Exhibitors Herald (1926)

November 13, 1926 EXHIBITORS HERALD 55 rJ~yHIS department contains news, information and gossip on current productions. It aims to supply service which will assist the exhibitor in keeping in touch with developments in connection with pictures and picture personalities — and what these are doing at the box office. No prophecies on the entertainment value of pictures are made. Opinions expressed are simply those of the author or of his contributors and the reader is requested to consider them only as such. — EDITOR’S NOTE. SUGGESTION TO PARAMOUNT I , EWIS D. FECK.LER, 827 Maiden Lane, Roanoke, Va., writes me as follows: DEAR T. O. — Please suggest that Paramount, in their craving for “specials,” produce an epic road-show of the famous novel, “Under Two Flags,” by Ouida, with Lubitsch directing and Pola Negri starred or featured. Why let this material go to waste when, with the aid of the two factors named, it can be made into a big, flagwaving spectacle which, as it is on the order of “Beau Geste,” will bring in the coin with a rush. True, the story has a tragic ending, but it is similar to that in “The Vanishing American” and, handled in the same manner as that epic tale, it is sure to be just as successful. “Under Two Flags” has been filmed before, but certainly not in even a half decent way, and as Pola Negri would be the heroine. Cigarette to the life, why can't she and Lubitsch make it a second “Passion?” “Under Two Flags” has been picturized at least twice, once by Fox in 1916 with Theda Bara (if memory is reliable) as Cigarette and again by Universal in 1922 with Priscilla Dean in that role. Both pictures did well at the box office according to reports in the infallible “What the Picture Did For Me” section of this paper. As I recall them, both were pretty good. Mr. Feckler’s suggestion is forwarded to Famous Players-Lasky at face value and others with suppressed desires to see certain stories picturized by certain parties are cordially invited to un-suppress them similarly. “THE BLACK PIRATE ” I CARE not a whoop as to what Mr. Fairbanks may say (or be made to seem to have said) about picture production in Russia — so long as he continues to turn out gloriously inflated fables like “The Black Pirate.” Manufacture of heroically proportioned “Pink Eelephants” is the title of this Jack White production, in which A1 St. John stars. Dwight Warren was cameraman for this Educational Mermaid comedy. This Week Suggestion to Paramount “The Black Pirate ” 0 Truetalk “My Official Wife ” Not Reviews “Ladies at Play ” Paramount’s 17 Themes “ The Quarterback ” “ Breed of the Sea ” “Men of Steel ” “College Days ” “Raggedy Rose ” fables is Mr. Fairbanks’ real knitting, after all, and who shall object if he deserts it momentarily now and then for publicity purposes? Certainly not I. This picture is the one any boy of twelve would make if he could hold his dreams together long enough and stretch his imagination far enough. It is different than the picture a boy of twelve would make in that Fairbanks multiplies the youth’s half-dozen faithful cutthroats by one-hundred and his imagined prowess by infinity. The picture suggests in the person of Fairbanks a man in whom the boy has yielded nothing to the experience-eons involved in annexation of the wealth and fame that is his — which may be in fact the real photo of Fairbanks. At any rate — “The Black Pirate” is the sort of picture that makes a job like mine worth doing. I can look at this sort of thing and come away feeling better. It’s all a big hoax, of course, but a glorious one. It’s extravagant, headlong, absurdly melodramatic and supremely goodnatured. Viewed adjacently to bedroom drama, South Sea rot and border-line farce, it imparts the sensation of a mental shower-bath and revives a waning conviction that everything’s going to be all right if we live that long. What the picture amounts to in a box office way has been well told in reports to this paper by exhibitors whose remote location have given them access to it before contract-throttled Chicago could have a peep. These reports also have discussed all the details of the production, a circumstance which leaves me nothing to add. TRUETALK O N November 2, F. P. A., conductor of “The Conning Tower” in The New York ft orld, wrote “Truetalk” as captional comment over the following paragraph from this column of the October 23 issue: People who write pieces for papers almost invariably get around to a certain low state of mind which prompts them to pad out their observations with more or less remote adaptations of a style made famous by Samuel Pepys. With the exception of Ted Cook, no one has had much luck with the idea. There isn’t much sense to it, ordinarily. Fleeting investigation conducted subsequently to receipt of the letter signed “Bill Netch” and published last week impels to the conclusion that F. P. A. did lead modem columnists in picking up Mr. Pepys’ diary where terminated by the ill-humored hand of death, as stated in the letter mentioned. What I should like to know, however, is which of the three sentences comprising the quoted paragraph prompted F. P. A.’s caption and what the bloomin’ thing really means. These columnists — “MY OFFICIAL WIFE ” “M Y OFFICIAL WIFE” has two authors to “The Great Divide’s” one. It is a Russian as to setting, whereas “The Great Alex Phillips and Fred Jacquimin photographed Billy Dooley in his latest Educational comedy, “A Briny Boob,” which was produced at the Christie studios.