Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1924)

QMOTION FICTURr (101 I MAGAZINE L. When Lincoln Was A Barefoot Boy — EVERY scrap of printed paper that came to his hands was a treasure trove. He read it eagerly — conning every line — getting every worth while word. What a harvest he could have garnered from a modern publication ! And not the least interesting to him would have been the advertisements, with their stories and their pictures of products, appliances and services that have smoothed the course of life to a degree unknown and unbelievable in the rough pioneer days. Nowadays new comforts and conveniences slip into our lives almost without our realizing it. We are liable to be rather matter-of-fact about it all. And advertising that has made it simpler to make and distribute profitably innumerable products at reasonable prices, has played a leading part in making our life so eminently easy to live. Read over the advertisements and try to think what the things you see there would have meant to our forefathers. Then you'll realize what a service and what a convenience advertising is to you. Read it. Make use of it! red . . . our head throbbing. We're almost convinced that stars actually earn their salaries, whatever they may be. In the first place, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or how many times you've been there before, it is easier for a foreigner with a criminal record to get by Ellis Island that it is for anyone to get into a studio. The High Functionary who guards the portals never remains any length of time so it is impossible to be remembered. And it takes hours for anyone inside, whose name you chance to mention bj way of identification, to be discovered in the maze of sets being demolished, sets being erected and sets being used. When we finally entered the sanctum the other day, the first set we stumbled upon was a circus. In proportions it was, without exaggeration, something like a dirigible hangar. There was the old tanbark . . . rows upon rows of seats encircled it. There was the circus smell, because there were the circus animals crying, grunting and snarling beliind the bars of their cages, the firmness of which we distrusted on general principles. Then, just around the corner, we came upon a candle-lit drawing-room of Louis XV of France, where gallant courtiers bowed low over the jewelled and perfumed hands of beautiful ladies . . . while several bobbed-haired flappers giggled on the side-lines. French soldiers, bar-maids, grande dames, Apaches and diplomats shouldered each other on their way to the cafeteria. They shared the extras' fortune . . . sevenfifty a day and a dream of arriving in a Rolls Royce and dressing in a room with a star painted upon the door. The star's maid hurrying by with mirror and powder caused them to stand aside for her to pass. Sh; went with haste, for the cameras were still and an overhead which sounds like the war-debt was mounting while the company waited for a make-up to be examined and repaired. Contrasts in bold relief under the supernatural glare of the Kleigs . . . and a sawing and a hammering, while sets, are struck and sets are built and a respite from stark reality is created for an audience as far-reaching as the world. Five of us . . . Betty Blythe, Gladys Hall, Susan Brady and an interesting English girl, a Miss Forbes, . . . lunched at tlie Elysee one day last month before Betty left for California by way of the Panama Canal. We had an interesting time. That was expected by all of us, for Betty is one of those people who manage to have interesting things happen to them and who is forever hearing of things more dramatic and fascinating than novelists ever dream of. She attracts Life like a magnet attracts steel. One of the stories she told us was about a man who, thru a combination of strange circumstances, became a star in the movies without ever having had any theatrical experience whatever. He had been poor all his life, enjoying no more wealth or prestige than a clerkship brings. His first picture was a tremendous success. But this also was due to attending conditions at the time. Money which he had known before in small denominations now ' came to him in hundreds and thousands. He felt generously disposed towards every member of his company and gave them handsome gifts. He gave his director an automobile. He gave one of the girls in the company a gold mesh bag set with diamonds and sapphires. He gave Betty, then a stranger to fame, a cover on a theatrical newspaper '118