We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
O Henry had his Bagdad. It was . that great city of the East where lived the four million that he knew and loved. But 0. Henry also wrote stories of the West, placing them in almost as many different settings as there were tales. He was equally at home in all, this great master of American life; equally at home on the treeless plains of New Mexico ; among the chaparral hills in Texas that stretch down to the Rio Grande ; up in the pine-garmented mountains of Colorado; on the silent deserts of Arizona — in all these places he painted the life and the country with an unerring hand.
So when it was decided to portray in the silent drama the stories included in "The Heart of the West," the task to find one place where all the varied settings could be obtained was not an easy one. After a long search, Tucson, in southern Arizona, the oldest city of the Southwest, was selected as the stage. This was the one location that completely satisfied the exacting requirements of scenery, setting and picturesque border life demanded by the stories.
So well pleased is the Eclair Film Company with the work turned out by the Western company of players under the direction of Webster E. Cullison, that it has decided to make Tucson its permanent Western headquarters, to erect an expensive studio and to maintain four or five companies there. There will be about sixty players when the third company arrives from the East.
The advantages of Tucson to the Motion Picture impresario are nu
merous. First, there is the clear and dry atmosphere, entirely free of that condition known to the camera man as "static." This is a condition due to humidity and causes a shivering at places on the picture. The light is so splendidly strong that the inexperienced operator ruins negatives until he learns that all "stops" on the camera must be used for sunlight.
The sunlight of this region means money saved; for, back East, the working hours of a company are from
10
95
o'clock in the morning until 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, while at Tucson the director can keep his company before the camera from 9 :30 o 'clock until 6 o'clock — an advantage that means much on a field trip where there is lots of work to be accomplished. Because of the lack of rainy or cloudy weather, the working time for the year is almost three times that in the East. Back in New York the photoplay producers count on 100 outdoor working days; at
W