The Motion Picture Director (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

1925 ©irector 41 Directorial Briefs with him to a cane store and so thirty-five years later, I received the cane. It is inscribed: Due Frank Cooley 1889 Presented by James J. Corbett 1925 ORNING was our next stop. The last night here one of the actors and myself were playing the slot machine and having a drink or so at the hotel bar. The machine was a little out of order and I won something over eleven dollars before the bartender turned it to the wall. We started to leave, but were invited to have a drink on the house. We readily consented, and after we poured ours, the bartender filled a fourth glass to the brim, saying, “Excuse me, I have a lady friend in the box. I’ll take this to her.” Then we treated and bought a drink for the lady in the box. This was repeated several times, each glass for the lady filled to overflowing. We thought it a great joke. My actor companion finally told the bartender that his lady friend had some capacity. The bells were ringing for me, so we went to bed. I was pretty dizzy, to say the least, but had saved myself by taking very small drinks, and my friend had smoked several cigars, so we were not as bad off as we might have been. The next morning we assembled at the depot for an early jump. The actor that had the fifty-dollar forfeit arrived, carried by the property man and carpenter. He was surely “loaded.” I jumped all over him and told him he had lost his fifty. He looked at me with a sickly smile. “Oh, no, Frank,” he said, “you got me pickled — I was the bartender’s lady friend last night.” What could I say? I learned later that he sat in that box, drinking free whisky until he slid to the floor and had to be carried to bed. We had a ball team now. I was the pitcher and Harry Pollard the catcher. During a game in Roseburg, Oregon, Harry caught a foul tip fair on the nose. We had no masks. His nose was badly broken, but ht refused to quit and finished the game with the blood running oft his chin, and both eyes almost closed. We begged him to stop but he refused. We opened in the next town with my handsome juvenile’s eyes blackened and almost closed. He certainly showed plenty of gameness. Two weeks later we closed in the Metropolitan Opera House, Portland, after a season of one full year. The actors all had money in their pockets. I didn’t have much money, but I had forty-one signed contracts for next season and was happy. I had but one losing season after that. The pictures drove me oft the road in 1908 and I retired to my ranch fully believing that the pictures were a fad and would run their course in a couple of years. r To Be I think maybe I was wrong, [concluded] In directing The Million Dollar Handicap Scott Sidney returns to the field of drama after several years of comedy directing at the Christie studios. * * * “Slim” Summervils, the elongated mega phone weilder is directing Look Out Below, Joe Rock’s current standard comedy. -*■ ' # * A1 Rogell, the mascot director, has completed his twin pictures The Overland Trail and Red Hot Leather featuring Jack Hoxie, and is busy editing and titling both productions. * * * Finis Fox, scenarist, director and former producer, has been signed by Metropolitan Pictures and will augment the scenario staff of which Jack Cunningham is the editorial chi< f. * * * Sam Taylor is finishing the heavy traffic scenes in Harold Lloyd’s first production on the Paramount program and accordingly activities on the picture are returning to the normalcy of six-days a week. For Heaven's Sake is the working title. * * * The New Commandment, the first eastern-made production directed by Howard Higgin, is reported to have been warmly received at a trade showing in New York. * * * The entire freshman class at Fordham University turned out en masse to see The Freshman, Harold Lloyd’s current production directed by Sam Taylor, thus honoring one of their alumnus. Sam Taylor graduated from Fordham in 1915. * * * Bill Beaudine will resume work under his contract with Warner Bros., upon the completion of his direction of Mary Pickford in Scraps. * * * Jack Conway is directing an all star cast headed by Aileen Pringle and Edmund Lowe in The Reason fVhy, most successful of all Elinor Glyn’s novels, at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. * # * After an absence of nearly two years Robert Thornby returns to the studios in the capacity of director, and has started work on the latest Christie comedy, The Man Pays, featuring Neal Burns and Vera Steadman. * * * Billie Dove says being married to a director has many advantages aside from domestic relationship and asserts that Irvin Willat is her severest critic. Paris is reported as being scheduled as Paul Bern’s first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, the continuity of which is being done by Jessie Burns from an original story by Carey Wilson. * * From the M-G-M lot comes the report that Victor Seastrom is busy lecturing on American customs to his countrymen in the industry, adding that he is “father confessor” to Greto Garbo, Mauritz Stiller and Benjamin Christiansen, newer arrivals from Europe. * * * Edward Sloman has been called to New York to supervise the cutting of his recently completed Universal feature, His People. * * * Jean Hersholt has returned from Portland and points North and is again on the lot at Universal City waiting for his next assignment. Hersholt was loaned to Louis Moomaw to direct the Moomaw production T o the Brave. * # # Concluding his first vacation in three years Reginald Barker has returned from a three week’s trip to Chicago and New York, mostly New York, and is now lining up for directorial activity for the fall and winter. Barker’s trip seemed to have been marked by festivities all along the route. On the eve of his departure a dinner was given in his honor at Cafe Lafayette at which notables of screen and publication world were present. In Chicago he was greeted by. the Fourth Estate who were his hosts between trains and in New York he was met at the Grand Central by a delegation from The Players of which he has long been a member. * George Melford has returned from Sitka, Alaska, where he has been on location with his Rocking Moon company for Metropolitan. Incidentally Rocking Moon is reported as being the first production to be filmed on location at Sitka. * * * James Hogan is busily engaged in cutting his recently completed production for Metropolitan, Steel Preferred. Doorkeeper Becomes Director Victor Nordlinger has been promoted from a gatekeeper at Universal City to director and will make “The Love Deputy,” starring Edmund Cobb, supported by Fay Wray, Frank Newberg, George F. Austin, Buck Moulton and little Francis Irwin.