The San Francisco Dramatic Review (1908)

I THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW June 27, 1914 Los Angeles Notes of Interest in the Realm of Photoplay By RICHARD WILLIS Those who only associate Charles Bennett of the Keystone Company with either dircctini? or acting in com- edies should take their memories back to the time he was with the \'itagraph Company where he gave such remark- able character studies, pathetic, hum- orous and villainous. He is one of the best all round men in the business. * * ♦ Edna Maison has had a week's holiday and candidly says she has not enjoyed it; she prefers working. The rest was enforced to prepare for her appearance at the head of her own company which will be directed by Lloyd Ingraham. Ray Gallagher will support ^liss Maison and the first photoplay will be a light comedy ex- ploiting Edna as a divorcee and her love affairs. * * * Carlyle Blackwell has had his seven passenger car shipped East from Los Angeles, so it looks as though he was in for a long stay in the metropolis. He writes to his friends that he is working hard and is about to direct and act in "Jack Spurlock, Prodigal." * * * Bess Mere- dyth has the big task of putting the "Trey of Hearts" series into scenario form from 30 to 40 pictures! At the same time she is heading a comedy company with Ernest Shields, Eddie Bolland and Philip Dunham and with Jack Blystone directing. Everyone in the company is a clever comedian and with good stories will surely make a hit. * * * As far as the producing end is concerned the Lucille Love .series are nearly completed and next week will find them done. Francis Ford is on the fifteenth and last two reeler now, and both he and Grace Cunard will give big sighs of relief for they had a very strenuous time. Miss Cu- nard has risked life and limb several times and has been burned, cut and scratched more than once and at one period her pluck landed her in the hospital for ten days. * * * Helen Holmes has been suffering from the bites of a poisonous fly which inhabits the borders of Death Valley and at one time it seemed as though she would have blood poisoning but the irritation is going. Curiously enough her director, J. P. McGowan, also had a narrow escape from blood poisoning through trying to make friends with the young coyotes presented to Miss Holmes by Pannamint Tom. * * * There is an e.xcellent idea in the photo- play featuring William Garwood and entitled, "Love versus Business." Vivian Rich, as the wife, sold her jewelry in order to raise the money to break her husband on the stock exchange and win his love away from his business. William Garwood as the husband gave a rare performance, showing what could be done by means of suppressed force. Harry Von Meter and Jack Richardson completed a fine cast. * * * Harold Lockwood, he of the Famous Players, is off for the country with Allan Dwan and the company featuring Margaret Clark in "Wild Flowers" with Lockwood play- ing opposite. It is a delightful play and the young people shoukl show to considerable advantage in it. Lock- wood has many words of praise for the Picture Trades Convention and met a lot of the "men behind" whom he had not met before, he classes them as mighty good fellows. Harold is getting to be one of the most popular actors on the screen both w'ith exhibi- tors and the public. * * * William D. Taylor is being congratulated upon the first picture he ever directed. He showed his confidence by making it a three reeler and. moreover, "The Judge's Wife" is his own story. His next play is another three-rceler called "Betty, " in which he will take the lead in addition to directing. Pretty Neva Delores will again play opposite him and Taylor says she is going to make a star. * * * Myrtle Stedman has had quite a rest pending the completion of the new Bosworth Inc. studios aiid the most strenuous thing she has done is to practice up her songs for the monthly "ladies' night" at the Plioto- players' Club. She is never backward when asked to sing, especially if her voice is given to some good cause. * * Charlie Ray is playing his first minister in "The Thunderbolt," being put on by Scott Sydney for the Kay Bee. It is a two-reeler and the heavy is played by that sterling actor, Arthur Jarrett. A sort of Damon and Pythias business with these two, one scratches the other's back and gets a .scratch in return. It is always nice to have two men in the same company speak as well of each other's abilities as do this twain. It is wonderful how Charlie has come forward as a popular favor- ite in such a short time. * * * Cleo Madison is having her taste of acting in two productions at once. She makes a wonderfully classical figure as Iler- mion with Otis Turner in "Damon and Pythias" and is being featured in the "Trey of Hearts" series with Alfred Lucas. This series will engage her attention for a long time to come and give her magnificent opportimities for the display of emotional acting. The name of the first picture is "Flower o' the Flames," in three reels, which in- cludes the prologue. * * * Augusta Phillips Fahrney promises to be as well known as a writer in defense of what is good in the Photoplay as she is as a photoplay writer and actress. She has a trenchant way of hitting the nail on the head when writing on cen- sorship and other photoplay evils which almost makes one believe that if she were on the other side of the pond she would be a militant suffra- gette. Cabiria—a Photoplay Reve= lation By Owr.x B. Miller From out the consciousness of D'Annunzio has come Cabiria, a pic- turization of the ancient, the terrible and the violent, a pictorial represen- tation of the times and manners when Carthage glowed and Rome swayed the destinies of mankind. It is like harking back to the dim centuries be- fore the Christian era, with a little girl forming the entity around which re- volved tile basest of intrigues, the hideous machinations and the superb- ly colorful life of an ancient period. It is a vivid portraiture this which the brilliant Italian has projected from a mind whose scintillant flashes of geni- us the world of the theatre is not un- acquainted with. A veritable photo- graphy of incidents, intensely dra- matic, with that sinister picturesque- ness of plot, of action, of