E.H. Sothern's Don Quixote. The audience is not worked up into the
deadly still mob-unity of the speaking theatre. We late comers wait for
the whole reel to start over and the goal to be indicated in the
preliminary, before we can get the least bit wrought up. The prize may
be a lady's heart, the restoration of a lost reputation, or the ownership
of the patent for a churn. In the more effective Action Plays it is often
what would be secondary on the stage, the recovery of a certain glove,
spade, bull-calf, or rock-quarry. And to begin, we are shown a clean-cut
picture of said glove, spade, bull-calf, or rock-quarry. Then when these
disappear from ownership or sight, the suspense continues till they are
again visible on the screen in the hands of the rightful owner.

In brief, the actors hurry through what would be tremendous passions on
the stage to recover something that can be really photographed. For
instance, there came to our town long ago a film of a fight between
Federals and Confederates, with the loss of many lives, all for the
recapture of a steam-engine that took on more personality in the end than
private or general on either side, alive or dead. It was based on the
history of the very engine photographed, or else that engine was given in
replica. The old locomotive was full of character and humor amidst the
tragedy, leaking steam at every orifice. The original is in one of the
Southern Civil War museums. This engine in its capacity as a principal
actor is going to be referred to more than several times in this work.

The highest type of Action Picture gives us neither the quality of
Macbeth or Henry Fifth, the Comedy of Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew.
It gives us rather that fine and special quality that was in the
ink-bottle of Robert Louis Stevenson, that brought about the limitations
and the nobility of the stories of Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and the
New Arabian Nights.