Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

Indeed, the children of H. B. Warner once complained that they had acted all afternoon "wifout any aujence". To which their father who once knew lean seasons, replied: "so has your old man, many a time." As the Beerys live on a 35acre ranch, about 45 minutes drive from Hollywood, the kids have a wide range for "location." Mostly they do Westerns, though sometimes they tog up grandly and film a smart society drahma — with a tall accent on the "h" ; very grandiloquent gestures, sweeping bows and much chest heaving. Of course, there's always a hero and a villian. Usually, because "Pidge" and his pals, at their present ages, can't see much reason for the existence of the feminine sex — except mothers — one of the boys has to dress as a girl. It is then only that temperament threatens to disrupt the infantile organization. "Pidge" has the director's greatest asset, however, tact: a bribe invariably works — the promise that the heroine, in this one, in return for "cryin' and lookin' silly," may be a bad Injun in the next one scheduled. Really, I hardly believe that Jack Holt — also a junior, but "Tim" to his friends — belongs in this group of "amateur actors." Having outgrown such childish cavortings, he is a real actor now. As he imitates his father in wheedling for Western toggery and begs himself into being taken along on location, the director of "Forlorn River," for Paramount, needing a little boy in the picture, decided the only way to keep the ever-present Timmy from asking so many questions was to give him a job. So the youngster receives a salary and will appear in the completed film. Not so, Suzanne Vidor, daughter of Florence, who lives next door to Timmy and who hasn't yet "graduated." Suzanne is a very correct little lady who likes social affairs. The two children often make films together, though Timmy scorns the teas without Twenty-eight Courtesy of the Boston Sunday Post. JACK HOLT, JR., AND SUZANNE VIDOR. which no Suzanne Vidor production is complete. In fact, they're multiplying. "It's a real nice little story you thought up by yourself," Timmy commented when "called" for her last backyard movie just before he accompanied his dad on location. "But gosh sakes, why you hafta have two teas in it? One's more'n enough. I'm not one of those tea-cup actors." If you had ever seen that grave little smile which lights up Suzanne's eyes and flickers across her cherubic face, however, you would not blame Timmy for having "fallen" to the lure of an ingenue-vamp. Ridicule it though he did, he posed with the tea cups and the dainty sandwiches. (Incidentally, I was strictly ordered not to make any "romance yarn" out of this. And inasmuch as the heroine of the duo but rarely gives the hero a shy smile — only when she wants him to play a gentleman-actor — but instead mostly reprimands him severely and reminds him to wash his hands and his ears and to be careful of his manners, I fear there is no material here for one who would write an embryonic love-tale. ) Jean Hersholt — yes, another Junior — who is 11 and attends a military academy, has decided that his profession will be acting, but with a veto of the disagreeable villain roles that his father enacts so expertly. In fact, though Jean is proud of his dad as a man and father, he's a bit squeamish when he takes the other kids to see Jean, Sr., on the screen. It is an embarrassing situation, friends. The regular thing, you know, is to hiss the villain. But when the villain is your pal's