Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1918)

Sept b c r 28 , 1 Q 1 8 2029 "The Girl of Today" is the Newest Vitagraph Blue Ribbon Feature, Announced for Release September 22. Corinne Griffith is the Feminine Star William L. Sherry Must Secure More Room Gaumont Sells More Rights on New Serial The Gaumont Co. is still reporting great success for its thrilling, red-blooded and mystery photo-serial, " The Hand of Vengeance." They have just sold the rights of this wonderful serial for the State of Michigan, exclusive of the upper peninsula, to the Madison Film Exchange, Detroit, and New York State, exclusive of Greater New York, Long Island and the Counties of Rockland and Westchester, to Gardiner Syndicate, 47 West Swan street, Buffalo, N. Y. Demands are continually coming into the office for bookings on this serial, according to reports. First National Heads Visit Rothacker Directors of the First National Exhibitors' Circuit, Incorporated, soon to release " The Romance of Tarzan " as the concluding chapters of " Tarzan of the Apes," recently visited and inspected the studio and plant of the Rothacker Film Manufacturing Company in Chicago as the guests of Mr. Rothacker. An event in the tour of the factory and laboratories was their introduction to the printing room. Harold Lockwood, Star of the Screen ClassicsMetro Production, " Pals First " NOT yet quite four months in business and William L. Sherry is looking around for larger quarters. In April he severed his connection as general manager of the Paramount Exchanges, in New York, and launched the big new film distributing enterprise known as the Wm. L. Sherry Service, with headquarters in New York, and branch offices in fourteen other cities. The New York offices were established on the twelfth floor of the Godfrey Building, 729 Seventh avenue, last May. At that time Mr. Sherry thought that half of the twelfth floor would be plenty of space for the general offices and the New York Sherry exchange combined. It was enough, at that time. But the business began to grow, and now there is not room enough. Consequently Mr. Sherry must find a bigger place. The New York exchange of the Sherry Service will probably remain in the Godfrey Building and will utilize all of the present space for exchange purposes. But the executive and general offices will soon have to move to some other office building where a whole floor can be had. Mr. Sherry reports record bookings for the Frank A. Keeney productions, featuring Catherine Calvert in " Out of the Night " and " A Romance of the Underworld." Also he reports heavy bookings in many cities of the De Luxe Pictures, featuring beautiful Doris Kenyon in " The Street of Seven Stars " and " The Inn of the Blue Moon." It is the excellence of these features that is the cause of the rapid growth of the Sherry Service. There is also said to be a heavy advance demand for G. M. Anderson's (Broncho Billy) first release on the Sherry program, " Red Blood and Yellow." This is Mr. Anderson's first five-reeler and marks his return to the screen after an absence of many months. Hereafter he will appear only in full-size Western productions, all of which will be new and none of them reissues. Vangie Valentine, Harold J. Binney's great find, is now at work on her first production, soon to be released and distributed by Sherry. Blackton Completing ALTHOUGH J. Stuart Blackton has not yet set the release date for " The Common Cause," which he is now completing under the auspices of the BritishCanadian Recruiting Mission for Vitagraph distribution, he is nevertheless not halting in his plan to work steadily on special productions to be offered to the exhibitor as up-to-the-minute attractions of propaganda as well as entertainment value. In line with this plan, therefore, he has just announced that after "The Common Cause " is launched he will immediately begin work on " The Battle Cry of Liberty," which is the title of the feature to follow the first-named picture. The story of " The Battle Cry of Liberty " is from the collaborated pens of Charles T. Dazey and Commodore Blackton himself. " The Battle Cry of Liberty " is intended to be the successor of " The Battle Cry of Peace," which will be re 'The Common Cause" membered as one of the forerunners of war specials of propaganda nature produced by Commodore Blackton four or five years ago for and distributed by the Vitagraph Company, of which he was one of the founders. J. Hartley Manners, Major Ian Hay Beith and Percival Knight are authors of the original play and Anthony P. Kelly is its adapter for the Blackton film version. Julia Arthur, Violet Heming, Marjorie Rambeau, Airs. Vernon Castle, and Effie Shannon are on the prologue cast, while Herbert Rawlinson, Sylvia Breamer, Violet and Charles Stuart Blackton featured, and Huntly Gordon, Louis Dean, Mile. Marcel, Lieutenant Lawrence Grossmith, Philip Van Loan, Ricca Allen and William Bailey interpret the play. Buy Liberty Bonds