Camera! (April 1919-April 1920)

CAMERA .' 'The Digest of the Motion Picture Industr])" Page Three PRODUCTION NOTES AMONG STUDIOS WEEK BEGINNING TODAY TO NEW YORK FOR PREMIERE Tod Browning, director; Priscilla Dean, star, and H. H. Van Loan, author, respectively, of "The Virgin of Stamboul," which is being produced at Universal City, have arranged to go to New York when the special feature production is shown on Broadway for the first time. Other members of the party will be Miss Dean's mother and Mrs. Van Loan. The star, who enacts the role of a Turkish beggar girl in the Van Loan play, will make several public appearances while there, the first of which will be at the premiere production of the big picture. SIMPSON GETS BIG STORY Russell Simpson, who some weeks ago delegated the popular scenarioist, Louis Stevens, to write a snow story, is now in receipt of the script. If Simpson decides to produce this picture it will be a big feather in the prolific scribe's cap, not to mention the glorj' to be aquired by Russell. Anita Stewart's next picture will be "The Yellow Typhoon," from Harold McGrath's story which ran serially in the Saturday Evening Post. It will be directed by Edward Jose. The King W. Vidor Company is on location at Sunland this week, where scenes are being taken for Vidor's first picture for the First National Exhibitors' Circuit, temporarily titled "The Family Honor." Among the featured players already at work under Mr. Vidor's direction are Florence Vidor, Roscoe Karns, Charles Meredith and Harold Goodwin. Other notable names are to be added. Mae Allyn has completed her engage with Mary Fickford and is now playing leads with the C. & M. Film Company. The title of Warren Kerrigan's new picture, in which he will have the cooperation for the sixth time of Fritzie Brunette as his leading lady, is "One Week-end." It is a lively comedy of New York society life from the pen of Wyhan Martyn. Pending the completion of her permanent arrangements, Elinor Fair, the young Fox star who recently concluded her engagement with that company, has consented to appear in an all-star cast assembled for an important production by the Universal company. Besides Miss Fair the play will include Frank Mayo, Claire Anderson and David Butler. According to Frank E. Woods, supervising director, the Famous PlayersLasky schedule for 1920 contemplates the most important and ambitious list of plays in the history of the concern. Additional companies are to be Installed in the enlarged plant. In carrying out the "fewer and better pictures" program the time limit Is to be removed from directors and a generous additional allowance for expense on each picture is to be made. The film rights of David Belasco's successful play, "Polly With a Past," have been purchased by Metro. It's the story of the rise of a chorus girl. Charles Ray is about to begin the making of his last picture under his contract with Ince-Paramount. At the end of other month Ray will put behind him the hard grind at the studio and spend a few weeks in and around New York getting a relaxation after a year of the most strenuous effort. In order to hasten the day of his freedom to go into independent productions, this popular actor has worked night and day for months, and a rest after the strain is imperative. The American Ambition Association, an eastern organization that la fostered by a leading magazine, has appointed Bessie Love "National Patroness" of the society. BRUNO BECKER EAST Bruno J. Becker, general manager of the Gale Henry comedy company, writes from New York, where he went to attend an important meeting of the Bulls Eye Film Corporation officials, that New York may have its charms, but he's very anxious to get back to sunny California. The first night in the eastern city. General Manager Becker states, he got caught in a terrible snowstorm, lost his way to the hotel and the next day spent most of his time nursing a pair of frost-bitten ears. On his return to the coast he will visit film exchanges west of Chicago that are handling the Gale Henry comedies. He is expected back to Los Angeles about the middle of February. TO ARIZONA During the production of "The Red Terror," the Van Loan story in which Tom Mix is to be starred, the company will spend two weeks in the silver mining region of Arizona for the western scenes, which furnish a number of real thrills in the picture. TITLES Morris R. Schlank, producer of the Hank Mann comedies, announces the titles of the first three two-reel comedies featuring Hank now ready for distribution. They are "Broken Bubbles," "Paper, Paste and Poultry," and "A Roaming Romeo." They will be marketed on the state right basis by Arrow. Director Henry King, who has just completed "The White Dove" for Jesse D. Hampton, with H. B. Warner as the star, says that the child actress, Virginia Lee Corbin, has a serious role in the play. Heretofore this prodigy, who, by the way, began her career under the tutelage of Mr. King, has always played parts of distinctly