The Melies Company has laid out its route around the globe with a view to thoroughness and with an artist's eye for picturesqueness. Right here one very striking and unique merit of their plan ought to be pointed out. Their films will not merely portray a succession of native dances and customs and pretty bits of scenery. Of that sort of thing we have had our fill in books and slides and many of us tire of it rather easily. The Melies Company has hit upon a scheme which must make every inch of these films humanly and genuinely interesting and thoroughly acceptable, not only to schools and educational institutions, but to the average patron of the motion picture theater. I feel I am not stating the case strongly enough. The way the Melies Company has dealt with this tremendous subject will make the pictures not merely acceptable, but eagerly sought after and welcomed. They will show us the lands and lives of the races and nations of the world by enacting their stories and ballads and traditions. In this way we will be able to look into the very hearts of the people. We will see how they have met the questions that confront our common humanity. The character of a people is best shown by its songs, its poetry, its legends. Add to this the true background, as fashioned by the hand of Nature, and I for one am willing to trade a hundred volumes on ethnography for these films and think myself the gainer. These pictures show us the substance of things, of which the form is but the shadow. There will be a modern touch here and there before the series is completed for in these days even the remotest corners of the earth are brought into some contact or other with the more complex civilization of the white men and it is surely within the province of the motion picture to show such relations. There are touches of humor and pathos in these meetings between the primitive and the organized races of the earth, and these are well brought out m the pictures. The general plan, however, will be to seize the characteristic legends of the country and tell the people's story by means of them. A most promising beginning has been made in this first reel: "A Ballad of the South Seas." This reel makes us hunger for more of the same kind and more are promised. It would be hard to single out any one scene as being especially fine, but I could not help admiring the fleet of war canoes, the sweet naturalness of the heroine, who is a native belle and who never tried to ''act," the luxuriant vegetation and the work of the two members of the Melies Company with whom the natives worked in such charming and intelligent co-operation and harmony. The work of titling the reel has been done very cleverly and must add to the other merits of the production. The titles retain some of the Tahitian text of the legend and as this simple tongue consists mostly of vowels a very pretty touch of originality is felt by the reader. The English titles and quotations are clear and in happy poetic vein. It is not too much to say, that this globe-encircling enterprise is the biggest undertaking in kinematographic travel. Properly advertised and presented it ought to be a boon to every exhibitor. The Melies Company may be sure of the best wishes of every true friend of the motion picture in its further progress. - The Moving Picture World, January 18, 1913