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Kalem Company— The International Producers.
| NEWS ITEMS
I of the KALEM COMPANIES |
AFTER a year's absence from the motion picture -screen, Mr. George Melford, director of the Kalem Company at Glendale, California, appears in the production, “The Usurer.” For several years Mr. Melford played leading parts in the Kalem dramas and his many friends have regretted that his duties as a producer have prevented him from appearing in his splendid characterizations. “The Usurer” is a timely subject, depicting the Nemesis which overtakes an unscrupulous loan agent. Mr. Wm. H. West invests the role of the usurer with those touches of vindictiveness which marked his portrayal of “The Skinflint.” Mr. Carlyle Blackwell enacts the role of the loan agent’s victim in his usual artistic manner and Mr. Melford gives a powerful performance of a philanthropist.
MR. ROY L. McCARDELL, Editor of the Metropolitan Section of The New York Sunday World and well known as a humorist, is the author of “Fie Would Be a Flero,” produced by Kalem at Santa Monica, California. One laugh follows another in this lively farce comedy, which portrays the activities of a volunteer fire department. The local newspaper, under headlines of “Moving Pictures of Firemen’s Parade,” referred to the production of several of the scenes as follows : “This forenoon the Kalem people mad-e a picture on Second and Utah which is destined to become one of the screamers of the moving picture houses. It is a parade of the fire company— one of the -most primitive and oldfashioned — and it required a'b-out a hundred people to stage it on the street. The picture attracted a large crowd. A large number of skilled actors and actresses were in the cast.
The background was part of the burned district in that locality.”
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TI-IE KAEEM COMPANY at Jacksonville, Florida, recently had a demonstration of the old adage, “ ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good.” For several days the street car system of the city was at a standstill owing to a strike of the operatives. Mr. Kenean Buel, director of the Kalem Company, was engaged in the production of several of the spectacular battle scenes incident to “Shenandoah” and he employed practically all of the striking motormen and conductors. The men proved very efficient supernumeraries.
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WHIEE engaged in a railroad production, Mr. J. P. McGowan, director of one of Kalends New York companies, narrowly escaped with his life and effected a timely rescue of his operator. One of the sensational scenes in the production necessitated the -construction of a special platform at the end of a car, on which the camera was operated while the train sped over the rails. Mr. McGowan, -presiding at the side of the cameraman, felt the supports giving way and, pushing the -operator into the car, -he grasped the railing just as the improvised platform snapped -off, the camera rolling do-wn an embankment.
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MISS ALICE JOYCE will be -seen as “Betsy Ross,” the maker of the first American flag, in Kalends patriotic production, “The Flag of Freedom,” released Saturday, January 4th. Thi-s drama, bv the -way, presents an interesting page from the history of our country and the historic occurrences are made coincident with a thrilling story of the colonists’ struggle for independence.