Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

20 THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS motion picture business. Then along comes an advertisement with the word "movies" spread all over it. Oh, well. Whether it has dignity or not, the business is here to stay. Mottoes are bad things. One is supposed to stick to them through thick and thin, and they don't apply when the hundredth turn comes along. But one motto is "Down with the person who says 'the motion picture business is only in its infancy,' or 'the surface has only been scratched.' " Ernest Shipman has it right. He says that when he had a lot of shows on the road the mention of the fact in theatrical circles brought a stifled yawn. Now when he tells his old cronies he's in the motion picture business, they prick up their ears and want to be declared in. The theatrical end of our local main street pricked up its ears when the Bosworth seven-reel production of Jack London's "Sea Wolf" was shown at the Winter Garden. At least four hundred were on the job, including Mr. Shubert. They were mostly theatrical folk, all eager to pick up a little knowledge of the motion picture business. But that can't be acquired in a morning, as many have learned to their discomfort. George Terwilliger, who can doctor up a sick script and make it presentable, has quit the Lubin scenario department for the directing end of the business. His next effort is a three-reel subject, which will be released on the exclusive program of the General Film Company early in November. That sets the seal of approval on his work before I had a chance, but I was going to do it, anyway. William W. Hines, publicity man for Noah in his famous voyage and for many other things since then, is now guarding Albert Blinkhorn's outer office and caring for his publicity and advertising in his inimitable way. King Baggot, King by name and king by nature and in the hearts of his friends, with the laurels of his European trip fresh on his brow, is going after more. I caught him over in Eleventh Avenue a few days ago playing a "wop" in "The Return of Tony." Leave it to King to make a good picture; even his director, George Loane Tucker, one of the best, by the way, has sailed for dear old London to join Harold M. Shaw and his London Film Company. Working by King's side was Charles Eldredge, well remembered for his work in Vitagraph pictures. When it comes to actors, don't overlook my alter ego, Harris Gordon. After playing with Reliance and Eclair, he was snapped up by the Famous Players a few days ago and left for Boston to take some scenes. Gordon put over a juvenile lead in an Eclair production, "Over the Cliffs," recently. This is the picture in which Will Sheerer does a head-stand off an eighty-foot cliff, or something like that, take it from Bert Ennis. Carl Laemmle was again reminded a few days ago of what the bunch at the Universal studio at Los Angeles thinks of him. He received as a present a stuffed lion cub. The little rascal, about two or three days old, has ;. head three sizes too big for the body, but blame nature for that. Jeff Dolan, the famous demi-tasse, is much exercised over the report that he is going to leave the North American Film Corporation. He says he is going to stay right under the wing of Bill Steiner, and doesn't know where the report started. Well, no more do I. More glory for "Little Mary" Pickford and King Baggot. A. Coleman, chairman of the ball committee of the Motion Picture Exhibitors' Association of Greater New York, says they will lead the grand march at the annual affair at Terrace Garden on Monday evening, December 15th. Earl Metcalfe, of Lubinville, is one of our best little week-enders. Every Sunday finds him in the Screen Club for a brief visit. Watterson R. Rothacker, the young and handsome head of the Industrial Moving Picture Company, of Chicago, is making one of his month-end visits to New York. It gives one sincere pleasure to note steady and consistent improvement and growing recognition for a screen player. This goes for Jane Gail, formerly of Lubin, with Imp for several months, one of the few actresses in motion pictures who has real brains and uses them. She has a great emotional lead coming in "Who Killed Olga Carew?" a sort of a Craig Kennedy scientific mystery story. I caught Darwin Karr, late leading man of Solax, hard at work at the Vitagraph studio. He was working in the coming feature production of "Mr. Barnes of New York," which should be considerable of a picture. The cast includes Karr, Maurice Costello, Clara Kimball Young and lot more good ones. Got word from the new Tampa Film Company, down_ in Tampa, Fla., on the roster of which is Frank Beal, director; Ed Carewe, leading man, and Jack Byrne, scenario expert. Jack Byrne says, "Our first picture, 'The Diamond Smugglers,' is finished, and the second is on the way. This town and surrounding country is well adapted for picture-making of the superior sort, although it has some disadvantages in the way of starving insects and other reptilian gastronomes, which fairly revel in the rich flavor of Northern blood." Now, isn't that just like a script-writer? Add to the list of "sailed for England," G. Blake Garrison, president of Midgar Features. He is now bound for the other side on the Olympic. He will visit London, Paris, Hamburg and Berlin. Home again in December is the program, with a bunch of good stuff under his arm. One interesting little war on our local main street is that between the two versions of "The Last Days of Pompeii." The Kleine-Ambrosio version has now camped right across the street, at the Bijou, from Wallack's, where the Pasquali version is playing. Don't make any mistake, though. Both sides tell me that they have been helped by the other. Which proves again that there is plenty of room for all. Pilot threatens to get back into the game. James Gordon, former Edison actor and producer and Famous Player actor, is putting on his second feature, "Hoodman Blind," out there in Yonkers. Bert Angeles has been producing films there, too, so all the signs of future activity are in working order. William Robert Daly, the well-loved Universal director, is glad his leading woman, Fritzi Brunette, is alive. She was taxi-ing down to the studio in a hurry a few days ago when the machine did a headstand down a cellar, after crashing through an iron railing. Fritzi injured her side, but now she's as well as ever. Hector Streychmans, who has rivaled Stanley Twist as a jack of all trades and master of most in the film business, is now entrenched behind the publicity and advertising desk of Harry Raver's Itala Company. There's Harry Raver again, did you say? John Clymer, who has been splitting his time up between Itala and the Exclusive Supply Corporation, found, a few days ago, that the growth of the Exclusive made that concern take up more and more of his time. No man can serve two masters, so he chose Exclusive. Now Streychmans has added another square to the checkerboard of his life. He has been very busy since he escaped from Chicago, and kind hands have turned the kaleidoscope often for him. A few weeks ago he was the big noise, those words are used advisedly, at the oPces of the Pasquali-American. Then I heard of him acting as steerer with the Pilot Company. Now he is back downtown in the heart of things.