Many the original members
of the MPPC had gone bankrupt and the survivors struggled as
KESE, Kleine, Selig, Essanay, and Edison.
watched its sales slump. Its
"Conquest" series pictures were advertised "clean and
wholesome" fare that would entertain and educate, but not
provide the titilation and violence that sold seats movie
houses. also added the costs making pictures and
showing them. The distributors were taxed after the entered
the war and this dampened down optimism the industry. Film
making was becoming more gamble, costs were going up
alarmingly but the returns successful movie were
astronomical; one block buster could justify the enormous
expense film making with established stars. TAE Inc. Some the
larger exhibitors had joined together and moved into film
production with massive financial resources.2
$20,000s 1916, and much fewer were made each year.
The first Edison motion picture product was the
9
. did not
have the money play this high stakes game— all its capital
was disc phonographs and storage batteries— instead it
concentrated shorter films with uplifting themes. The world war struck
a sharp blow Edison who leaned heavily foreign
distribution.^
While its marketing experts claimed that the public were
tiring longer films, the Motion Picture Division TAE Inc. The "Conquest" films were expensive
failure and only few melodramas— such "The Cossack
4
Whip"— caught the public's fancy
