Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

CLASSIC Marie Prevost was welcomed at the Cecil De Mille studio, upon her arrival after her recent illness, by Mr. De Mille himself. Miss Prevost is to be starred in Metropolitan Pictures Pacific & Atlantic' Feodor Chaliapin, Russian basso of the Metropolitan Opera House, visits Pola Negri at the Lasky studios doubt recalls, in the days of the Elizabethan dramatists. H. C. Witwer, writer of sporting tales, has also brought suit for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, laying claim to Lloyd's comedy, "The Freshman," on the ground that it is an infringement of a football story he published in 1908 entitled, "The Emancipation of Rodney." Mr. Witwer bases his claim chiefly on the fact that in both stories the fool substitute goes in and wins the game. Now if Burt L. Standish were still alive, he would have sufficient grounds for action. For Your Majesty will recall in the Frank Merriwell stories, which were read with such pleasure in your boyhood, that the substitute always went in at the last minute of play and saved the game. And very likely the only reason Cecil De Mille is not a bankrupt today is that Moses had gone to his reward long before the Great Director filmed "The Ten Commandments." Lloyd is now engaged in making "For Heaven's Sake." in which he is probably safe from legal action, because Anatole France died last year and so far as is known the author of "The Revolt of the Angels" left no heirs. Hollywood, •ear Majesty : It is improbable to a degree that the fame of Horace Wade, Hollywood's youngest scenarist, should have penetrated as far as Your Majesty's distant Island of Oz. But in America we are prone to make much of what Darwin and his successors designate as sports — any creature divergent from the norm. Infant prodigies are our especial delight. Master Horace, who is just turned seventeen, recently achieved a quantity of publicity by writing for the newspapers. In these days a seventeen-year-old who can put an English sentence together is indeed a novelty — of a piece with the horse that can count — altho William Cullen Bryant composed "Thanatopsis" at eighteen, and (which is much worse) Conrad Nagel recited it last summer in the Hollywood Bowl. Pardon this digression, Your Majesty. What I mean to state is that Metro-Goldwyn, sensing the publicity value accruing to his name, snapped up Master Horace as a scenarist and put him under long-term contract — to the envy, it may well be imagined, of Joseph Hergesheimer and others. Master Horace signed the contract just before luncheon. At 1 P. M. he received the assignment for his first story. He was to do a script for Peter the Great, the M.-G.-M. dog-star, and bring it back to the studio in the morning. I must crave Your Majesty's pardon again, for, in spite of most assiduous efforts, I have as yet been unable to ascertain whether or not the finished story received the star's O. K. Hollywood. Dear Majesty: I have the honor today of imparting to Your Majesty a piece of advance information that has not yet been promulgated by the Paramount press-agents, but which I happen to know is well authenticated. Mary Brian will play Mitzi, the persecuted heroine of "The Wedding March," the story which Erich (correct) von Stroheim will soon begin making. The story was written by von Stroheim and he will play in it. Mitzi is his wife, the unappreciated spouse of a philandering scion of the Austrian nobility. Needless to say, if she plays with von Stroheim, this young woman, now trembling on the brink of stardom or oblivion, will be securely tethered and Paramount will cash in on their investment in Mary. Mae Busch. Dale Fuller, Mary Philbin and Zasu Pitts all are von Stroheim discoveries. The truth of the matter is that von Stroheim can make any woman act. Hollywood. Dear Majesty : The latest mot in the Montmartre is the one designating Phyllis Haver as the eighty-thousand-dollar baby. It is a good laugh on the boulevard and a startling jolt for those benighted beings who believe that movie damsels are beautiful but dumb. 60