Motography (Jan-Jun 1913)

156 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. IX, No. 5. they been invented then ; however, he has been an actor longer than that. Naturally he takes the part of an old man, though he doesn't look so old. However, by dint of making up he gets the proper effect. Another of those who can't play juvenile parts any more is Russell Bassett, aged 66. His record is 45 years an actor. He is the funny old man when you see him on the screen. He is the humorous father or perhaps the fat farmer who was so surprised at seeing his dude son come home from college he tipped over the pail of milk, then got mad and kicked the cow, also the son. Among the throbbing throng was discoverable Charles Murray, formerly of Murray & Mack. Mr. Murray says he has played everything up to date but a lizard. He and Jack Dillon, another comedian, together played a horse, and got a big laugh for the stunt — a horse laugh, maybe. Murray says it's great to be in the photoplay game. He's gained eighteen pounds in the open air and sunshine, and his beautiful wife, who is well known on the stage, watches him do funny things and laughs so much she says she is getting fat. You couldn't help seeing those wonderful children, Matty and Early. Two guesses are required to know, from the names, which is the boy and which the girl. The only violation of the anti-rag rule emanated from the active minds and was transferred to the radio-active persons of Matty, the boy, and Early, the girl. After a moment, however, the girl gave the boy a biff and said she had had enough. So much for the decorousness of it. Arthur Mackley is a villain. But, let it be added, only when he's being wound up in the moving picture reel for delivery to all parts of the habitable globe. There isn't a place on the several continents where they have enough enterprise to get a moving picture show that Mr. Mackley hasn't caused many an emotion of rage and hate, but he always gets "come up with." He was one of the most benign and genial men at the ball. To forget Fred Mace, president of the Photoplayers' Club and one of the most popular of moving picture comedians, would be an omission as serious as Mace is funny. He led the grand march with Miss Mabel Norman, a leading woman. It was a beautiful, not to say gorgeous, grand march, but Mr. Mace did not try to be funny. Miss Mary Charleson recently made a great hit — she is said to be always making them — by doing a picture all by herself, just she and her hat. She didn't have the hat this night, but the famous moving picture referred to couldn't have been any more effective than the one she made. Besides the photoplayers the audience comprised between 2,000 and 3,000 friends and spectators, and not half of those who came to dance could find room on the floor at the same time. The proceeds of the ball constitute the foundation for a fund which will be used to build a clubhouse for the actors belonging to the Photoplayers' A Reel Fable of Today By Watterson R. Rothacher Once upon a time a Wallingford Worshipper read the sunny side version of our Film Magnates' meteoric rise from the unrated to the Millionaires' Column and decided then and there that the Moving Picture Business was the It in profit. Right away he looked through glasses which magnified his customary Ten Per Cent twenty times and, by botany and a facile pen, figured that he could run his Bank Roll up to the Big Ones without even working up a perspiration. Two days of this dope and he was ripe. Just about this time our pregnant friend burned into an Ex-Employee who had shoved one of the Big Film Firms to the bankruptcy brink by "quitting" a twenty dollar per job at the Scenario Desk. The Ex-Employee having been in the Film Game more than a month, knew all about it, and having been out of it less than a week hadn't forgotten all he knew. Our Wallingford Worshipper was in Tune with the Infinite and they got together, verbally. The Ex-Employee was anxious to discard the Ex ; according to him all the Gold Pieces in circulation were cut out of Film and he knew where the cutting was good. Judging from his glib chatter "Bill" Selig, Carl Laemmle, George Spoor, the Two Pops and the rest of the Successful Filmers were mere Victims of Circumstance, and most of the Pictures in the Moving Picture Trade Journals were copies from Rogues Gallery originals. Compared with him the Anvil Chorus was as silent as a church on Monday morning and Ananias an amateur. The Wallingford AVorshipper was aghast to learn that Honest Men in the Film Business were about as plentiful as the Dodo in New Brunswick. He was amazed to hear that even the Durkins in the Game were pulling down a Three Figure Envelope. He absorbed such a dose of this Glittering Guff that after an hour of the treatment he bought the Bank of England and made a mind bet with Gates of an amount that called for a Special Currency Issue. And. the ExEmployee was still fresh and Going Strong. Several of the Worshipper's Friends who had known him in his sane days and who did not recognize the symptoms, fell for his Enticing Dreams and "wanted in." The result was the announcement of a New Film Manufacturing Company. Its offices were an extravagant copy of the best on Broad Street, and on paper its Stock made Standard Oil look like a Piking Proposition. The ExEmployee by this time had pawned the Ex, and had slips in the Cash Drawer. During his Moving Picture Experience he sat close to the "Information Desk," and was a small potato along with the other clock punchers. He was blissfully unmindful of the Important Rules in the game and was just a bit hazy as to whether the Patents Company was in the American or National League. He nursed the idea that the Mutual was an Insurance Scheme, and to .the best of his knowledge the Universal sold Cement ; he was absolutely certain that Film Supply was one of Eastman's Coaling Stations. There was nothing to it, he was Some Little Counsel. All this time the New Venture hadn't made a ripple in Film Circles. During one day the Wallingford Worshipper spent a month in New York trying to get a line on Things. He met all the Panhandlers and thousands of Breezy Floaters who sounded like the Ex-Employee who had been his Pathfinder. He found the Regular People too busy making Film to give him any time. Soon after his return to the Big Roll Top, dawn broke. The Employee wore the Ex again, and the Wallingford Worshipper, with his dream dissipated, and realizing that Nil stood for what he knew about the Film Business, changed the gold lettering on his doors and then and there became a Feature Film Man. Moral : We should worry and Make Film.