Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1917 - Feb 1918)

254 The Observer coat. You can't watch your stories after submitting them, so pick your prospective buyers carefully. Send your scenarios to established companies, concerns of good standing and trade-mark reputation, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred the treatment received will be wholly satisfactory. SILHOUETTED on the horizon, alone, bleak, and slowdy but steadily losing its hold on existence and fading into a misty absence, is a figure we once knew well. Its presence was felt in theaters, written of in magazines and papers, and spoken of by enthusiasts. But the day for the post-mortem is close. Even at its great distance, small and insignificant though the figure is, we can see that it is straining to hang on, to hide its haggard lines and the scars of battle, and to appear once more as a short four or five years ago we viewed it at close range, dignified, nonchalant, important, even haughty. The chivalrous gentleman who grows dimmer, even as we watch him, is none other than Stock Type, the actor who got by in the old days because he had a winsome curl, and the girls were said to be crazy about him. Slipping and sinking, he struggles to a press agent, but the tonic administered by this able doctor does not fit the disease. A diagnosis of his case is readily given. He simply isn't there in a profession which demands real histrionic ability. When the motion-picture business swaddled in its long clothes, Stock Type gave up his stock-company contract or title of town devil, as the case may be, and offered his services to the flickering films. He was accepted, of course. In fact, he was irresistible with that way of his and those clothes. During his first two or three years he was a knockout. His photographs got boudoir locations, and the same girls wrote him long letters about nothing, and grew thin if he didn't answer within a reasonable time. He was voted most popular man at the firemen's strawberry festival, and, in short, seemed to have no end of a future if he could only preserve that wavy hair and "keep his youth. But a dark horse got into the race, somehow, and battled his way to a plac? in the front rank. His fight was so sincere and effective that he spread scenes of carnage all about him. The people in time knew him for Ability, became accustomed to looking for him, and finally insisted upon his presence. We see poor old Stock Type depart with many regrets. In the pioneer days and some following he furnished us with many romantic scenes and daring exploits, and we liked him. But Ability is incessant in his courtship of our movie money. He is not always good looking, like Doug Fairbanks or Wally Reid. Sometimes he is just a plain, regular fellow, like Bill Hart, or probably withou physical charm, like Tully Marshall, who can't deny that he doesn't have to make up much to look tired out. He may be a towering big fellow, like Bill Russell, whom you would rather see fight than wear evening clothes, a country swain like Charlie Ray, or a slick city chap like Bob Warwick. But always he has ability. The title says he is interpreting some part, and when he appears on the screen he convinces you that he is what he is only pretending to be. Stock Type of the fading horizon is not the one man he appears to be. There are a number of people who should answer to the name, and they have nice, curly hair, charming ways of making love, and set smiles, but they are not actors, and they are going. Ability has hung up his hat in the studio for good. The Handsome Hero Passes