundredfold. The Wilson dinner has done more to give us a position that belongs to us than any other group of events that has marked out years of endeavor." Other various motion picture people also gave their opinions. Accompanying Edwin Thanhouser was a contingent from New Rochelle consisting of Gertrude Edwin Thanhouser, Mr. and Mrs. Leon J. Rubenstein, Mr and Mrs. Addison E. Jones, Miss Jones, and Florence LaBadie.