The Film Spectator (Mar-Dec 1928)

July 21, 1928 THE FILM SPECTATOR Page Thirteen preserving process has been discovered, should bring a few thousand on the auction block. It is artistically perfect in all points. It contains the stuff that defies the years and man's mind. It is superior to the humdrum thinking of a thousand writers. It remains to-day a formidable example of the art of the motion picture. A thousand movies will be made this year. Yet, The Last Laugh will remain a Sphinx, head and shoulders above a mess of garbage. A Murder in Hollywood By JOSEPH JACKSON IT was difficult to believe that this polished, wellgroomed gentleman had committed such a brutal murder. This Wenwood Alden, with his Greek profile, his long, white, artistic fingers, and his dreamy eyes. As he sat in the crowded courtroom awaiting trial, hundreds of movie fans, who had come to know Wenwood Alden on the stage and screen as the soul of gentleness, wondered if he really could have done such a ghastly thing. Alden looked completely calm as he awaited his turn to take the witness stand. There was none of that nervousness, that biting of fingers, that heaving of chest which he would have used had he been playing this scene before the camera. At last the actor was called to the stand in his own defence. He walked steadily to the witness chair and looked confidently at his attorney for his cue. "Is it true that on June eighth last you killed Miss Winona Semple?" The lawyer spoke triumphantly, victoriously, almost as though he were establishing his client's innocence with this damning sentence. "It is," the prisoner answered. "Would you mind telling the Judge and the jury in your own language just what happened?" "It was like this," Alden began. "I had just finished making a picture, 'The Gentle Gentleman', in which I played the leading role. I had worked very hard and had gone away for a week's rest in the mountains before starting another film." » # » The listeners strained forward on the edge of their seats. Alden spoke in a low, well-trained Voice which carried easily throughout the room. "On the third day of my vacation I received a telephone call from the publicity department asking me if I would come back and devote one day to the interviewers of the fan magazines. I had been so busy on my last picture that I had not had time to give any interviews for several weeks. The publicity man agreed to arrange all of the appointments for the one day, so I consented to come back. "I arrived at the studio promptly at nine and received the first of the journalists — a young lady. She asked me if, in leaving the stage, I didn't miss the applause of the audience. This question had frequently been put to me before by young lady interviewers, so I gave her my pat answer. I told her that I did miss the warmth and the contact of my dear public, but that the screen offered great advantages which the stage could not — the opporj tunity to play to millions of people in all corners of the EVE UNSELL Playwright and Scenarist II ANNOUNCES 'I Have Just Completed and II SOLD TO WARNER BROTHERS my first VITAPHONE DRAMATIZATION II ^Conquesf from Mary Imlay Taylor's Book 'The Candle in The Wind' From Stage to Screen and Now Back to the Stage With Talking Pictures!"