Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

October 28, 1916 MOTION PICTURE NEWS The Garrick Studios Company of Jacksonville have secured a ninety-nine year lease on the roof of the Union Terminal Building, and will at once start erecting one of the most modern studios in the United States. The company will have their stages erected on a space 600 feet long by 120 feet wide, and when completed will be able to accommodate 25 companies working at the same time. Mr. Richard Garrick, formerly manager of the Jacksonville studios of the Gaumont Company, is general manager of the company, which is also closely allied with the South Eastern Film Corporation. The company have also secured a lease on the Gaumont studio in this city, which it will use until its plant is completed and ready for occupancy. Frank Daniels is working in a new style comedy under the direction of Van Dyke Brooke. He received a royal welcome from the players upon his return to the Vitagraph studio last week from an extended vacation. Paul Scardon is finishing the final scenes of " The Little Brown Sparrow," a drama for release on Greater Vitagraph's program. Antonio Moreno, Peggy Hyland, Helen and Bobby Connelly, Eulalie Jensen, John Robertson. Mildred Platz and Jack Ellis are in the cast. One of the principal reasons for speed in this production is Mr. Moreno's haste to get away and join Edith Storey at the Vitagraph studio in Hollywood. Lawrence Semon, comedy director is working night and day whipping into shape comedies that he writes in collaboration with Graham Baker, which are to be released on the Greater Vitagraph program. Director S. Rankin Drew has practically finished " The Girl Philippa," Robert W. Chambers's popular novel with Anita Stewart as Philippa. Director Charles Brabin has returned from a long trip with his company of players in the Louis Joseph Vance serial, " The Secret Kingdom." After using the schooner that he raised from the harbor off Long Island, where it had lain in the mud for several years and refitting it, he recently planted several dynamite charges beneath its decks and blew it to smithereens. Charles Richman and William Dunn have their work cut out for them in this monster serial which will likely be released shortly after the new year. Bad Weather Holds Back " V " Production The uncertain weather of the past two weeks has seriously interfered with the work of the Vitagraph productions, numerous people being confined to their homes suffering from colds. Anita Stewart and Earle Williams have been absent for several days ; Rose Tapley was quite seriously ill for two weeks but has returned to the studio. Commodore J. Stuart Blackton's " The Battle Cry of War " is fast nearing completion. This production is a logical sequel to " The Battle Cry of Peace," and marks Alice Joyce's return to the screen. Harry T. Morej' is the American commander. Prominent also in the cast are Peggy Hyland, Naomi Childers, Bobby Connelly, James Morrison, Joseph Kilgour and Walter McGrail. Virginia Pearson in " The War Bride's Secret " (Fox) Some scenes for " Her Beloved Enemy," a Thanhouser feature starring Doris Grey and Wayne Arey, recently were made by Director Ernest Warde on an estate on the Hudson River, provided by Doris Grey, who had known the daughter of the owner in a Boston academy. When the negative was developed several scenes had been ruined by static and Mr. Warde took his company back to the estate. The gardener, fearing the approach of frost, had taken up a great deal of the shrubbery. Through Doris' influence he was ordered to put it all back, and the retakes were made. It's rather handy for a director to have a star who has wealthy friends. A background for a scene in a James Oliver Curwood story starring Earle Williams, which is being directed by Marguer Mary Charleson (Essanay) ite Bertsch, calls for a large winding stairway in a department store. The stairway and encircling balcony which has been erected for this feature is an exact reproduction of the stairway and rotunda in the large department store of John Wanamaker in New York City. The set which is now being used occupies the entire No. 5 studio of that company in Flatbush and cost approximately $2,000 to build. It will be used in but a few scenes, not over 200 feet of negative in all. Little Ethelmary Oakland, the diminutive Thanhouser-Pathe star, has just finished posing for a full length portrait by Emil Fuchs, who until the war broke out, was portrait painter to the King of England. This painting of Ethelmary shows the beautiful blonde child in one of her serious moods, with hands crossed in her lap, looking dreamily into space. She is dressed in a shimmery olive green silk old-fashioned mother hubbard with a quaint tam-o-shanter of the same color and material, edged in fur. The portrait will be sent to Mr. Fuchs' exhibitions in» Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and several other cities, and wilt' then be shown later this winter at Reinhardt's gallery in New York. Eugene Walter, the playwright, drove out to the Thanhouser studio in New Rochelle the other day with Charlotte Walker, his wife, who is now a Thanhouser star. Frederic Sullivan was making an elaborate fancy dress ball scene for Florence La Badie's feature, " Divorce and the Daughter." Just for fun Mr. Walter donned a costume and appeared in the scene with 100 other extras. Mr. Walter is the man with the whiskers. They're the only false thing in this story. ""The Truant Soul" The filming of "The Truant Soul," Essanay's 7-act feature for Henry B. Walthall, is now well under way, 150 exterior scenes having been completed and studio work begun. Mr. Walthall, Mary Charleson, his leading woman. Director Harry Beaumont and company have returned from Wisconsin where the out-ofdoor scenes were taken. The first booking on the feature has been received from a municipality. Mayor D. E. Smith, of Richland Center, Wis., has applied to President George K. Spoor for first run on the superfeature. The city council intends to show it in the municipal opera house. The mayor reports that reservations up to capacity have already been received. The exterior scenes were taken in and about this little niountaain town in Wisconsin, which lies entirely surrounded by massive hills, just the locality required. It was virgin territory for the camera, and each day the entire population followed the actors into the hills to watch the filming. The first interior set required the duplication of an operating amphitheatre, and photographs were taken of the one in Mercy Hospital, Chicago, where the late Dr. John B. Murphy performed his marvelous work. This was duplicated exactly and for the student spectators the senior medical class of the University of Chicago participated. In the pit with Mr.