The Motion Picture Director (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

64 THE MOTION PICTURE DIRECTOR February qA SM ess age from Urury ffilaur SltiL ■% twenty years I’ve T been mentally retf dressing the people with whom I have come in contact. At first it afforded me a little idle amusement. Later I got a great kick out of visualizing a friend dressed in a suit of clothes that I built for him in my mind. Some times I would fairly itch to tell him about it, and finally it became an obsession with me. And then I found two other men . . . WILLIAM BEAUDINE and JOHN D. SCHULZE who like myself have for years been mentally building clothes for their friends. So now we have today . . . DRURY LANE I am having the time of my life actually building clothes for my friends. You can take it for granted — you are cordially invited to come up to DRURY LANE — and I hope you’ll come — for I’d sure like to run a tape measure around you. You’ll like DRURY LANE ( its personnel is modest). You’ll enjoy its aristocratic atmosphere and dignified originality. Won’t you let us know when to exped you? We can smoke and chat and get acquainted. Estado ne Manana Sincerely, E. L. VALBRACHT IrurylCattpICtiL 5404 i?irrra Uista Aurrnu' lliilUjanioi) ffiladBtmtr 1T36 iflakrrfi of (Dutrr (Barmrntfi fur iRrn Motherhood and the Screen (Continued from Page 16) "I miss the faces beyond the footlights,” confessed a professional friend of mine who was dining at my home. “Somehow there’s a wave of feeling that sweeps back over the footlights when you send it out from you, and it gets the people out there. It comes back, and enters you, and you react to it by rising to greater heights. In pictures, it’s only the director, and a few cynical cameramen and property men, and — ” One of my girls heard this, and when the guest had departed, of course there were questions. . . . “Don’t you miss it, then, mamma?” she demanded. “No,” I was able to say with the utmost of conviction. The subject was, and is, one near to my heart. “No, dear, I do not miss the theatre audience.” Of course, I have not faced many theatre audiences. My experience in that line has been confined practically to amateur performances and personal appearances. But I truly feel inspired when I face the camera, and I’ll tell you why. “Beyond the director and the cameramen, the property men and the sets, I seem to see and to feel a greater audience than any single theatre can hold. There’s a sea of intent faces: faces of men and women and children not only of our country, but of every country in the world. There are the folk of England, of Holland, of the Scandinavian countries; there are folk of the Orient, there are folk of all colors and races. Some are very, very poor, but it costs them little to see a picture in their country, and it brings them some happiness and light. Others are very rich and powerful— and perhaps the pictures they see will make them help the poor, and be kinder to everyone. “That is what I see and feel, and to me, it is more inspiring than any theatre audience and its applause would be. You see, through the magic of the camera, it is now possible to spread happiness throughout the whole world, and it makes me very, very happy, and very, very proud to think that I can contribute my bit to the entertainment of that vast, wonderful audience.” Yes — in that thought I perceive justification for all struggle on the road to a screen career. To give the world, to give all humanity that added happiness and light, that beginning of universal understanding and oneness of thought that may some day fuse the interests of mankind, is the mission of the motion picture. The privilege of making important contributions to this cause is, I feel, the utmost reward, the highest pinnacle, the greatest attainment that a career can offer me. Combined with the things that, through screen work, I have been able to give to the children, the reward is great enough! If I did not believe I have been a good mother to the children, I would not be satisfied. If I did not believe that any mother who preserved the ideal of motherhood in her struggle for success on the screen could do equally well, in proportion to her success as an actress, I would not give such an optimistic message to other mothers who, perhaps, would like to enter motion pictures — if it were not for their children. If you like, enter motion pictures because of the children! Norma Plays Kiki (Continued from Page 13) overdue rent she gambles her savings on the purchase of a second-hand wardrobe — with which to “break into the chorus.” In the office of theatre manager Renal, Kiki succeeds in securing a tryout, through which she marches with flying colors because the song chances to be one with which she is familiar. A comedy sequence follows, in which Kiki makes her debut and in trying to fake dancing as she had faked singing, collides with Paulette, the featured dancer, and after a violent kick from that lady, sails through the air and lands sitting in the bass drum of the orchestra! Baron Rapp, the villain, enters the plot here. In the screen version he is a more active villain than on the stage, and has a very good part. Paulette is presented as Renal’s sweetheart, Kiki comes between them, and thereafter lively fighting that arrives at the hair-pulling stage ensues. The intervals between the battles are filled with intrigue, in which Paulette excells. Kiki’s well-remembered cataleptic fit, stimulated as a trump card in her endeavor to keep Paulette and Renal from driving her from the latter’s house, is an outstanding feature of the screen version. ’Tis here that George K. Arthur as the servant, Adolphe, is given the opportunity for a choice bit of action in kissing Kiki. If one pretends to be in that rigid condition, and helpless, how can one prevent one’s self from being kissed? Renal, of course, rescues her at the critical moment, and Kiki comes out of her “fit” with a bound, to throw herself into his arms and kiss him, much to his delight. What a role! Will Miss Talmadge enhance her own and “Kiki’s” fame through its portrayal? I am inclined to think that she will, and if so, I hope that Norma will give us other plays of that order, and not let “Kiki” stand as a solitary example of that remarkable combination — a powerful screen individuality and true versatility.