Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Jun 1929)

OPPORTUNITY MARKET AGENTS WANTED ^AGENTS— SSn. WEEKLY SELLING SHIRTS. No capital or pxpe:lence needed. Commissions in advance. Establisiied 40 years. Samples Free. Madison Products, 5fi4 Hroad*va\'. Ne.v Yorli. Make $10 every day introducing New Automatic Window Washer. Aniazlni; Invention. Send for FREE Sample ofler. National Industries, 67 E. Lake, Dept. 754. C'iiicago. $50. ob Weekly. Men wanted to« demonstrate and take ten orders daily direct from motori.st.s. Amazing l\iagnetic Trouble Light. Sticks aio^wliere! Ni ore orders, liigger pay. Write for demonstrator and particulars. Magna Co., 6 Beacon St.. Dept. 724, Boston, Mass. Earn money regularly in j'our home, folding and mailing circulars. A wonderful chance. Particulars and samples free. Numa Co., 48 Adams St., Irviiigton, N. J. HELP WANTED— MALE $1900-$2600 Rallwa Postal Clerk. Practical Questions and Answers. For particulars write Ward, Dept. 101. 1609 W. 9th St., Los Angeles, Cal. HOW TO ENTERTAIN Plays, Musical comedies and revues, minstrels, comedy and talking songs, blackface skit„<, xaudevilleacts, monologs, dialogs, recitations, entertainnients, musical readings, make-up goods. Catalog fi ee, T. S. Denison & Co., 623 So. Wabash. Dept. 63, Chicago. MOVIE STARS PHOTOS Photos — 8x10 originals, all famous mo\1e stars, latest poses; Special 2.5f each or 5 for $1.00. Scenes from recent photoplays 25e each in lots of 5 or more. Stamps or money order. Bram Studio 288. Film Centre, 9th .Ave. at 44th, New York. PATENTS Inventors: Send details of your invention or patent at once, or write for information. In business 30 years. Complete facilities. References. Adam Fisher Mfg. Co., 512 Enright, St. Louis, Mo. PHOTOPLAYS $1250 for a photopla.v story by an unknown writer and sold through our Sales Department. \\e rc\ise, copyright and market. Located in the heart of the Motion Picture Industry. We know the demand. Established 1917. Postal brings FREE BOOKLET with full particulars. Universal .Scenario Company, 203 Western & Santa Monica Bldg., Hollywood, California. REDUCE A BOOKLET BY DR. DENSMORE on treatment for reduction of Corpulency will be mailed without charge upon request to Dept. "K ■ Garfield Tea Company 313— 41st Street Brooklyn. New York Read our Special Subscription Offer For Motion Picture Classic On Page 95 Earn big money for your short atone3, poems, songs and other accepted writing efforts. "Writing for Profit" is my secret and it's yours absolutely free. Send for it today. RICHARD C. ABBOTT 22 E. 12th Cincinnati. Ohio SHAPELY ANKLES Be admired for your slim gracelul limbs REDUX Ankle Reducers uuic-kly perfect the shape of both ankle and calf h.v a new scientific, cDriifcirtable and liarmless method— amazingly niinple juht »lip thorn on like a Hock iti note instant results. Nothing else to do. May bo worn <lay or night and under «hcor Ktockines without showiiiK. Uelievc»i Varicose Veins and ^ anklcH promptly. Anklrs !.onk Slim while lircnmino Slim SATISFACTION GUARANTEED Send Ki/.e r>f ankle an<l larRowt part of calf with money order f<.r S3.49 PVAi I'AIK or pay postman upon delivery of ankl< in plain wrapper. MADAME CLAIRE 303 Fifth Ave. Suite 1608-0 New Yoik ff ^N^i^r Where Stars Are Outshone {Contimied from page 2j) Minimum Evidence Actress for a Day ^ i NATURALLY, there must be evidence. But they give as little as possible, while the average woman tries to remember ev^erything. She wishes to put every unkind word her husband has ever said to her in the public records. She wishes to recount her every feeling; her every sensation. The average woman wouldn't miss her day in court, while your motion picture star does everything to avoid it. We had a typical average case recently. The woman testified that her husband swore at her repeatedly. She charged cruelty. When I asked her to repeat his words, she said, 'Oh, judge, I couldn't repeat it.' Finally, persuaded she must offer substantiation for her statement, she gave them. Just the usual profanity. Her daughter corroborated the mother's testimony— and then testified in addition that her mother had replied in the same, or worse, language. '.'We never have anything like that from the motion picture people. They use cruelty frequently, but it usually consists of a husband refusing to take his wife places or of the one being so busy professionally that he or she has no time for the other. They keep as far away as possible from the personal element; they avoid the sensational always." The Year's List AND suddenly I began to see light. j[\_ There was one haven of obscurity for our Hollywood celebrities. They couldn't find it in marriages, births, love triangles or funerals. But in the divorce courts — then there was one place where these people made public appearances which the}' tried to keep from being photographed and recorded. There was one corner in