Motography (Jul-Sep 1916)

432 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XVI, No. 8. the torch was applied the entire street burst into flames and for a time threatened to get beyond control. At one side of the set stands a row of eucalyptus trees which reach at least sixty feet into the air. The topmost leaves of these trees are burned and the flames at times were leaping twenty feet beyond the top of the tallest of them. So hot did the fire become at times that Cameraman Sues was forced three times to move farther back with his camera. The flames for more than ten minutes were easily leaping a good hundred feet above the ground. Veteran Signs With World Little Madge Evans is an unspoiled child of the screen, although she has won numerous beauty contests for stage and screen children. The little star is as clever as she is dainty and has appeared in a number of important screen productions for the World Film C orporation. She was born in New York City seven years ago. She has played in London and throughout the English provinces, returni n g to this country to engage in motion picture work. Among her World Film appearances were "Old Dutch," "Bert Leveyette," "Over Night," and "The Ballet Girl." Following her engagement in "The Ballet Girl," Little Madge played a very important role in "Sudden Riches," where she had many opportunities to show her surprisingly well-developed dramatic talent and emotional expression. She is a child who bids fair to become one of the most prominent in the ingenue field in a few years. She will be seen in World Film productions exclusively for the next two years. Miss Madge Evans, a bright World twinklet. From Pulpit to Pictures Clarence J. Harris used to worry over Proverbs. Now he worries over plots for new 'scripts to be screened by William Fox directors, for Mr. Harris is one of the hardiest of the staff of Fox scenario writers. Mr. Harris is forty-three years old, and left the ministry after twenty years of active work. In the last three years that he has been writing scenarios, he has sold 275 reels to more than fifteen different producing companies. Now he lives in a comfortable Washington Heights apartment in New York City, instead of a parsonage in Oklahoma City. His first scenario was a story called "The Trail of the Lost Chord," written around Sir Arthur Sullivan's composition. The inspiration for this photoplay came. oddly enough, from the poet Browning. In connection with his pastoral work in Oklahoma City, where he had been in charge of the Unitarian congregation for three years, Mr. Harris was giving a course of lectures on the poet. "Abt Vogler" gave him an idea which developed into a fine two-reel drama. A year and a half after this scenario was sold, Clarence Harris' health broke down, as a result of six years of strenuous western missionary work. For months he could not use his voice, the screen became his mouthpiece ; and as pictures offered a wider, more congenial, and more profitable field, he adopted them permanently. MACK SENNETT TALKS Keystone Comedy King States Output Must Give First Place to Quality — Mabel Normand Feature Coming Mack Sennett, the man behind the Keystone products of fun films, has just returned to California from a business trip to New York where he conferred with the heads of the Triangle Film Corporation. No one in the film comedy field has solved the process of fun making to the extent that Sennett has. "Everybody likes to laugh," he says, and he has studied all the means of satisfying that very human desire via the films. "I want our pictures to keep people awake," said Mr. Sennett. And there is no doubt but that Keystone comedies perform that function. Sennett achieves his swift action by means of merciless scissors in the cutting room. Speed is his middle name. But quality is the first requisite at the Keystone fun factory. "We shall not increase our output," said the humor genius, "because if we did our quality might suffer, and I will never stand for that. We will cut down our footage before we will let that happen. It is getting harder and harder to make good comedies as people are getting more particular and good ideas are scarce. A good comedy means a great deal of time, money and patience." As for the market for Keystones, says Mr. Sennett : "It was never better than it is right now. Everybody likes to laugh and our only problem is to give them enough to laugh at. The foreign field is especially good, because comedies are always popular doing war times. What do you think that the soldier does when he comes home on leave? Does he sit around talking about war? No, the first thing he does is to ask where he can see a good comedy." Mr. Sennett is probably the only director in the business who has no desire to make a twelve-reel production. Even if he did film a multiple-reel, the lure of the scissors would prove too strong and he would clip it to 3,000 feet. Just now his pet production is the new Mabel Normand feature, now nearing completion. It is to be thoroughly a Keystone product — a Keystone story filmed by a Keystone director and featuring Keystone Mabel. But it is to be different. It will not contain any tricks or "rough stuff." It will run a natural length. It will lie distributed as a special feature. General Film Company's information department calls attention to the fact that in the General Film Service program August 14-19 inclusive, twenty-six noted stars appear in its productions.