Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS 19 Willie is persuaded to join the Eneckva, a secret society, meeting in the basement of an old church in the outskirts of the town. He makes an impassioned address and immediately is recognized as a leader in the society. In the meantime his parents are experiencing still worse persecutions in the village to which they go, and finally his father is killed by Cossacks. The grief-stricken mother writes the sad news to Willie. On receipt of the letter he is greatly excited, and at a secret meeting of the Eneckva he stirs the boys to great enthusiasm, urging them to do something against the officials who persecute, plunder and kill their parents. Officers ransack Willie's room and find law-defying literature. Willie and two other boys are arrested and taken to jail, from which they escape in a thrilling manner down a high, rocky cliff. Willie, eluding searchers, makes his way to the home of his mother, and tells her he must flee from the country. His mother hides his student uniform and gives him a peasant's suit, and he starts for America, where he arrives after many days of anxiety for fear he might be apprehended by the police. After days of fear of deportation, Willie finally is permitted to land in free America and make his way to Salt Lake City, where his uncle is in business. His conception of law and authority, formed in a land of persecution, making him look upon all legal restraint as oppressive, soon leads him to protest against school rules, the authority of the teacher, the dictation of his uncle and aunt, to say nothing about defying community-made laws. He finally leaves home and becomes a newsboy, a street wanderer, a frequenter of poolrooms, and a member of a rough gang of boys. The principal of the school writes to Judge Willis Brown, of the Juvenile (Parental) Court in Salt Lake City, telling him that Willie is beyond her control and must hereafter come under the jurisdiction of his court. The first meeting of Judge Brown and Willie occurs on a street corner. Willie is smoking a cigarette in defiance of the state law. The young gangster is surprised that the Judge does not exercise the authority he possesses, but instead talks to him in a friendly manner. He has continually refused to accompany his aunt to see the Judge, and this striking illustration of the Judge's methods greatly puzzles the boy. Finally Willie, with a crowd of boys is found in a poolroom, and all of the boys, together with the proprietor, are taken to. Judge Brown's office. The scene of the Judge punishing the pool room proprietor for debauching boys and encouraging them to disobey law; the surrender by the boys of all their tobacco, and their frank confessions to this Judge, of whom they were not afraid and to whom they would not lie, is a matter of great interest and surprise to Willie. Judge Brown interests progressive women of Salt Lake City in the need of moral education for boys rather than punishment in a reform school. The women respond liberally and present to him an 800-acre farm to be used as a place where boys might have an opportunity to grow right — one of the most practical reform institutions ever founded in the United States. The Judge gathers up eighteen of these misunderstood boys, Willie among them, and drives with them to the farm where they will build the City of Boys. And now comes the building up of this boy-run municipality in the Western canyon; the making of a real Boy City, and the running of a boy farm. Willie Eckstein is elected Mayor — the first Mayor of the first Boy City. What happens to the boy that will not work, the real conduct of the farm, the payment for labor and for board in real money actually earned, the business of the bank, the amusements, the unusual real life which actually happens in this first Boy City, adds greatly and instructively to this true story. Willie's development, his changed attitude toward law when he is put in the actual game of living, is so marked that Judge Brown sends him to an Eastern college. Later, in the State University of Missouri, Willie takes up the agricultural course. One day he receives a letter from the Judge informing him that he has purchased a farm and that as soon as the University term ends he may have the position of manager. Willingly he accepts. Then comes naturalization. Willie becomes a fullfledged American citizen and voter. During the period of Willie's development into American citizenship his mother is struggling along in distant Russia. The boy assists her as much as he can from his scanty funds, after he has learned the wisdom of leading the better, law-abiding life. One evening, alone in his room in the country residence of Judge Brown, Willie writes to his mother, encloses the fortnightly money-order, and with it is sending his photograph. With satisfaction he rests in his easy chair pnd beholds a vision of the mother in the little home in far-off Russia, with the children about her, anxiously waiting for the letter from the absent boy across the sea. He imag:nes he sees the postman come, bringing the letter with the loving message, the money-order and the picture of the young American citizen — -her boy. The door opens and Judge Brown enters. Unheard by the dreaming young man, the Judge quietly approaches and places his hand on Willie's head. The Judge presses the boy's hands and tells him that trust and love and a square game will always win, and that his mission should be not only to live squarely because of those depending on him, but as an example for other boys; yes, and even for men and women who have not "found themselves." That is the big point in all of Judge Brown's wonderful work with boys. That is the big point in this true lifestory, with all of its excitement, its drama, its comedy, a really uplifting and thrilling true motion picture. It teaches people, boys and girls especially, how to find themselves, and that playing square and living fair is the only true road to happiness. Above all, it is a story of youth achievement, and youth is the one thing of universal appeal in art. in literature, in drama, and most of all in moving pictures. James Neill is producing "The Passer-By," by del Ruth, with J. Warren Kerrigan in the role of the PasserBy. He comes unheralded and goes unknown, and in between whiles he manages to complicate matters and straighten out some tangles. Warren Kerrigan has a part of which he makes the most. MISS GENE GAUNTIER Who has just returned from Ireland, where she produced a number of notable Irish threepart features which will be released through the programme of Warner's Features.