Motion Picture News (Jul - Sep 1926)

206 Motion Picture News T THEY'RE "COMPANY MANAGERS" NOW |_ N accordance wilh an order of larger significance than mere "title writing," the assistant directors have been banished from the De Mille Studios and in their places are "company managers." William Sistrom, general manager of the studios at Culver City, ordered the change in deference to the new conditions under which the men who were "assistant directors" now function in production activities. "It is seldom," he says, "that a director is actually assisted in filming a scene by his assistant director, but he handles every other responsibility in order that the director may be free to focus his full attention on direction. It is therefore ridiculous to refer to this important person as an assistant director. George Hippard, who has been affiliated with William De Mille for five years, is the first man to be titled as company manager at the De Mille Studio, acting in this capacity under De Mille in the production of "For Alimony Only." W WALLACE HAM AT THE STRAND ALLACE HAM has resigned from the publicity department of F. B. O. to direct the advertising and publicity of the Strand Theatre. He succeeds Fred Hamlin, who came to the Broadway institution from the New York Sun, and who resigned last week. TFILM NUPTIALS HE marriage of three film stars is announced in stories received this week — Mae Murray, Mae Busch and Al St. John, the comedian. Miss Murray was married on Sunday, June 27, to David Divani, a young Georgian film actor, with Valentino and Pola Negri as best man and maid-of-honor. The wedding took place in Beverly Hills. Mae Busch, another M-G-M actress, surprised Hollywood the following Wednesday, June 30, by eloping to Riverside with John E. Cassell, engineer for a general petroleum corporation. They were married at a little mission inn, with James Morrison and Aileen Pretty as sole attendants. On the same day, in the evening, Al St. John, Educational-Mermaid comedian, was married to Miss June Price Pearce, well-known Los Angeles realtor (or realtress). They are spending a honeymoon of three weeks in San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. A ANN HOWE IN THE STUDIO NN HOWE, the "radio girl" whose name has issued through many a loud speaker in homes across the country in connection with a novel enterprise in which the radio was employed to publicize a forthcoming screen star, has started her career at the Tec-Art studios in New York as the leading actress in a series of pictures to be made for the American Cinema Corporation. She will make her bow on the screen in this series as the screen star whose ascent to the featured honors in pictures was made with the assistance of radio fans. Ann Howe will appear in a series of twelve pictures under her present contract, the signing of which transferred her activities from the broadcasting studios to those of the motion picture producers. i LON PLEASURE BENT EE A. OCHS, prominent exhibitor and theatre realty man, accompanied by Mrs. Ochs and their two children, Millard and Willa, will sail for Italy aboard the S.S. Conte Biancamano on July 24th. From Naples they will proceed through Italy, Austria, Germany and France, returning in October. In Berlin Ochs will confer with Erno Rapee, formerly of New York and now staging presentations at the Ufa Palast. Unlike some others, Ochs frankly admits that the primary purpose of the trip will be vacationing, although he will look over a number of foreign picture theatres, just to keep his hand in. Principal characters as they appear in "Men o) Steel," a I irst \ational Special produced by Earl Hudson and starring Milton Sills; above, left to right: Milton Sills, Doris Kenyon, George Fauicett and John Philip Kolb; belou : I ictor McLaglen (at left), May Allison and Frank Currier. The picture opens at the Mark Strand Theatre, Vew York City, on July H