this big Western city where they went through the routine of life the same as other people. A retreat which sheltered during the 1928 season the following people: Claire Windsor and Bert Lytell; Blanche Mehaffey and George Hansen; Louise Brooks and Eddie Sutherland; Anita Stewart and Rudolph Cameron; Flora and Carter De Haven; Virginia Brown Faire and Jack Daugherty; Laura Guisti and Roy D'Arcy; Dorothy Mackaill and Lothar Mendez; Louise Lorraine and Art^Acord; Lou Tellegen and Isabel Craven; Sylvia Breamer and Dr. Harry Martin; Madge Bellamy and Logan Metcalf; Big Boy WilliaiTis and Katherine Clifford; Jacqueline Logan and Robert Gillespie; Harry Langdon and Rose Frances Langdon; Gardner James and Marion Constance Blackton; Helene Costello and John Regan; Bryant Washburn and Mabel Forrest Washburn, and a few others. And out of these were fifteen who used the harmless grounds of cruelty; two desertion. One case touched on the sensational when the wife, Louise Lorraine, alleged she had found a strange nightie in her apartment. And that was more humorous than harmful. "But don't the newspapers ferret them out?" "Yes, but usually not until it is over. I think you find the majority of cases filed under non-professional names. Even if they do discover it and print a story, the grounds are usually .so harmless that there is no excitement about it. Of course, there are exceptions." Judge McComb looked at me. I looked at the judge. Not one word was spoken, but I '11 wager you right now that the name in both our minds was the same. The name of Charles Spencer Chaplin — and his two leading-lady spouses. WE were both quiet for a moment. My mind was playing with this new angle on our home-town people. I had come down to get a sensational story. Well, it was sensational, but from a different standpoint than I had expected. And suddenly a picture Hashed across the film of my imagination. A picture of a drab little woman clothed in wilted gingham, standing over a boiling pot in a nondescript, steamfilled kitchen. Hungry children crowding around her. A man enters. He is sullenly silent. "Dinner ready? — Well, why in hell isn't it?" The scene changed. A courtroom, indifferently crowded. The same woman on the stand, this time in cheap silk rather than cheap gingham. "But judge, he called me names. He " and all the details of the long„ day-after-day, every-day-thesame, years together. The first time in her life that this woman has had a chance to act out her life story. The first time drama has crowded into her colorless existence. The first touch of what she had seen so many times in the movies creeping into her own life-experiences. While Claire Windsor, Louise Brooks, Blanche Mehaffey, Dorothv Mackaill and the other long list of world-famous women who had graced that court, either in person or through legal representation, what did a day like that mean to them? It was just a necessary adjunct to making their exit from, what in comparison to their real lives, must be a perfectly colorless situation. Merely a side-issue of life which might be turned into scandal if they didn't make every effort to avoid it. J liA ui Poverty, the Great Divider ft Dte iliav; ^ I TOLD the judge of my imaginary picture. " Exactly." His voice was very sober as he answered. "The average woman wouldn't miss that one day of her life — wouldn't miss adding every bit of sensation and drama which she could think of or imagine. If you sat in this court day after day as I do, you would find that where wealth and prominence cause one separation, f)overty causes a thousand. One goes into the newspapers and the other doesn't. A man is all in all to the life of an average woman. Her divorce is her one great moment of diversion from the monotony of living. While to the motion picture woman it is almost a side-issue. Being engaged in a profession, she doesn't have time to brood jiffl t over every word he has said to her, every kes little discourtesy that has been shown. Nor does she have the same economic problem. "The big problem in the average divorce is money. Recently I had a case of a husband and wife with two children. He received fifteen dollars a week and they had obligated themselves to pay out thirteen dollars and a half a week on regular instalments. She was bringing him intp, court regularly because he was ten dolla behind. It was put up to the court whetb to place the man in jail and cut off al livelihood or send him back and let him pai as he could. Those are the ones which nevi get into court, but they are the ones wh linger in the memory of the person w handles them. "Personally, I think there should be law that all divorces should be private. T motion picture people can make them because of their economic independence ani with out-of-court settlements. Why should their affairs or those of others come to thj ears of outsiders?" stu ns fcwsi Wf «il tke iriii| St( lya 86