Motion Picture News (Jul-Aug 1916)

August 19, 1916 MOTION PICTURE NEWvS 1087 "DESTINY'S BOOMERANG" FROM HORSLEY ON AUGUST 19 " Destiny's Boomerang " a centaur feature of a sociological nature, a David Horsley production, presenting the co-stars Margaret Gibson and William Clifford, will serve as the main offering from this studio to be released the week of August 19, on the Mutual program. The story is by Elsie N. Callaghan and was produced under the direction of Charles Swickard. Mctor Rottman appears as a young nobleman and Frederick Montague is a millionaire. The one other principal of the cast, the role of the mother, is handled by Mary Talbot. A thousand feet of comedy is offered in the release on August 18, of the Cub Comedy, " Jerry and the Counterfeiters," starring diminutive George Ovey. Director Milton H. Fahrney is also the author of the story. Mr. Ovey is supported by a large company including Claire Alexander, George George, Louis FitzRoy, Gordon MacGregor, Arthur Mund, Ray Lincoln, Jefferson Osborne, Joseph Von Meter, Harry Jackson and Dave Allen. Bluebirds to Take Flying Start For the Coming Season Our Coming Features Match the Best Selections That Might Be Made from Our Past Releases," Says General Manager Hoffman Smalleys) contribute the September 11 re BARONESS VAN RAVEN IS NOW A METRO ACTRESS Baroness Dorothy Van Raven has been selected to visualize Juliet in the newest one-reel comedy, " A Taxicab Elopement," starring Max Figman and Lolita Robertson on the Metro program. The Baroness was selected from a long list of applicants for the picture. She is also in the cast of Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne's screen production of '■ Romeo and Juliet." Although born in Auburn,, N. Y., where she first saw the light as Dorothy Kingdon, she is a real Baroness. Her husband belongs to the Dutch nobility. GENERAL MANAGER M. H. HOFFMAN has arranged plans for Bluebird Photoplays to take a flying start with the new season, " Our coming features match the best selections that might be made from our past releases," says Mr. Hoffman. " We have made preparations to reap every advantage of our campaign of national advertising, now fairly under wa} and the exhibitor and his public may be assured that we mean to supply features that will justify the immense expenditures we have planned for country-wide advertising." September 4 will bring " The Unattainable " to celebrate Labor Day and start the regular theatrical season with a release in which Dorothy Davenport and Emory Johnson will be introduced to the Bluebird program. Eugene B. Lewis made the scenario from Elwood D. Hemming's story and Lloj'd B. Carleton directed. Richard Morris, Alfred Allen and Mattie Witting will be prominent in the supporting company. Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley (the lease under the caption of " Saving the Family Name." Miss Weber furnished the scenario, basing her work upon Evelyn Heath's story, and Mr. Smalley will be the leading man. Mary MacLaren, the heroine of " Shoes," will be the featured one, with Carl Von Schiller, Jack Holt. Harry Depp and Miss Girrard Alexander prominent among the supporting players. " Saving the Family Name " will be Miss MacLaren's second appearance in screen prominence, " Shoes " having elevated her to stardom from the obscurity of " playing maids." " Wanted : a Home " will be a later Bluebird, the Smalleys have produced with Aliss McLaren leading. Under Robert Z. Leonard's direction, Ella Hall will appear in several releases. Lynn Reynolds, and Rupert Julian, will present several other offerings during the forthcoming season and Lloyd Carleton, Jack Conway and the other Bluebird directors will offer other subjects during the fall and winter. Fifty Prints of Dixon Film by End of September — Giroux Fall of a Nation " Opens New England Campaign with a Week's Run at the Mordem Theatre, Providence, R. I. — W. THE demand for "The Fall of a Nation " by state rights buyers and exhibitors continues in such force that E. V. Giroux, general manager of the National Drama Corporation, says fifty prints will be working by the middle of September. Ten prints of the Dixon-Herbert spectacle were completed in July for the immediate quick requirements, but forty more have recently been ordered to keep pace with the demands. At the same time Ella Wheeler Wilcox Photoplays, Inc., Formed by Warners They Are Preparing to Launch Six Subjects Based on the Poems of Mrs. WUcox, the First to Be Released on State Rights Basis in September ELLA WHEELER WILCOX is about to become, through the medium of her works, a familiar and periodical figure on the motion picture screen. A company known as the Ella Wheeler Wilcox Photoplays, Inc., has just been formed, with A. and H. M. Warner as managers, and they are preparing to launch into vigorous activity with six photoplays, based on the poems of Mrs. Wilcox, completed, and more to follow. The first of these will be released to exhibitors some time during the latter half of September. Marketing will be done on a State rights basis. The six titles announced for the initial releases of the company are, " Lais When Young," Meg's Case," " Angel or Demon," " The Married Coquette," " Divorced," "Lord, Speak Again." "The Married Coquette" will be the first on the market. Others will follow at the rate of one a week, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox photoplays will thereafter be available at' that rate for an indefinite period. • The six photoplays enumerated above are -taken from poems of Mrs. Wilcox bearing the same titles. The company has acquired the photoplay rights to all the published works of Mrs. Wilcox, and all that she may write, for a period of ten years. The only exceptions to this are half a dozen of her works which have already been produced for the screen by another feature concern. The scenarios for all of the pictures will be written by Ruth Helen Davis. Fuller details concerning the plans of the company will be announced in the next issue. The leading members of the cast chosen for the enactment of the Wilcox films are Arthur Ashley, Walter Miller, Lucille Taft and Carlotta de Felice. Richard Garrick has directed the subjects already made. M. Powers Visits Many Cities Arthur W'. Tams has printed large editions of the Victor Herbert orchestral and piano m.usic, which is advertised as " the first original score written for a great picture by a composer of foremost rank." The New England campaign of the film started on July 31 with a week's run at James E. Moore's Modern theatre. Providence. Many exhibitors from eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island mingled in the big crowd that attended the premier. Wallace M. Powers represented the interests of the National Drama Corporation. After leaving Providence, Mr. Powers visited Worcester, Boston, Lowell, Portland, Bangor and other New England cities in which he has a wide acquaintance. Willard Holcomb, business manager of J. Frank Hatch's "Fall of a Nation" company, reports splendid business at the Euclid Avenue Opera House, Cleveland, where the picture had its first Ohio showing, beginning July 30. A tour in the firstclass theatres will follow. Under the direction of Mrs. William Bramwell (nee Minnie Seligman) a benefit performance of the spectacle wiU be given at the Hotel Nassau, Long Beach, on Wednesday evening, August 9. The gross receipts will be devoted to the relief of guardsmen's families who were left without funds by the militia move to the Mexican border. A NEW "VAMPIRE" ON THE SCREEN FOR CONSOLIDATED A new " vampire " is to make her appearance on the screen in the near future. She is a Russian and her name is Olga Olonova. She has been secured by President O. E. Goebel of the Consolidated Film Corporation and has already begun work in " The Crimson Stain Mystery." NEW COMPANY FORMED TO PRODUCE FEATURE PICTURES An important meeting was held in New York Cit}' on August 3, at which were present a number of prominent independent producers and exchangemen. As a result a cooperative company was formed to make and release one feature production a week. Full details will be given in next week's issue of Motion Picture News.