Camera - April 14, 1923 to February 16, 1924 (April 1923-February 1924)

Page Eight "The Digest of the Motion Picture Industry' CAMERA I From . ypewriter's Click to Camera's Click By PETE SMITH A bathing suit. A letter of introduction. A Broadway stage success. All of these have been the medium by which pretty girls have gotten onto the screen. But Mario Campbell chose a typewriter. She told about it yesterday between scenes at the United studios where she is doing her first bit in Maurice Tourneur's "The Brass Bottle." "I had four years coaching in dramatics when I was in the Waco High School," she said. "I took part in all of the high school plays and later in dramatic society presentations at the University of Minnesota. My teachers all urged me to go on the stage or the screen. "Girls who had tried told me how hard it was to attract attention in Hollywood; told me of the tens of thousands of extras striving to exist on a day or two of work a week. I resolved to wait until I had a plan. "I spent two years in Oklahoma as secretary to a bank president in Sepulpa, and a Y. W. C. A. secretary in Tulsa. Then one day I had an inspiration. That week I quit my job and came to Los Angeles." Once here Miss Campbell made the rounds of the studios, seeking a place as secretary to a studio executive. She got it. For two years Miss Campbell was secretary to M. C. Levee, president of the United studios. She made the acquaintance of producers and directors by the score. She handled scenarios. She watched pictures in the making. She became familiar with all departments of the studio, with all the details of production. Those were two bad years for pictures. There was little production. But Miss Campbell had a good salary. Business picked up. The script of "The Brass Bottle" passed through Miss Campbell's hands on its way to Mr. Levee. It had an opportunity in the part of the maid, for a beginner; an opportunity which would allow of recognition on the screen. Miss Campbell asked for a chance and got it. She left the typewriter for the make-up box. She has a bit, a good bit. She can get an audience with directors and producers. She has assurance of enough work to keep her busy. Her typewriter made a place on the screen for her. Calling Feminine Slackers Downright Parasites "Today there would be much less unhappiness and fewer divorces if the man who really loves his wife and daughters would, instead of trying to keep them in idleness as a sop to his own vanity, see to it that they do their share of constructive and interesting work. Thus did Idah McGlone Gibson, noted author and war correspondent, sum up her views of the modern domestic upheaval which is sending husbands and wives in veritable droves to the divorce courts throughout I lie laud. Mrs. Gibson was prompted to discuss the feminine slackers by the role her son, Kenneth Gibson, is playing in "Daytime Wives," an F. B. O. production which flays in scenes of stirring drama the pampered and petted wives of the rich who neglect their husbands and spend their time at bridge tables and jazz palaces where lowered lights and lounge lizards are the chief attraction. "Every foreigner who comes over here," continued Mrs. Gibson, "is greatly surprised to find that most American men consider it a disgrace to let the women of their households work. It is every man's ambition to make his wife and daughters only walking advertisements of his business acumen and prosperity. "Consequently, although she does not own it to herself, it is the ambition of every mother to marry her daughter to at least a limousine, if not a steam yacht, with all the accompanying appurtenances of great wealth. The man doesn't count very much, provided he has enough money to make greenback plasters for his deficiencies. "It has always seemed to me that those ancient writers of tradition who, when describing the lives of our first father and mother after they had, through idleness and its attendant vices, been expelled from the Garden of Eden, make a great mistake. "They intimated that work was a curse. 'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread until Ihou return to the ground,' was a part of the supposed curse put upon humanity. "It was not a curse, but a splendid privilege that God gave to man when He made hint earn his bread by work instead of picking up his sustenance from the foot of the tree. "To hear many a young married woman talk you would think that she was the most injured individual in all the world because she is made to do her own housework when she is married. "She rails against the fate that made her tall in love with a poor man, or rather the fate that did not put her in a position where she could meet a man — any kind of a man — as long as he had money. "There is no reason why a healthy young woman should not keep her part of a bargain and do her own housework. It should make any housewife blush when she tells of her martyrdom in keeping a house comfortable for her husband. "The idle young woman of today has little interest in her house either before or after marriage and her parents are more to blame than she is for this state of affairs. "These parenls who make such great sacrifices to keep their daughters in idleness have not been kind to them for there is no more reason why a young woman should be a slacker than a man. "The war did one thing that illumined the false idea regarding women's physical strength and real working capacity. It showed that a healthy young woman was as capable of hard work as a healthy young man. "She found that working in the fields was a splendid health-giving exercise. She took men's places in every branch of endeavor and made good with little effort." M ovies and Millions — They Go Together The day when a producer may spend as much as a million and a half dollars, and wisely, on a single picture, is approaching in the opinion of Joseph M. Schenck, film magnate, whose stupendous expenditures as producer of Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge and Buster Keaton photoplays in the past, give weight to his predictions. Picture expenditures, thinks Schenck, is "in its infancy." Mr. Schenck at present is spending more than hall a million dollars on one picture, "Ashes of Vengeance." One scene in this sixteenth century French costume drama cost more than $100,000 to build and film. "The expenditure on superproductions is not going to stop within the limits of the capacity of the cinema to get results," says Schenck. "A picture is worth every cent the returns justify." Schenck was one of the few producers bold enough to declare publicly that "Doug." Fairbanks was justified in spending a million on "Robin Hood" if it showed in results. Schenck looks forward to the time when superfilms will enjoy continuous runs of two and three years, like the biggest of the stage successes. A new era in the showing of pictures is at hand, according to the producer of Talmadge and Keaton films. An era when the real big films will play the big city theatres from three months to a year or more and then be taken on the road like stage plays. Ordinary program pictures then will have their first runs at neighborhood picture houses. Of course these great "more than a million" productions will necessitate the chargiiil < * i higher prices of admission. "There's no need to worry about the public's willingness to pay such higher prices," says Schenck. "It already has demonstrated its willingness to pay higher for superior things in films." "In spite of the thousands of screen actors that have been developed, there is a scarcity of real talent," he says. "Perhaps there always will be, because the screen « more exacting than the stage in the appearance of actors. On the stage a woman of 35 may very well make up to create the illusion of 20. But that can't be done on the screen, and so we are robbed of the experience of years when we must have a girl of 20 play a character of her own age." The technical advancement of the films has outstripped the other branches, and the producer expects that further development must come more gradually.