Motion Picture News (Mar-Apr 1923)

1254 Motion Picture News THAT Charlie Chaplin is still the greatest of favorites is attested to by the reports coming in from First National on "The Pilgrim." Already the bookings at the New York Exchange of this company show that one hundred and thirty houses will show the comedian's latest picture during the week of March 12. Here is F. N.'s evidence : Six Keith houses, six Moss houses, eight Fox houses, four Proctor houses, three Consolidated houses, four Sydney Cohen houses, five M. & S. houses, twenty-one Loew houses, seventy-two Independent houses' and one Yost house. During the week of March 19 ninetynine Brooklyn houses will show the Chaplin picture. Can you beat it? * * * HP HE recent opening of Tut-ankh-amen 's tomb near Luxor, J and the widespread publicity it has been given, will shortly be reflected on the screen. " Bella Donna " will have scenes laid in the very locale now receiving such wide notice. William P. S. Earle is to do a picture under the title ' ' Tut-ankh-amen, " using the process of combining artist's drawings and studio scenes, as was done in " Omar Khayyam," by Ferdinand Earle. Tom Terriss is taking a company to Egypt and will film scenes, no doubt, around the now famous tomb. Already, along Fifth Avenue, the Egyptian note has been struck in gowns, and the screen, always in the lead of fashion, will shortly reflect that tendency. It 's an Egyptian year ! TS ATI! ERTNE MLLIKER and H. H. Caldwell, having finished titling "Mad Love" and "Lost and Found" for Goldwyn, for which then came to the Coast some weeks ago, are enroute to New York io reopen their freelancing offices. They arc leaving the Coast, not because they love Los Angeles less, but because they love New York more. Katherine Hilliker is Mrs. II. II. Caldwell in private life. MEMBERS of the Screen Writers Guild are listening attentively to John Russell's earnest plea that they accompany him on a trip to the South Sea Islands. The idea was broached last year by the author of "Where the Pavement Ends" and the boys, in talking it over, practically settled on saving a certain sum of money by the spring of 1924 — the cash to be used in buying or chartering a boat and paying expenses to Robert Louis Stevenson's paradise. John Russell has lived in the South Sea Islands for many years and it is his intention of showing them some sights that are not on the map nor are generally seen by white people visiting the Islands. The writers who have "yes-ed" Russell include Tom Geraghty, Ralph Block, Perley Poore Sheehan, Frank Woods, Harvey Thew, Bernard McConville, Eugene Lewis, Rob Wagner, Lucien Hubbard, Frank Condon, Frank R. Adams, Waldemar Young, Percy Heath, Peter B. Kyne, Elmer Harris, Victor Clarke, Grant Carpenter. Doug is scheduled to go, also the directors, Charles Eyton, Tom Forman and William de Mille. * * * HAROLD LLOYD and the Mrs. have returned from their honeymoon and may be found parked in a snug little hungaloAV for two. Rumor reaches us that the young benedict and his better half will soon make a trip to Broadway. We take this occasion to acknowledge the announcement of the marriage of Mildred Hillary, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Howard B. Davis, to Mr. Harold Clayton Lloyd, on Saturday, the tenth of February. Y'HE Board of Trade of Forest City, Pa., has offered to get up a first class rousing "Old Home Week" next summer if S. L. Roihafel and Pat O'Malley will return to the prosperous coal town for a few days. We all know that the impresario of the Capitol hailed from Forest City, where he began his career, but it is not generally known that Pat, the actor, was not so long ago employed as a miner in the coal town at a wage of one dollar and a half a day. When the project was made to have both 8. L. and Pat return to their native heath for a week's festivities, the screen actor wired; "I will if you will." And Rothafel answered: "You're on." * * # O PEAKING of Rothafel reminds us that his recent entry ^ into London was similar to Caesar's triumphal entry into Rome after his Alps campaign. The Daily Express waxes very enthusiastic over the American impresario, calling attention to the big theatre over which he presides and mentioning that the Broadway cinema theatres take more money in one week than the average good film takes in the whole of Great Britain during its entire run. Some typical Rothafelogues which the Express quotes are : "No one knows what the public wants, least of all the public." "Good taste is the foundation on which successful entertainment is built." "The exhibitor who underestimates public intelligence gambles on himself versus his seating capacity." "The motion picture is not yet an art, but it can be wedded to the art of music." The Express calls Rothafel Moviedom's high priest and paints a colorful eulogy of the man and his showmanship. The Kinematograph Weekly also pays tribute to the New York impresario who held a trade audience for an hour and a half with his ideas of conducting a picture theatre. This trade magazine hopes that S. L.'s visit will work a miracle among British exhibitors — that if his ideas are adopted the London cinema palaces can be placed on as high an artistic plane as his own Capitol. The Film Renter and Moving Picture News, another of London's trade papers contributes a page editorial over its editor's signature — an editorial headed : "Go Thou and Do Likewise." The title of the article is enough indication of what the editor is advising the exhibitors of the British Isles. They should emulate Rothafel. * * * WITH five companies at work and three stories in preparation for early production, March will be the busiest month at Paramount 's Long Island City studio since it was reopened several months ago. Tom Meighan, Dorothy Dalton, Bebe Daniels and Antonio Moreno are busy completing scenes, and production will soon start on ' ' Lawful Larceny, " ' ' Bluff, : ' and "White Heat." * * * R. ROTH ACKER is traveling again. He doesn't postcard us from Baden-Baden or Vienna or Venice or Paris or dear oV Lunnon, but from Miami, Florida. W. R. is leaving the Southern resort after a happy vacation and will park himself under California skies just as soon as he lias attended to some business matters in the old home town, Chicago. * * *• THOMAS H. INCE'S publicity department is authority for the statement that the director has hit upon an entirely original scheme by which the usual process of adapting novels for the screen is reversed. Two novels are being specially written in collaboration with a screen expert to insure big screen material and ideal situations for the camera. TV.