Jon Mirsalis on Piano Tonight's program of early silents begins with four very brief Bay Area films which, while lost on nitrate, survive as "paper prints"--photographic images printed on strips of paper the same size and length as the film. Originally deposited at the Library of Congress for copyright protection before provisions for motion pictures were introduced in 1912, they have been reconverted back into film, and are shown here in 16mm prints. Panoramic View of Mt. Tamalpais Between Bow Knot and McKinley Cut (1902, Edison), Over Route of Roosevelt Parade in an Automobile (1903, Biograph), President Reviewing School Children (1903, Biograph), and Scenes in San Francisco (1906, Biograph). Next will be two remarkable fictional films on the trials of working women in New York City. A Child of the Ghetto, a D.W. Griffith one-reeler from 1910, features some documentary-style hidden-camera location work on New York streets within a traditional tale pitting urban hardship against bucolic country life. Tonight's new 35mm print was made earlier this year from the original paper print in collaboration with the UCLA Film Archives. Finally, a new print of the very early feature-length (6 reel) exposé of "white slavery," Traffic in Souls, will have its debut here tonight. Known by reputation for its exploitative subject, the 1913 film holds up with a surprisingly sophisticated, rapid-cut style, with more fine location scenes, and only occasionally slips into unintentionally hilarious melodrama. The domestic routines of two sisters working in a candy shop are disrupted when one takes up with "the most infamous type of man." Newspapers cash in on her disappearance: "Is it possible that our candy stores can be used as a market for this infamous traffic?" Ostensibly based on a Rockefeller Commission report into "the barter of women," Traffic in Souls stirred a censorship controversy over the subjects suitable for "picturization." Moving Picture World began its notice with typical portentiousness: "It is with no light heart that a reviewer of motion pictures with an ordinary sense of responsibility can approach this production." Scott Simmon