Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

52 MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 1, 1927 Colleen Moore Colleen Moore’s production plans for the remainder of the 192627 film season and for the 192728 season to follow, have been decided upon by John McCormick, producer of her pictures. In making the announcement McCormick made it clear that Miss Moore’s program will consist chiefly of comedy. Production for the new year will start off with “Naughty But Nice,” an adaptation of the stage farce, “Miss George Washington.’ The story is laid in a girls’ finishing school in the East. In this production McCormick has promised to inject new blood, both in direction and supporting cast. He is searching the field and expects to announce both a new director and a new leading man. The next picture will be “Oh, What a Life!” This will be an adaptation of A. H. Giebler’s original story, which sets forth the experiences of a girl member of an itinerant theatrical troupe. Later in the story the girl becomes a printer’s “devil” in a small town newspaper office. These two pictures will complete the star’s 1926-27 series, and an unusually lavish picture will start the 1927-28 group, according to McCormick, plans for which will be made known when pending arrangements have been completed. Miss Moore is now enjoying her first rest in nine months following the completion of “Orchids and Ermine,” a comedy of modern life in New York City. It was an original story by Carey Wilson, who also made the adaptation. Alfred Santell directed. John Gorman Produces and Builds His Own Pictures A MAN who has been a producer for every one of the •twelve years of his time in the motion picture industry may appeal to the average reader as being somewhat unusual, since most of the producers that we know are men who have made various attempts in other phases of this industry before reaching the executive peak of picture making. However, a producer who has never hired a press agent, a director, a scenario writer, or continuity man, and who, nevertheless, has been able to produce and market fifty-two productions, is the type of man in the motion picture industry who most readers will concede to be in a class all by himself. However, this distinction goes to John Gorman, the head and “the works” of John Gorman Pictures at 6066 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California. “Yes,” Mr. Gorman told us, “I even write my own original stories. I have not purchased a story since I started producing pictures twelve years ago. Since that time up to date, I have written fifty-two original stories. I have adapted them to the screen myself, writing the scenarios unassisted, wielding the megaphone, titling the picture and supervising it when it reached the cutting room. In fact I have done practically everything except projecting my pictures in the theatres of American exhibitors.” Mr. Gorman said that writing just seems to have been a natural gift with him. He said that prior to getting in the picture game, he wrote 250 vaudeville acts. One of these, he said, is “Days of Sixty-one,” which he wrote twenty years ago and which he said is playing today. “In the picture business I have never worked for anyone or any organization,” declared Mr. Gorman. “I have always been independent for Independents. I have never made anything but features and I have made fifty of these during the past twelve years. “My American Gentleman,” “Painted Flapper,” “Little Orphan,” and “Why Women Remarry,” have spoken for themselves at the box office and need no enunciation from me. As to the stars I have had some of the best under my own direction, including Milton Sills, James Kirkwood, Catherine Miller, Claire Adams, Vola Vale, Eliott Dexter, Edith Roberts and Mahlon Plamilton.” We asked Mr. Gorman how he enjoyed writing his own stories. He replied: “I spend months writing a story. I never use a typewriter myself. I always dictate the theme. Quite often I have revised my story as many as fifty and sixty times. Having written the story and the scenario, I feel that I am better fitted to direct its translation to the screen than any other man. In fact I do everything in connection with my productions except distribute them, and for that purpose I have my own special agents, headed by Louis T. Rogers, who is located at 220 W. 42nd Street, New York City. So far as the rest of the work goes, and as an instance of the detail which I personally do, here is an example. ...” and Mr. Gorman handed us a voluminous press sheet on one of his latest releases — “Home, Sweet Home.” “This picture,” Mr. Gorman said, “is the first of a series of four which I will release during 1927.” It features Mahlon Hamilton, Vola Vale and Hugh Allen. The 1927 series are described by Mr. Gorman as Society Comedy-Dramas. The theme of “Home, Sweet Home,” he said, compares the home of yesterday with the home of today. The second of the Gorman 1927 series is entitled “A Broadway Drifter.” It also features Hamilton and Miss Vale. Incidentally Gorman announces that he has Hamilton under contract for one year, while he has contracted for the services of Miss Vale for a period of three years. The second picture will be distributed on March 15, he announces. The third picture also features Hamilton and Miss Vale and is entitled “Morals of ToDay.” Gorman describes it as his interpretation of the “mad jazz age.” Mr. Gorman terminated the interview by stating : “Every picture I have made has proven a success financially to myself, the distributor and the exhibitor. I spend on an average of $35,000 for each feature picture which I make. If I had to engage a director, a press agent, scenario writer, a continuity man, a titler and a thousand and one others which Providence has enabled me to do without, I figure the cost of such productions quite conservatively at no less than $75,000.” Rork’s Latest Picture Soon To Be Finished Sam E. Rork’s latest production, “The Notorious Lady,” with Lewis Stone, Barbara Bedford and Ann Rork, will be completed, according to present schedule, about the middle of January for a First National release early this Spring. First scenes, interiors at the First National Studios in Burbank, Cal., and on the river bottom back of the studios, were taken early in December; then the Rork unit moved to Balboa, near Laguna, Cal. After Christmas, the company removes to location 28 miles from Needles, Arizona. The exteriors are along the Colorado River with the mountains and desert plateau for the background. Several hundred negroes, men and women, are involved in the action on the river. They are Africans and the location is supposed to be on a river in the depths of Africa. A tent city has been constructed on the Colorado River and, among incidentals, was the construction of a boat to handle fifty or more persons. It was impossible to get a boat and the Rork company had one built on the desert scene. Lumber and machinery and other equipment was, of course, hauled from Needles over the desert roads. “The Notorious Lady” was adapted from the stage success, “The River,” which was the work of Patrick Hastings. Jane Murfin, remembered as co-author with Jane Cowl of “Smilin’ Through,” “Lilac Time” and other stage and screen successes, adapted “The River” and prepared the continuity of “The Notorious Lady.” George O’Brien, the athletic Fox star, playing in “Is Zat So?”