Motion Picture (Aug 1922-Jan 1923)

GMOTION PICTURF flBI I MAGA2INE L It had never occurred to him TLJE seemed to have all of the ■'--'■ qualifications for business success. Yet, somehow or other, he didn't advance as he should have. Something seemed to stand in his way. The thing that held him back was in itself a little thing. But one of those little things that rest so heavily in the balance when personalities are being weighed and measured for the bigger responsibilities of business. Halitosis (the medical term for unpleasant breath) never won a man promotion in the business world — and never will. Some men succeed in spite of it. But usually it is a handicap. And the pathetic part of it is that the person suffering from halitosis is usually unaware of it himself. Even his closest friends don't mention it. Sometimes, of course, halitosis arises from some deep-rooted organic disorder ; then professional help is required. Smoking often causes it, the finest cigar becoming the offender even hours after it has given the smoker pleasure. Usually — and fortunately, however — halitosis yields to the regular use of Listerine as a mouth-wash and gargle. Recognized for half a century as the safe antiseptic, Listerine possesses properties that quickly meet and defeat unpleasant breath. It halts food fermentation in the mouth, and leaves the breath sweet, fresh and clean. Its systematic use tliis way puts you on the safe and polite side. Then you need not be disturbed with the thought of whether or not your breath is right. You know it is. Your druggist will supply you. He sells a great deal of Listerine. For it has dozens of diderent vises as an antiseptic. Note the booklet with each bottle. — Lambert Fharmacal Company. Saint Louis, U. S. A. HALITOSIS use LISTERINE ! Tke Measure of a Man {Continued from page 57) 108 "I have no set philosophy," he replied, in answer to my query on that subject, as the waiter departed with a sand-dabby order. • "I'm not convinced of anything in particular. I dont want to be 'set' in any one line. What I am wondering about now is how far business and art mix. There is a question in my mind this week as to whether an actor should be a good business man, or should leave his business affairs to others and devote all his attention to portraying the characters they give him. What do you think?" He has a trick of turning the interview upon the interviewer. But that is characteristic of his general mental outlook — questioning and weighing every circumstance, but not looking ahead for trouble. I soon found, however, that he is inclined to be serious and not at all frivolous. He did not just pop into the movies from the luxurious life of a Los Angeles real estate office, nor was he stopped by a director at a bar and elevated to stardom overnight. He has worked for all he has attained. For several years he was on the stage before he took up the screen. "You must have been playing 'Little Lord Fauntleroy,' then!" I ejaculated, when he told me of playing on the stage in London, for he is really very young — as young in years as in spirit. Altho he played in London, he was born in St. Louis. There is a trace of the Southern drawl clinging yet to his voice. "Let me see," went on L intent, rather, on performing a major operation on the backbone of my sand-dab, "you have established an enviable reputation as a peripatetic leading man. As Shakespeare has said, a man in his time plays many parts. You've played with many queens. That's interesting." "Yes," he answered, retrospectively, lifting the corners of his straight, firm mouth in a little smile, and buttering a roll, "there was Constance and Bebe, Norma, Marguerite, Vivian, Lila, Wanda, Ethel and Christine." "Some record !" I acclaimed. The operation had been successful. The sand-dab, fresh from Catalina, was at my mercy. Can you guess who they all are? It's a sort of puzzle and I'll give a prize to the one who guesses the surnames of all those girls. The prize will be the backbone of the very next sand-dab I catch in the Alexandria. If you say the names over rapidly, they will sound like that famous song in the "Merry Widow" which had to do with Lolo, Floflo and Cloclo. Remember? But Harrison Ford is not a Prince Danilo. If he were not so young and so full of life, I think he would be almost pedagogic and perhaps wear bicycle tire spectacles. The collection of books in the Ford home is noted. He reads a great deal, and between pictures he collects volumes. At present he is engaged in oljtaining the entire and unexpurgated works of Edgar Lee Masters. He already has the Spoon River Anthology, so if you have any of the others, he would appreciate it if you would send them to Hollywood. There is no camouflage about Harrison, and no subterfuge. He is a hard-working young man, bent upon maintaining the decorum of Hollywood and just as unpicture-like as you could imagine. As a matter of fact, volumes of publicity to the contrary, the majority of youngsters in picture-land today are not at all more jjizarre than the thousands who infest our schools and colleges. Perhaps they are a little more serious, a little more intent upon a future goal than the average unprofessional youth — that is all. "I think that every picture player in America should spend a part of every year in New York," he told me, just after he had risen to speak to Lois Wilson who had finished her third degree and was passing out — out of the grill, I mean. "The months I spent in New York with Constance Talmadge, that is, at her studio, were perhaps the most broadening of my life. "There are scores of girls and fellows in the Western studios who have never had a chance to get East. At least they have never taken the chance. If you dont take chances in this life, chances wont take you. I think a player, particularly a young one, is very apt to get into a rut by remaining stationary. Of course, books are all right to relieve the monotony of plain existence, but travel, after all, is the greatest panacea for ruttism. I intend to get on to New York every so often from now on !" In saying this he does not seem to be preaching from a lofty height of worldwide experience, but rather as a successful young professor who has accomplished a difficult experitnent and knows whereof he speaks. "Life is a sort of experiment," he continued, taking my own thoughts out of my mind. "We have a vast opportunity here to mold ourselves to some good end. I try to take advantage of it. I've just returned from a motor trip to San Francisco. It was an opportunity to see lots of country while I was waiting for an engagement and so I took it. One has no chance to stagnate if one keeps moving. There's that old story about the rolling stone getting a wonderful polish, you know." His smile, really, is as refreshing as a suminer breeze. The world seems to be Harrison Ford's oyster, and in opening it he is different from a great many of us. Instead of expecting to find it bad, he is sure that it is quite good. He has no "grand" manner in speaking of himself or of his engagements in pictures. When I asked him what he expected to do next for the screen, he was quite frank in saying that he didn't know. He did not hint that Mr. So-and-so had been trying to sign him up for life to a fabulous contract or that he expected to start a company of his own. He was merely a very presentable young leading man waiting for a chance to do some work. "I wonder what the proof of popularity is," he mused, with his strongly artistic hands cupped in front of him on the table. He had reached the little-coffee period. "I've never gone in for publicity, much, perhaps because I didn't know how. I'm frank in saying that I do not know how the producers judge our box-office value. There is still a great deal I have to learn about some angles of the picture business — but they aren't camera angles !" After all, the measure of the popularity of Harrison — one doesn't call him Harry, tho I dont know why — is not because he is merely presentable, with a profile which attracts flappers, old and young, but because, I think, of his natural and naive outlook on life, his simplicity of soul and his freedom from any Freudish complexes. He is twentieth century Youth, etched with the fine shadings of Southern gentility !