Motion Picture Magazine (Mar-Jul 1918)

• .-' ifl X,-'; /ft\MOTlON PICTUR 'Ihel I MAOAZINf Arizona. William Stowell and Mr. Smalley are playing at being miners, but the men in the background are sure enough Arizona gold-diggers. Mrs. Smalley said it was so hot and murky in that mine that they could scarcely finish the picture Even on the surface the temperature was 120 degrees, and in that pocket of the earth, with no breeze stirring, the atmosphere was mephitic, to say the least. Of course, I wanted to hear about the sixteen-year-old star of the Lois Weber productions, Mildred Harris. Her director said enthusiastically, "She's the dearest LOIS WEBER'S HEART IS IN HER OUTDOOR SCHOOL FOR YOUNG ACTOR FOLKS little thing, and whenever she is not actually posing for the camera, she's busy improving something around the studio. She loves the flowers, grounds and studio home, and goes about with a critical eye. I really believe she is a born 1 a n d s c ape gardener. Wait a minute— here's a picture of Mildred taken in imp r o m p t u fashion one morning when I found her. trying to clean our best Sunday-go-to-meeting camera with the stenographer's typewriter brush. I happened in on her and thought she looked so cute and interested that [ called our camera-man to take a still, 'Caught With the Goods !' " Of course, there's an out-of-doors school for the kiddies who figure in Lois Weber's plays, with two feminine tutors to keep order and unfold latent talents. Who wouldn't be a juvenile actor and learn to be a better MILDRED HARRIS LOVES TO TIDY UP THE CAMERA scholar than naughty Tom Sawyer under spreading palmtrees and sunshine? Lois Weber is a practical idealist. She cannot stand for slipshod work, but ever before her vision flickers an El Dorado which is to please as well as raise to a higher standard the human mind. She understands and can herself work out each smallest detail of construction, from grinding the camera-crank to developing film, placing properties, writing continuity, acting and directing. Hers is not mere technical knowledge ; she has lived thru every department of Motion Picture work. She studies an actor from every angle before he is allowed to work for the camera. In case of a faulty profile, a full-face view is photographed, with one side of the face in black shadows and the other in brilliant light, so that the onlooker gets the effect of a profile. She studies the actor's smile quite as carefully, in order to avoid a crooked-mouth effect. This famous woman producer and director also told me that she makes an intensive study of — feet! We've all lived thru the photographer's arrangement of our hands, but few of us have experienced the sensation of posing feet and so throwing shadows and lights that a, tall woman may look as if she owned a 3-A boot. That is what Lois Weber does. She wants to idealize even the commonplace things, wants to bring beauty and artistic finish into every smallest part of the camerawork. She visits every noteworthy film production, reads and studies indefatigably. When I inquired if she were not subject to intense weariness after a day of strict attention to myriad details, Lois Weber smiled reminiscently and answered, "I surely would be fagged out if it were not that my assistant property man looks after me as if I were incapable of taking care of myself. He thought out the funniest plan ; every one laughs at the sight ! No matter where I stand, I suddenly feel something shoved in under my knees, and there's the assistant with a small camp-stool begging me {Continued on page 126) 61 ft PA&li