Moving Picture World (Nov - Dec 1918)

November 2, 1918 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD RUBBERNECKING IN FILMLAND ANOTHER big week in Filmland. A week that stretched the caoutchouc in inquisitve necks to the utmost notch. Another week of pictures mingled with patriotism and digging up dollars for democracy. A week that began on the night that Al Christie marched his Liberty Blondes into Central Park — and ended on the day that Senor I. N. Fluenza, accompanied by his two germy daughters, Sneezie and Hankie, descended on our fair city from the East, stopped the meetings in Central Park and closed every theatre in town as tight as the well known drum. Them blondes ! Twenty-five girls with golden hair, 22 karat, 14 carat, and a few just plain carrot, but not a bottle blonde among them. As the bevy was brought into the park the hirsute effulgence irradiating from their gilded heads lit up the scene like a torchlight parade. The beauteous creatures were taken up on top of the tank, introduced to the great throng, after which they took their places in bunches of twos and threes in the booths placed here and there in the park — and the bond sale that broke all previous records was on ! Whole Christie Crew on Deck. The Liberty Blondes were not the only attraction on Christie night, however. Doraldina, the dancer, was there; the girl stars from the William S. Hart studios; Francis Ford and his company, and, of course, the whole Christie crew, including Ethel Lynn, Eleanor Field, George French — and to top it all off, Bobby Vernon, who had left the Navy to take care of itself, came in from San Pedro Submarine Base looking nice and nifty in his sailor uniform. Saturday afternoon Sessue Hayakawa, his talented wife, Tsuru Aoki, and other members of the Haworth company, had charge of the tank, which was decorated after the Oriental manner and charmingly ornamented by a row of little Japanese kiddies in national costume, who sat perched on the ridge of the tank looking down in solemn gravity on the scene below. The crowd did not turn out as well on Saturday afternoons as they did at night, but the devoted little band labored mightily to sell bonds, and they sold them, too, sold them in bunches. That night Famous Players-Lasky took charge. With their large force they were able to fill all the booths with stars, and rolled up a total of more than a hundred thousand dollars. Ann Little, Lila Lee, Raymond Hatton, Wallace Reid, Vivian Martin, Constance Talmadge, Billy Elmer, Jack Mulhall, Theodore Roberts, Niles Welchall sold bonds in the booths and helped to entertain the crowd. McGaffey and Shirk Put On Bells. Cecil B. De Mille made a stirring speech, and, of course, K. McGaffey and Adam Hull Shirk, the efficient Publicity Department, were there with bells on. Sunday night was dark in Central Park, but it was not dark out in the tank town circuit, and Mary Miles Mmter on Tank Liberty sold over forty thousand dollars worth of bonds down in the neighborhood of Chino Cordova and Riverside, with Roy Stewart and Josie Sedgwick on Tank Democracy Los Angeles Correspondent Personally Conducts Our Readers Through the West Coast Studios By Giebler running them a neck-and-neck race at Monrovia and thereabouts. Monday night brought the Brunton studio forces to the tank in Central Park, and Dustin Farnum, Helen Keller, Kitty Gordon, Bessie Barriscale, Howard Hickman, Lillian Walker, Little Gloria Joy, Robert Brunton himself and others of the studio rolled up the biggest total of the entire drive. Dustin William Aids Bondselling. Dusty got right out in the crowd and hustled. He was here, there and everywhere. At ten o'clock I saw him in a booth holding a baby aloft. "Look here," he said to the crowd. "Look at Dustin William Carter, named after me and my brother Bill. He's only one year old, and he's bought a bond." And the crowd yelled their delight and came up and bought bonds for their babies. Again at midnight, while on my way to the telegraph office I stopped long enough to see Dusty helping to direct a crowd of people who had bought bonds while they were having their moving pictures taken. I stopped so long that time that I missed the owl car and had to walk home. Helen Keller Addresses Throng. Helen Keller, however, was the chief attraction at the tank on Monday night. Miss Keller had sent appeals to many people throughout the country to buy bonds through her, and the answers to her letters and telegrams were read to the crowd. A telegram from Secretary McAdoo, another from Adolph Lewisohn, besides a numbers of others, were read. Thirty-five thousand dollars were added to the war chests through her efforts. Miss Keller addressed the crowd in a it, in lung and logical appeal for help in winning the w i i eedom by bu bonds. It was a mi i see I liis woman talking in WOI could not hear to a multitude In could not see — a splendid commentary on the brain of tin woman herself and .t trib ute to her teachers who helped hei overcome her handicaps. Her words were not clearly understandable to those at a distance from the tank, but they were taken down and " peated through a megaphone for tinbenefit of those who could not hear. I saw a man, evidently a deaf mute, reading the words as they fell from the speaker's lips, and translating them in the finger language of the deaf to his i woman companion. Sweet are the uses of adversity — at times. Tuesday I went a-rubbering in Studio Land. At Brunton I saw a fine big set representing a French chateau, and nearby a number of vine-covered cottages, to be used by Kitty Gordon in her new play, "A Nurse's Story." All very fine and very realistic, but not a player in sight, but over on the stages the company was working on interims. and Kitty Gordon herself being directed in a scene by Wallace Worsley. Mahlo Hamilton, Wedgwood Nowell, J. J. Dowling, T. D. Crittenden, Capt. Leslie T. Peacocke and Vera Beresford were also in the cast, but they were marking time until Miss Gordon's scene should be finished. I met Al Cohn, who used to be Mary Pickford's personal representative, and is now working with Jimmie Young. who is getting ready to put on a smash ing big twelve-reel production. Al said things would start going in about two weeks. That night at the tank Mack Sennett and his funmakers held the fort and entertained the crowd with some of the best free comedy it had ever seen. Murray Shoots Turpin Abaft the Turret. Charlie Murray was the announcer, and he started off by introducing Ben Turpin as the greatest cock-eyed comedian in the world, and then to show what a soldier does with guns bought by bonds he shot Ben just abaft of the Bessie Barriscale Playing Cowboy.