Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1916)

NEWS NOTES Motion Picture Company to Live in Lumber Camp "C^EW SCENARIO writers seem to realize the importance of making their scripts to conform to the season in which they are to be put into pictures. Every scenario editor can tell stories of receiving in the merry springtime scripts which require the dead of winter to produce, with all the accompanying snowdrifts and icicles. It is equally irritating to receive, when good picture material is scarce, in the coldest days of winter, a scenario which demands the roses and foliage of June. Donald Mackenzie, who produces Gold Rooster pictures for Pathe, is awaiting eagerly reports of heavy snowfalls in Maine. He is going to put into motion pictures Fred Jackson's novel, "The Precious Packet," and the scenario has many scenes which are laid in a big woods lumber camp, with the ground covered with snow. His players, headed by Lois Meredith and Ralph Kellard, are afraid to be out of easy communication with him for even a few hours, for, like firemen, they await the call, only in this instance it will be the news that it is snowing in Maine. It will be a new experience for the charming Miss Meredith to eat baked beans and brown bread in a lumber camp as the guest of husky lumberjacks, and incidentally a new one for the lumberjacks to entertain a real Broadway star. m * When Shirley Was in Command Arthur Shirley, the Australian actor who is taking the lead in Thomas E. Dixon's "Fall of a Nation," has had his hands full trying to be a regular general. During one of the battle scenes he had two thousand men on the field at one time. One of [the extras, who had been garbed as a sergeant, had been a soldier in the famous Tampa regiment that fought typhoid, instead of brown brothers, during the Spanish war, and was anxious to make a good impression. £ i^i-V—J— L, After leading his men on the field in rough formation, he approached Shirley with a formal salute and reported, "Here is my company, general. We await your orders." Shirlt y tried to return the salute, but handed out a lodge sign instead, and said hurriedly, "Yours truly — no, I mean — you're welcome — aw, shucks! just leave 'em anywhere around till I need 'em." Mary Anderson de Navarro Mary Anderson de Navarro, better known as Mary Anderson, the greatest emotional actress produced by the American stage, will appear in motion pictures. She will provide both scenarios and acting in her new venture, which will be under the direction of Thomas H. Ince. As collaborator with Robert Hichens in "The Garden of Allah," Mary Anderson demonstrated her ability as a dramatist. In Mr. Ince's opinion the great actress is largely influenced to appear in public by means of the screen to reproduce for posterity her wonderful art. Government Ownership Norway will undertake to make the picture business a national affair after this year. The government has decided to issue no more licenses, but to apply the profits of the films to the revenues to accomplish a reduction of the tax rate. Government ownership of picture shows would be a fascinating experiment. All of the present film business men would make a grand rush for the job of supervisor of motion pictures of Norway, while only one man could have it. A Collection of Dog Teams Rollin S. Sturgeon, the Vitagraph producer, has a truly wonderful collection of dog teams at Big Bear Lake, for use in his feature, "God's Country and the Woman." There is the John Johnson Siberian wolf-dog team which has won the Alaskan Derby for the last six years, led by the famous Kolma, a blue-eyed dog of prodigious strength and endurance. Then there is Captain Smith's full-bred wolves and several dogs belonging to the company. "The Girl and the Game" Serial The Signal Company, headed by J. P. McGowan, the producer, and Helen Holmes, the star, is making the fourth of the big railroad serial, "The Girl and the Game," at the Pasadena Studios. This is going to be a corking and sensational serial, with some fine photography. The story is by Frank H. Spearman. McGowan has one or two trains chartered most of the time, and no expense is being spared to make this serial a record-breaking one. Stingeree Stingeree is a series of twelve two-act epistles, written by E. W. Hornung, who has created a character that is to the Australian bush what his Raffles was to polite English society. Stingeree is an Englishman who endeavors to make society in general pay a heavy price for the wrongs it has inflicted upon him. He plans crimes, but heroically refuses to stain his hands with human blood. True Boardman plays the title role. * % A Thousand Miles of Film If you have seen the entire serial of "The Diamond from the Sky," you have seen one thousand miles of film, with 760,320 thrills to its thirty chapters. Keeping track of the diamond took a good deal of time for those who have followed its fortunes. One never could foretell with any degree of accuracy just which shell it was under at the time. But it always turned up in time to provide a thrill for another chapter. * * A Regular Army It is interesting to note that in "The Strife Eternal," a Mutual masterpiece, which is based on the life of Jane Shore, a favorite of King Edward IV of England, more than four thousand soldiers appear on the screen.