character; alive, virile, dreadful—holding the at- tention of the audience with the pe- culiar fascination of strange serpents in tropical wilds. To the uncompre- hending Cabiria may appear a vast jumble of impossible situations, realis- tic with the scarlet visions of a mas- ter, but an anomaly which troubles and perplexes with its vast movement, its stupendous story, visualized to the barest detail. It is another step toward the perfection of this splendid new- dramatic idea which has already crys- talized into such an institution of clever entertainment, vital instruction and potential uplift; within the same category may be named Quo Vadis, Les Miserables, Spartacus, The Sp>oil- ers; though Cabiria transcends these in its wealth of action, its marvelous embellishment of .scene and circum- stance. Then, too, with orchestral and vocal synchronization, there is rare iiarmony, a plentitude of delight, which makes of the .spectacle a fairy presentment, full of eerie enchant- ments and pleasurable emotions. Cer- tainly the management of the Illinois Theatre, Chicago, have in Cabiria an astounding, a real achievement of cin- ematographic art, wherein one is re- galed during an afternoon or evening with a faithful ami beautiful reveal- inent of a period in the world's history wherein fancy and fact, woven to- gether, charm the senses and enlarge the mental iiorizon. Jack London's story under the title. To Kill a Man, was dramatized by l-'rank A. Cooley, assistant director of the Beauty Comjiany, and presented by him.self and Mrs. Cooley at the Potter Theatre, Santa Barbara, Cal., recently on the occasion of the Flying A liaseball Club's \ audevilk'. Correspondence SACRAMFXTO. Tune 22.—The Ed. Redmond stock at the DIEPEN- 15ROCK is holding its large clientele by a most enjoyable performance of The Stranger this week. Paul Har- ve}- does his regular fine work, and Isabelle Fletcher plays her last part but one here in the leading female role, giving a delightful portrayal. Mar- shell Zeno. who joined the company last week, made his first appearance tonirht in the part of the mayor of a Southern town, and gave a very like- able, artistic performance. It looks as though Zeno was to be a valuable member of the company. Marsliall Bir- mingham and Bert Chapman contrib- ute cleverly. The Fight will follow, with Ed. Redmond back from his va- cation in San Jose. CLUNIE: Wm. Hodge appears Saturday night in The Road to Happiness. Omar the Tent- maker comes July 6-7. EMPRESS: The Big Three of Minstrelsy—Coak- land, ^IcBride and Milo. John Rob- inson's elephants are a sensation. A charming and delightful playlet has Clem Bevins, a character comedian, as the leading actor. Vivian De Wolfe, William Saunders, Clyde L. Shropshire and Clem Bevins make up the support. Jack Kammerer and Ed- na Howland offer a singing, dancing and talking act. The Three Newmans have a funny and daring unicycle act. "Sacramento has made wondrous strides in the last four years toward reaching the standard of a metropoli- tan city." This statement comes from Joseph Muller, manager of the Or- pheum Theatre in Spokane, Wash., who with his wife was a guest at the Hotel Sacramento last week. Muller first came to Sacramento twenty years ago, and in the last two decades he has made numerous visits to this city as head of theatrical troupes of more or less im])ortance. He was manager of the (irand Theatre here when first o|)ened. Des])ite the strides in other directions and the erecting of high and modern buildings, Muller was greatly surprised by the hundreds of electric signs ornamenting the business houses of K Street. Muller has been man- ager of the Spokane Orpheum for six years and was returning from a tour of the Coast. In speaking of his ex- ])eriences in Sacramento, Muller re- called the time of the San Francisco earth(|uake and fire in 1906. .\t that time he was managing the Pollard Lil- li])utian CJpera Company, filling an en- gagement in Sacramento and sched- uled to open in Oakland on Sunday, .\pril 22. "I was managing the Pol- lard Company of ,^2 children from .Australia," said Muller in describing the affair, "and we were to open in Oakland Sunday. It was the usual custom of the company to bank the re- ceipts of the week every Tuesday, and as the earthquake occurred on Wed- nesday morning, the company was practically broke. The engagement in Oakland was cancelled because the theatre was condemnetl. The only (jutlet was to go north, but $700 was necessary to move the company and buy forty-one railroad tickets and ob- tain a baggage car to handle the scen- ery and luggage. In a conference with the members of the company a goodly collection of English sovereigns was gathered, but they were of practically no use in this part of the country. Tluough the co-operation of Billy Hanlon enough money was raised through the pawning of the English sovereigns to get the company to Portland, but getting them away from Sacramento did not solve the prob- lem, for there were no scheduled dates ahead of us. I got into communication with several theatre managers in Se- attle, and after a week's idleness the company secured a show hou.se. We soon were on our feet again, but I think the loading of the Pollard Lilli- putian Opera Company on the train in Sacramento for Portland following the earthquake of 1906 was the first time in the history of the theatrical world that a comjjany boarded a train with- out a date in front of them." SAN DIEGO, June 22.—EM- PRESS: Willard Mack's In Wyo- ming was the offering here this week, with a cast composed of Warren Ells- worth, Helen Carew, Palmer Mor- rison, Walter Spencer, Jack Frazer, Wm. Chapman, Harry Webb, James Wheeler, Stella Watts and Gladys Day. G.\IETY: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is being playe<l here for a second week. Catherine Evans has the title role, and gives a good characterization. William Jossey is Hiram Stubbins, while Edna Marshall plays Miss Hazy. Roy \'an Fossen, Clarence Bennett, George Dill, H. D. Watson, Alice Mason, Dorothy Dry- scoll. Will Roberts, George Mattison, Austin Pearce, Terese Van Grove, El- sa Hansen and Glennella Porter com- prise the rest of the cast. George Mat- tison plays the part of Wiggs with pleasing power. Miss Forter is a sympathetic Lovey Mary.