Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1920)

Miss Hobbs By FAITH SERVICE Told in story form from the Wanda Hawley-Realart Photoplay MISS Hobbs had bobbed hair and was a vegetarian. She had theories, fads and a passionate philosophy, which dealt, principally, wjth the total eclipse of the male sex in, at least, the Hobbsian sphere. "Man," she was wont to say to her two, friends first, discii)les later, "man is a deterrent. We must, for our better evolution, dispense with man." She would then relate horrible incidents in which man had served as instrunients of some sort of torture. To the initiate the incidents would have savored of having been learned by rote, but the satellites would not so have abjured Miss Hobbs, ■ ■whom they held in reverence and esteem. Miss Hobbs was, indeed, estimable. The opulent legacy left her by an opulent aunt may, and may not, have had something to do with her estiniability. Who can say ? Too, it may have Conduced to the furtherance, the successful furtherance, of her theories. It takes a legacy (and an opulent one) to have acreage on which to disport one's unclad limbs, far from the saddening crowd, in the dewy hours of the dawning. It takes a legacy to pluck hothouse grapes from under sunglinted glass and crush them beneath disdainful lips the while reviling the wa)'S of man upon said dewy grass. It takes a very opulent legacy indeed to lure a wife away from a husband, a sweetheart from her love. Yet all these things Miss Hobbs did — and more. She had an estate. She called it, probably, New Thought, or something grave and purposeful. It was her boast that she never did a thi>ig without a purpose. She would disdain to. The estate was a very beautiful one. and had a little lake, and a sudden brook, and a bit of idyllic woodland and all the requirements for a faddist and two satellites to try out expensive theories. She had two friends. One was called Beulah Hackett, a timid soul who had been married some tliree years to a "brute." Miss Hobbs thus indignantly named him. That he deserved the apjiellation I leave to you. He abjured bobbed hair — in his wife. He sneered at Greenwich N'illage, free verse, the new poets and all things pertaining and appertaining. He made rather conspicuous fun of Miss Hobbs, her horn-rinuued spectacles, her breakfasts of graham crackers and well water ; all, indeed, save her legacy. He told her, supreme insult, that she might be "attractive to some man if she'd cut the comedy." For that last Miss Hobbs never forgave the lesser creature. As a sort of neat MISS HOBBS Fictionized from the scenario by Eleanor Harris from the play by Jerome K. Jerome, Produced by Realart. Directed by Donald Crisp, starring Wanda Hawley. The cast : MiSs Hobbs Wanda Hawley Wolff Kinfjsearl Harrison Ford Beulah Hackett Helen Jerome Eddy Percy Hackett Jack Mulhall George Jessop Walter Hiers Millicent Forey Juliaime Johnston Alice Joy Emily Chichester Mrs. Kingsear! Frances Raymond (Twentj/nven)