Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

January 8, 1927 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 113 Who’s Who In “The Fire Brigade” The Star Director Cameraman The Extra CHARLES RAY TO the motion picture fan, Charles Ray battling the flames, now being nearly buried with falling plaster, again being drenched with the full volume of a fire hose, crawling over a flaming roof to rescue a child and actually leaping sixty feet from a window sill to a fireman’s net, will be the greatest Charles Ray that has even been seen on the screen. But Ray told us personally that the daring part of his role in “The Fire Brigade’’ or the conflagration scene appealed to him as the individual actor as insignificant compared to the deft touches of pathos and comedy whch he experienced while the cameras were grinding on the set of O’Neill’s home. “Any actor can undergo a slight scorching and have a certin amount of material fall upon him,” Ray laughed. “That all depends upon his individual strength — not so much his talent. Any stunt man can jump into a fireman’s net, but it takes years of practice and experience in acting to portray the family scenes which were filmed early in the production of ‘The Fire Brigade.’ “I will say, though, that I hesitated when the firemen told me to jump from the second story. The flames around me then were getting so warm that I had to pull my hat over my face and keep my hands in my pockets in order to save myself from getting scorched. There is no doubt but that this was my most precarious role and that “The Fire Brigade” is the most costly and realistically produced picture based on a fire theme that has ever been made. “The WILL NIGH '"THEY can’t praise Will Nigh 1 too highly in the MetroGoldwyn-Mayer studios these days for his work on “The Fire Brigade.” In fact, this epic of the heroes of peace is already being categoried with “The Big Parade,” which is the corporation’s epic of war heroes. “The Fire Brigade” is Nigh’s first big directorial accomplishment for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer It is the first picture which he made on the Coast and it is the second special production which he has directed since he brought to the screen in 1915 Ambassador Gerard’s “My Four Years in Germany.” We located Nigh busily engrossed in directing Louise Dresser in a sequence in “Mr. Wt>,’ Lon Chaney’s next starring vehicle. Even at that, Mr. Nigh found a few moments to brush aside the weird Chinese theme, to describe “The Fire Brigade” as “great.” Nigh, we learned, spent a number of twenty four hour days on “The Fire Brigade.” Not all his energies were concentrated on the conflagration scene. Many of the other sequences in the modest home of the firefighting O’Neills, called for an unusual appreciation of comedy and drama. Nigh’s skill in the latter respect was already in the embryo when he graduated from the University of California. Later it was fully developed by long association with David Belasco. Nigh spent considerable time assembling his able cast, headed by May McAvoy and Charles Ray. JOHN ARNOLD JOHN ARNOLD considers some of the scenes he photographed in “The Fire Brigade” even more difficult than those in “The Big Parade.” As chief cameraman, Arnold said the toughest job of his career was on the night the fouralarm fire in this screen epic of firemen was filmed in Culver City. Arnold had to pack his camera in the rear of a highpowered car and chase fire trucks through the City of Los Angeles as they were summoned to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. One of the most difficult “shots” is that showing a race between a modern motor hook and ladder and an old-fashioned horse-drawn steam chariot. When his work in the city was completed and all of the fire apparatus was grouped in front and to the sides of the burning orphanage, Arnold and fortynine other cameramen set their instruments in every angle so as not to miss a single bit of the action of Chief Scott’s men and Director Nigh’s actors rushing into the flaming building and rescuing fourteen hundred orphans. Arnold was born in New York City and commenced his film career with the old World Film Company. He has been in the motion picture game for exactly twelve years, the greater part of which he has been with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation, formerly the old Metro Company. Between 1921 and 1925, Arnold has to his credit the photography of thirty-five feature pictures. FIRE CHIEF SCOTT WE put Fire Chief Scot* in this column, not because we are taking advantage of his modesty, but primarily because we want readers of Moving Picture World to see a real star of the big Los Angeles Fire Department and also because his starring ' qualities of goodwill and material co-operation made it possible for Metro-GoldwynMayer to portray the lives of firemen on the screen with real firemen in the roles. Chief Scott rarely missed a day during the entire “shooting” on “The Fire Brigade.” He has previewed the picture and has placed his O. K. on it as possessing everything technically correct, so far as the lives of firefighters are concerned. “I think it is the greatest picture that was ever produced,” Chief Scott told us. “I think that it will prove to be the greatest medium for instructing people in the simple principal of safeguarding against fires that has ever been promoted. The picture truly tells what a fireman is daily experiencing.” Chief Scott is by no means a novice in pictures. In 1919 he recalls appearing in a picture produced by the late Thomas EL Ince. The Chief, however, said that there is no comparison between that work and his work in “The Fire Brigade,” since he had with him at that time not more than a handful of men, while at the Culver City conflagration he had under his command forty of the sixty-five companies constituting the Fire Department in Los Angeles. Fire Brigade” and Its Personnel