humorous nature. Virginia was borrowed from the Fox company for the part. HERE FROM NEW YORK W. E. Shallenberger, president of the Arrow Fii'm Corporation, New York, has arrived in Los Angeles to visit producers who release their subjects through his concern. This marks his first Tl'ip to the coast, and as he stepped from the train at the depot more than a score of friends were on hand to greet him, including the Hank Mann bathing girls. Hank Mann and Morris R. Schlank, producer of the Mann comedies. During his stay in this city President Shallenberger will be the guest of Morris R. Schlank. From Rhode Island, where she spent a happy Christmas and New Year's with her childhood playmates, Ruth Clifford has gone to Florida to make several important scenes for the serial in which she is being starred by the Frohman Amusement Corporation. The work on the serial is nearing its final stages and the novelty promised for it has excited no little anticipation in the film world. THE CRITERION CO. The Criterion Company is a new company just forming, it is headed by Cash Darrell, an old "Coast Defender'' and dramatic stock man, with a few years in the pictures to his credit. The company is to produce two and three reel comedies and comedydramas. They arc capitalizing at a hundred thousand dollars, and are offering only enough shares to cover the cost of production of the first picture. JOINED BRUNTON Wycliffe A. Hill, author of "Ten Million Photoplay Plots," has joined the staff of the B. B. Hampton Company, at the Brunton Studio. He Is adapting several famous novels to the CALIFORNIA STORY Charles E. Whittaker is at present busily engaged in making a screen adaptation of the novel, "The Soul of Rafael," by Marah Ellis Ryan, who is now living at Eagle Rock. Clara Kimball Young will star in this production. Mrs. Ryan wrote a great part of her book in the famous Mission of San Juan Capistrano. Into this fascinating story is woven the atmosphere of Old California in the days just after the Golden State was taken into the Union. Before coming to America, Mr. Whittaker, the creator of many successes in the screen drama, was chief of staff of the British War Refugees Committee, and as a result of arduous service in this capacity suffered a complete physical collapse, which brought him to this country to recuperate. Taking up the writing of screen stories first as a recreation, he soon found himself engaged in it as a serious profession. The final scenes of "Let's Be Fashionable," the fourth Thomas H. Ince production co-starring Douglas MacLean and Doris May, have been completed, and the picture is now in the cutting room, where it is being edited prior to the final showing before Mr. Ince. The story, by Mildred Considine and picturized by Luther Reed, tells of the happenings of a newly married couple who move into a fashionable New York suburb, where they attempt to break through the so-called upper crust, resulting in a series of complications and situations which make for the kind of comedy made famous by this team in "Twenty-three and a Half Hours' Leave." The next picture to be made by Douglas MacLean and Doris May is from the pen of Julien Josephson announced under the working title of "Shakespeare Clancy." Casting Director Freddy Fralick is busy selecting the supporting cast, and it is expected that rehearsals will start the latter part of this week. Tom Wilson has been engaged to play the part of a comedy house detective in Marshall Neilan's latest production, "Never Get Married," now being filmed at the Douglas Fairbanks studios. Wilson plays the part of the negro servant in D. W. Griffith's "The Greatest Question." The sixth episode of the new Eddie Polo serial thriller, "The Vanishing Dagger," is nearing completion at Universal under the direction of the 'star. The chapter will be finished within the next ten days. Work on a new Eric von Strohiem production for Universal has been delayed temporarily pending the company's success in obtaining the screen rights to "McTeague," Frank Norris' famous story of San Francisco. Gibson Gowland is to play the title role. Frederick Bennett, author of "The Radium Mystery," "The Lost Express" and several comedies, including "The Desert Hero" and "The Banker," featuring Arbuckle, has been engaged by Morris R. Schlank, producer of the Hank Mann comedies, to write fwo-reel stories for Hank. Gale Henry this week started work on the twenty-fourth of her series of 26 two-reel comedies for Bulls Eye under the direction of Tom Gibson. The working title is "The Leak of Rations." The supporting cast includes Billy Franey, Hap H. Ward, Phylla Allen, George Jeske and Mavis Humphrey. "The Woman in Room 13," which Frank Lloyd has just completed for Goldwyn with Pauline Frederick as the star, will reintroduce to the screen Marguerite Snow, who has been absent from the films for a few years. Sidney Alnsworth and Emily Chichester have Important parts in this play, which is about ready for release. MABEL NORMAND Goldwyn Star