" The point
that seems to have escaped many young writers is this: There is very
often a more decided, a more convincing, and a far more welcome,
"punch" in a scene which shows the saving of a human life than there
is in one which shows a death, even of the most unworthy character in
the cast. To have your villain nursed back to life by the man whom he
has so persistently and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show
the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances,
will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent
audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to
his doom" over a cliff a thousand feet high.
There is a distinction, with a very decided difference, between the
picture that fills the spectators with gloom and the one that simply
allows them to have what many women would call "a good cry." "It is a
great thing to be able to lift the spectators out of their seats with
a big, gripping melodrama," remarks Mr. Sargent, "but it is a far more
creditable thing to send them home with a tear in their eyes while a
smile hovers about their lips."
_4. The Use of Deadly Weapons_
It is understood, of course, that the use of guns, knives, and other
weapons is seldom objected to by the censors when they are employed in
a historical picture, or one that shows pioneer life.
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