Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

CHATS WITH THE PLAYERS 115 plenty to eat, and the way they shove Walthall around is a caution. It is the real thing, and only the soft, muffled click of the camera recalls it is but a play for millions to glimpse on the screen of a thousand theaters. But our hero fights hack fiercely, and at the director's call of "Camera!" the second time, the word is welcome. "Phew !" he mutters, as he sinks down on an upended beer-barrel. " 'Tis hard work for a mere lad like me so early in the morning!" But he is only just starting, and all morning scene after BCene is clicked off, and the weariness of Walthall increases in direct ratio to the footage, but never a sigli he gives. The famous Walthall slow smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, and he is always there, ready for more. A short rest, a bite of a sandwich, a cup of coffee, and after a renewal of make up and a slight costume change, Walthall, with the rest, bundle into a big automobile and off they tear across the ferry to Jersey and s<h>ii are hotly at it once more. Gangs tight gangs, bottles fly and pistols crack, while the Jersey! tea flee in terror at what they think an invasion by the wild gangmen of New York. An old saloon is completely wrecked, as well as the clothes of Walthall and his fellow sufferers and fighters for the cause of Moving Pictures. It is bitterly cold. too. but the hard, "rough-house" work keeps them warm enough. Seated on a cask. Walthall may well recall humorously an outdoor picture in which he played the leading role. It seems that it was a story of the primeval man. and lie was supposed to be covered from head to foot with hair. So he took a large can of spirit-gum and poured it all over himself and stuck large handfuls of crfipe hair all over his body, and he was a sight for the gods— primeval and all others: Shivering, after an enforced rest had cooled his blood. Walthall longed for a few more barrels of that same spirit-gum and crepe hair to help keep warm ! Soon the gang-fights are on again, and after the sun has sunk too far to provide enough light for their purposes, all bundle back into the auto and streak it — not for home, gentle reader of this, but back to work ! A good day's work already, think you? Not for Walthall these days! Back to the studio he goes, and after a bit of supper, taken still in costume, he is soon in the midst of his role of gangman and proceeds to allow a girl from the country, portrayed by the winsome Consuelo Bailey, to reform him and lead him into a better pathway and toward a better and more useful life. It takes until midnight to effect this transformation, and it is much after that before "Porky Flynn" is transformed a second time, this time into the debonair, tho slightly weary, film favorite, Henry Walthall. A short stroll across to Luehow's in the sparkling air of a cold winter's night, a bite to eat and a wee nip, and Walthall wends his way to the Land of Nod — not back to Bogota, 'tis too late now for that, but to a near-by hotel where he keeps a room when he works so late. And only then is the working day of a leading actor in the movies over ! Not an easy life, you will say. But Walthall loves it, else he would not have deserted the stage footlights for such hard work. But he has his reward, for millions of people, young and old, know hhs face and love his performances, all over this broad land and Europe ; so he does not labor in vain, even tho his laboring extends sixteen hours at a stretch, as it often does. The movies keep one moving, and Walthall is pretty swift on his feet — he has to be to hold down his job! But as he himself says, "It's all in a day's work," and a long day's work it is, too! Russell E. Smith.