Exhibitor's Trade Review (Sep-Nov 1921)

October 15, 1921 EXHIBITORS TRADE REVIEW 1383 ernstein at Pacific Studio Founder of Universal City Is General Manager of New Corporation on the Coast — Holds Two Records Isadore Bernstein, founder of Universal City and of world-wide fame in the motion picture industry, took office Oct. 2 as general manager of the Pacific Studios plant following a directors' meeting of that corporation in San Francisco Saturday. This action brings to the film industry in Northern California one of the outstanding figures and pioneers of motion picture production, and is the result of an intensive and far reaching investigation into the capabilities of various executives from Long Island studios to those in Hollywood by the officials of Pacific Studios. Bernstein holds two records in the motion picture world which have never been surpassed; that of having supervised the direction of twenty-one motion picture companies simultaneously, and that of "discovering" the greatest number of stars among the most prominent actors and directors in the film constellation of to-day. Among the latter are numbered Lon Chaney, Lois Weber, Frank Lloyd, Florence Reed, J. Warren Kerrigan, Clara Kimball Young, Eric von Stroheim, Herbert Rawlinson, Robert Leonard, Carmel Meyers, Priscilla Dean, Gladys Walton, Cleo Madison, Grace Cunard, Bolly McIntyre, William Courtney, William Courtleigh, Charles Giblyn, director of Norma Talmadge, Wheeler Oakman and a host of others. Screen successes which have been produced under the supervision of the new general manager include the shortly to be released Foolish Wives, said to be the only production costing in excess of $1,000,000 ever made; the Henry B. Walthall features, the Carter DeHaven comedies, Outside the Law, Confession, Tarzan of the Apes, The Romance of Tarzan, and the first Biblical feature picture ever made in America, Samson and Delilah, was made by Bernstein, who also produced the first picture in excess of five reels to be made in the United States when he gave to the screen Damon and Pythias. A New York newsboy at ten, protege of T. DeWitt Talmadge, and associate editor of the Christian Herald at twenty-five, and superintendent of the Boys' Institute in New York, Bernstein entered the motion picture business when the present fourth largest industry in the United States was still in its infancy by building the first studio in Hollywood. In 1914 he founded Universal City at Lankershim, California, which to-day represents an investment of seven millions, according to Bernstein, and is said to be the largest motion picture studio in the United States. He was asked to outline his future policy and plans for motion picture production at Pacific Studios. Bernstein said: "Pictures for the clean minded millions will be the slogan of the organization. Efforts will be made to procure only the very highest type of stars, directors and principals to produce their pictures in an environment that will present every facility that goes to make for successful productions. We are ideally situated from a geographical standpoint, with unrivalled as well as virgin scenic investiture. This combination, I predict, will result in the expenditure of millions by numberless companies on locations within a radius of fifty miles from Pacific Studios when these facts are presented backed by irrefutable proof. For example, I am told weather bureau records show there were twenty days of sunshine in San Mateo during 1920 more than was recorded at Hollywood.' The officers and directors of Pacific Studios include A. W. Scott, Jr., George H. T. Jackson, George W. Caswell. George C. Stephens, John E. Gallois, Theodore A. Bell, Frank Burt, Mayor W. H. Pearson of Burlingame, C. L. Straub and Clarence E. DeCamp. Edward W. Stitt Praises "Little Lord Fauntleroy" "The performance is a most inspiring one," says Edward W. Stitt, district superintendent of the schools of New York City, of Mary Pickford's film production of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," now being shown at the Apollo Theatre, West Forty-Second Street. "The motion picture is really one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen." "To those who have read Frances Hodgson Burnett's splendid book, this beautiful picture, with the accompanying explanations, gives a fine interpretation of the inspiring story. "Motion pictures founded upon books have real value in two ways. If those who see the picture have read the book, they surely enjoy seeing the various changes which the writers of the scenario have made, and are therefore possibly encouraged to read the book again. If, however, people have not read the book before seeing the photoplay, they may have interest enough to secure the book from the library and read the story of the picture on the screen." SEE THE BELL HOP AND LAUGH WITH LARRY VI Santschi Western Heads Pathe Short Subject for Month Practically of feature importance is the Tom Santschi Western called The Honor of Rameriz, which heads the list of Pathe short subjects scheduled for release on Oct. 16. For the supporting cast in addition to Ruth Stonehouse, Producer Cyrus J. Williams engaged Bessie Love, Edward Hearne, Thomas Lingham and Jay Morley. The Charles Hutchison serial, Hurricane Hutch, reaches its fourth episode, entitled Smashing Through. The plot to ruin the heroine owner of paper mills in the interest of the paper trust causes perils to thicken about her, multiplying the daring acts which the hero is called on to perform in her interest and for her personal protection. In the one-reel comedy featuring "Snub" Pollard with Marie Mosquini, called Law and Order, there is timely utilization of the current Ku Klux Klan newspaper sensation. Another comedy on this list features Gaylord Lloyd in Dodge Your Debts. Frog and the Ox is the ^sop's Film Fable release in this budget. Emperor Frog, seated on his throne and requiring to be perpetually amused, listens to a courier's frog's tale of a monster he has met in his travels — an immense bull. Emperor Frog declines to believe that anything on earth can be bigger than himself, and so blows himself up until he bursts. The Adventures of Bill and Bob have to do with the easily imagined vicissitudes connected with the determined pursuit of that playful but odorous fur-bearing animal, the skunk. Pathe Review presents Pathecolor scenics and natives in the famous Vosges Mountains of France, where most of the landscape is on edge. Hy Mayer obliges in his Capitol Travelaughs with Sand and Sunshine features of the ocean beaches at midsummer, while the slow motion camera shows in detail the comedy element of antics of cormorants and pelicans in the New York Zoological Park. Pathe News and Topics of the Day are replete with pictures of leading world events and current witticisms of newspaper paragraphers.