Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

2022 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 14. No. 13 Three Scenes from Consolidated Film Corporation's New Serial " The Crimson Stain Mystery " reeling. AIcGiil left for Florida immediately after completing the " Who's Guilty? " serial, with Anna Nilsson and Tom Moore. While at Waldo he completed a new concrete house on his ranch, and built a studio, which he plans to use during the winter months. Mme. Petrova, the Metro star, used her beautiful country home near Flushing, L. I., for many of the scenes in " Extravagance," the big five-part Metro feature now in production. While the players were at work there, Mme. Petrova entertained her leading man, Arthur Hoops, and her director, Burton King, at luncheon. In the studio Mr. King reproduced the interior of Mme. Petrova's sun parlor. Mme. Petrova brought her parrot and her blue Persian cat Sultana to town to " work in the set." Edward Brennan, the popular leading man who has appeared in many Metro productions, has returned from Kansas City, where he directed a big feature picture depicting the history of that State. Mr. Brennan is now working with Mme. Petrova. Dare-Devil George Larkin has started on his task of giving Jacksonville, Flor., a weekly thrill in the staging of the different episodes of " Grant, Police Reporter," the new one-reel Kalem series. One of the thrilling scenes of " The Code Letter," the initial episode of the series, calls on Larkin to let himself down hand over hand on the rope of a painter's scaffold from the roof of a skyscraper. When he is in mid-air, the other rope supporting the scaffold is cut by an accomplice of the man he is pursuing, and Larkin swings through the air, escaping death by grabbing the rail of a fire ladder at the end of his swing. The scene was staged in the heart of the. business section of Jacksonville and caused a temporary suspension of business. The event was described by the Jacksonville Metropolis as follows : " Hundreds of people gathered in Julia Street this afternoon in front of the Hotel Mason and saw George Larkin, Kalem player, risk his life in the production of a vivid scene for a moving picture. " Larkin held to a painter's ladder with his hands, six stories from the pavement, while a confederate cut the rope, which held one end of the ladder from the roof of the Everett Hotel. Larkin swung backward toward the ground while the crowd watched with bated breath the one remaining rope hold the artist fast." Roscoe Arbuckle, the Triangle-Keystone star, is just completing a new Keystone comedy over at the Fort Lee studio, in which the entire studio was transformed into the interior of a theatre, and the setting for the stage, procenium arch and all v/as the eciual of most any moving picture theatre in New York. Besides an orchestra of twenty pieces partially concealed behind banks of palms at one side of the stage, a stream of running water poured down a paper mache mountain on the opposite side of the stage. The new Keystone feature will be completed within a few days, and will be the last to be made in the East by Mr. Arbuckle before returning to the Pacific Coast, where he will continue to make Keystone comedies in the studio at Los Angeles. Sidney Olcott has resigned from the Famous Plajers directorial staff. This announcement will come as a big surprise to the many admirers of Mr. Olcott's creative genius. During his engagement with the Famous Players, Olcott produced some very successful pictures, among them " Madame Butterfly " and " Poor Little Pepina," with Mary Pickf ord ; " Diplomacy," with Marie Doro ; " Seven Sisters," with I^Iarguerite Clark, and " The Smugglers," with Donald Brian. He also directed Hazel Dawn and, latterly, Valentine Grant in the Irish subject, "The Innocent Lie." He has just completed a Scotch story, " The Daughter of MacGregor," with Miss Grant. Censor from Ohio Visits Fox Studio Florence Feldman, of the Ohio Board of Censors, visited the William Fox studios in New Jersey last week. Theda Bara has completed her seventeenth picture under the William Fox banner. The direction was in charge of J. Gordon Edwards, and the photoplay marks Miss Bara's return to " vampire " role. Joseph Granby, who taught the fundamentals of the drama for years before he went on the stage himself, is now a member of the William Fox photoplaj ers. Mr. Granby has a role in the new Valeska Suratt picture now being filmed. He was born in Boston, and joined the Castle Square Players when he jumped from the theoretical to the practical drama. He was on the stage for eleven years. Mrs. Vernon Castle, star of the International Film Service's preparedness serial, " Patria," is mourning the loss of a gold emblem of the British Royal Flying Corps, of which her husband is a member. Mrs. Castle was at Newport last week, where several of the scenes of " Patria " were made. After the completion of one of the scenes, Mrs. Castle missed the emblem, which she had worn constantly since it was presented to her by her husband on the night they danced before the Queen Mother of England, early last spring. The loss was reported to the police of Newport, who are making every effort to find it. Several new " sets " have been made for the new Valeska Suratt picture, now being filmed in the William Fox studio at Cliffside, N. J. Particularly gorgeous is a drawing room setting finished entirely in black and white checks, with black and white panels in the wall. Three leading men will support the little Metro star, Viola Dana, in her forthcoming photoplay, entitled " The Gates of Eden." These are Edward Earle, Bob Walker and Augustus Phillips. Shakerism is the central theme of " The Gates of Eden." The pictures have been taken in one of the few Shaker villages remaining in the United States. There are not more than twelve of these communities left. Shakers do not believe in marriage, and they enforce celibacy among their members. " The Gates of Eden " deals with a tragedy in the lives of two young people who loved each other truly, and craved the human happiness that was their right, but which they were denied by the rigid tenets of the sect to which they belonged. Virginia Pearson's new picture for William Fox was completed last week, and will be released in a short time. Because the photoplay is laid in a Scotch village more than one of the actors in the cast spent many a weary hour at the costumers getting the proper sartorial effect. Cast in Support of Bushman A cast of favorite players has been engaged to support Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne in the Metro-Quality play, " A Diplomatic Romance," which Mr. Bushman himself is directing with the assistance of P. Thad Volkman. Prominent among these is Helen Dunbar, Henri Bergman, William Davidson and William Mandeville. Two important additions have been made by the International Film Service, Inc.. to the cast producing the various episodes of the photoplay series, " Beatrice Fairfax," in the persons of Olive Thomas and May Hopkins. They will appear in the support of Harrj Fox and Grace Darling, who have the principal parts.