20 Nov 1921 – Wonderful Photography Makes Picture Among Greatest Screened

No small part of the success of the photoplay production is due to the resourcefulness and inventive genius of the camera man. This fact demonstrated itself during the filming of “The Four Horsemen” when John Seitz, chief cameraman of the Rex Ingram Unit resorted to unusual and entirely original means to obtain desired screen illusions. Many specially perfected photographic devices were utilized and again Mr. Seitz has brought them into exclusive use for Metro’s latest Ingram directed special “The Conquering Power”. In addition, a new method of registering vison scenes where ghostly or transparent figures are required, was perfected and which revolutionizes the filming of those episodes to a point of effectiveness never before attained. The cruder, methods of double exposure, often more or less bungling until retaken again and again have been eliminated. One scene in “The Conquering Power” where imprisoned miserly Grandet is visited by spirit forms of those whom he wrong, borders on the uncanny and intensified a hundredfold by this new camera device. It is innovations of this kind that help to make big pictures and “The Conquering Power” is in every sense of the term ‘a big picture’. Reviewers are wont to say that Rex Ingram has given to the motion picture world a real rival to “The Four Horsemen” from the standpoint of impressive character portrayals. Artistic treatment and scenic investiture.