Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

362 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XIX. No. 8 "Props" Turns Opera Critic for Night Sees "Thais" When Mary Garden Gives Him Ticket and "Pans" Show — Says Picture Has It Beaten to Death they'd let you stand in the wings or the. little box where the fellow waves the stick. By WM. B. ("PROPS") MAGINN I AM asked by Mary Garden, having been her chief property man while she was in the movies, to see how she works in the opera of "Thais," she having sent me a ticket which was far back I could not see much but I heard a whole lot, and as a result I am willing to admit that Mary Garden is every bit as good as her movie press agent says she it and that is pretty blame good. Mary, as we call her at the studio, reaches lyric "heights hitherto unfathomed in singing this great and sensational part for the opera, but the opera has got things kind of twisted. For instance the monk, which in the movies has the name Paphnutius, is named Athanael for the opera probably because his regular name is to hard for people to understand in singing and instead of having the big temptation scene in Thais' boudoir they have got her vamping him in his front yard right before a whole party of fellows and girls dressed up for dancing and singing and laughing right while the temptation is being done. The opera has got some movie stunts, but the conductor as the director is called can learn many things from the pictures. For instance the opera has got a double exposure showing Paphnutius (called Athanael) on his couch in the retreat of the monks and dreaming about Thais that has got bum lighting and the dancing is punk. While I was there the electrician forgot to turn on the lights and his honor the Monk had a dark dream for a few minutes till everybody laughed so loud the electrician must of woke up because he throws on the Kliegs in a hurry. And they have got a little box on the front of -'the stage all lighted up and a fellow in it waves a little stick at the actors and even in the dark scenes a little light shines out from this little box. You can imagine what a movie electrician would catch for a bull like that, oh Boy! The fellow singing the subtitles for Paphnutius (called Athanael) conversation is a baritone, but has not got the figure Hamilton Revelle has. I bet if Ham, as we call him at the studio, could sing he could take this fellow Dufranne's job and make good. I guess Mary, as we all call her, must have sent him a ticket too, because there he was in a seat big as life and twice as natural wearing a full dress suit that certainly looks as if it belongs to him. The opera has got its good points such as the scene in the desert, where Thais and the Monk sing songs about the sprinkling pot when Thais is awful thirsty and doesn't want to wait to have a drink. I know what I like and that duet is swell all right because I almost cried. But it's got little nuisances, too. For instance there was a fellow sitting next to me kept saying over and over to himself, "Magna feek, magna feek," and a lady sitting on the other side has a pocket flask she uses to look at the liberetto and which like to drove me nutty when Mary was dying under a tree that would make a movie director holler for the stage carpenter to be fired quick before he gets apoplexy and croaks right on the set. And the billings says a lyric romance in three acts and the blame thing has got four and it lasts till blame near twelve o'clock and I hear a gray haired old lady saying she pays a $1.10 to stand up in the aisle and can't sit down because somebody will grab up her standing room. But oh Boy, Mary is some vamp and she wears the same frank costumes in the opera as in the movies, which ought to be worth a $1.10 for standing room if Exhibitors Eager to Show "Doctor and Woman" Twenty prints of "The Doctor and the Woman" have been ordered by the New York branch of Jewel Productions, Inc., as the result of requests for bookings that have already been forthcoming from exhibitors. Announced as the companion picture to "The Price of a Good Time," the newest Jewel release has aroused the interest of exhibitors who ran its predecessor. Both were produced by Lois Weber and feature Mildred Harris. According to Harry M. Berman, sales manager of the Jewel organization, the picture will be released March 4 and every effort will be made to have all the first run houses in the New York territory show it within the thirty days that follow. Dustin Farnum a Producer Dustin Farnum has formed his own film concern with Harry Sherman in Los Angeles. It will be known as Sherman Pictures, Inc. The pictures will be known under the brand of Dustin Farnum Feature Plays. Madge Kennedy talking to one of her "husbands" in her Goldwyn picture, "Our Little Wife."