Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

given the signal when. It is given ! I lift my hands and — O dam ! The usual thing has happened. One of the shoulder-straps which holds up an important undie has drooped drearily over my left upper arm, restricting its freedom. My usual procedure on these occasions is to thrust my hand in under my dress at the neck-edge, go fishing for the strap and haul it back into position. Hundreds of times have I performed this simple act of salvage — ■ sometimes, it has so happened, in front of a mirror, and my recollection of my facial expression is that it was usually negative. But let me tell you, that when I'm working for the movies, my expression is never negative ! So, on this occasion, the camera registered the happy rescue of the shoulder-strap, but — at what cost to my unfortunate features ! The screen reveals a mouth that works this way and that ; a tongue able and willing to co-operate; eyes that get the idea and go ahead on their own. Thank heaven for a nose and a pair of ears that are more or less static ! — else I should certainly have seized this golden opportunity to have arranged a programme for them also. O little bride, who looked on the hot water faucet and became roundmouthed with wonder and delight ! (Can / be trusted not to turn cute ?) O radiant little bride who emotionalized before the dish-mop! (Is a drooping shoulder-strap then so stimulating?) O little bride, little bride ! the hollow, hollow sham of mooning so over the crash towel ! But comfort yourself, little gingham bride. Nothing that you have ever done was a ranker sham than that which I put over the next time I ap peared in the movies ! You shall hear the story, little bride. It will seem incredible, but it is true, nevertheless. A young female relative from a Western ranch came on a visit to my brother's and was prevailed on to don a cowboy belt studded with pistols and things and do a Charleston— for posterity, of course. The rest of the household, including myself, were to stand by and be the gallery. Impossible to sin in such a setting was my comfortable thought. The stark fact of the Charleston would alone wet-blanket any hysteria on my part, because it so happens that I loathe the Charleston. The gloom with which my personality is unhappily tinged deepens into melancholia whenever I am forced to look on that particular legwork being fought out. I have been told that the Charleston is going out. It is well. Probably then, this slight neurosis of mine will not become pathological in degree. Such being the case, the screened film naturally shows my figure well up in the foreground, ecstatically swaying to the enchanting rhythm of that stimulating dance. You can see my pulse pounding away at 119. Every little nerve in my body is sitting up on end and is aglow with rapture ! My whole blood supply is cascading through my arteries, shrieking, "Yes, sir, she's my baby !" Wow ! Bars down ! Ethiopian ecstasy ! Boil my blood ! — Liar ! ! ! This, little bride, is the story, and now, can you beat it? * * •¥ Since these pictures were made for posterity, it will be interesting to see what posterity thinks of them. It is conceivable that my nephew, who was called on occasionally to shoot some of the scenes, should, fifty years hence, which takes us well into the undraped Seventies, be the grandsire of a flapper of seventeen. Let us imagine him on her seventeenth birthday bringing out the family pictures for her delectation. She isn't very keen about it. She would much rather be out with the girls at her favorite night-haunt. Still, something is due the old gentleman, especially since the lovely loin cloth (a French model) wrapped so rakishly round her middle, was his birthday offering. One must be decent, you know. Let's humor the old drake. The first picture happens to be the one in which the long-deceased founder of the picture gallery is shown with his sister turning backs to the camera, walking away, turning and coming back. "The man," exults dear old grandpop, rubbing his hands, for he is now completely in his element, "is my revered sire — your great-grandfather ; and the woman is his sister, my Aunt Tane — your great-grandaunt." "Cuckoo!" says Seventeen, enigmatically. "This film" — slowly and impressively— "was produced especially that you, my child, you, the last sprout put forth by the old Family Tree, should be made aware of how my Aunt Jane looked backview." "Why?" "I have just told you why." "Yes, but why!" Suddenly Seventeen sits up. "Dim my head-lights if great-grandauntie — good skirt ! — isn't turning out opulently cute!" (Continued on page 40) a£B9 t Wfc caws "]eJeo<^. EL CASTILLO A Drawing Of The Ruins Of The Great Temple Of The Mayas At Chichen Itsa, Yucatan, Made Especially For Amateur Movie Makers By Don Carlos Lopes de Tejeda Who Is How Recording The Beauties Of These Monuments For The Carnegie Institute Expedition. Ten