Movie Pictorial (September 5, 1914)

THE MOVIE PICTORIAL Volume I CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER 5, 1914 Number 18 Photos © Untimvood ft Viuitrsvooti tend International Hen's Service Jj'DITOR’S NOTE:—If you read “ The Time—The ■Ls Place—and the Man” in the MOVIE PICTORIAL of August 22, you know Clem Taggart; if you didn’t you missed one of the best true-to-life stories you ever read. Here is the second adventure of this dare-devil motion picture director. It took much persuasion to induce the author, a man high up in mOviny picture circles, to con- sent to write a series of stories about the exploits of his head director in Europe, but at last we succeeded and now our readers can enjoy one of his fascinating stories as often as the “Big Boss” hears from Taggart. DIDN’T start this war, did I?” complained Billy Reynolds, bitterly and distinctly. “They can’t prove I shot any crown prince, can they? Well, then—what for are they treating me as if I had done the whole thing—eh? That’s what I’d like to know.” “Oh, cheer up,” said Clem Taggart, pleasantly. “You’ll have some work to do pretty soon. We’ll be making some pictures. Like the ones we got on the Drina, when the Servians licked the Aus- trians.” “Yes, and I suppose you won’t be happy, then, either,” said Billy Reynolds, who was a per- fectly good camera man, but not gifted with an imagination. “You get ace high with that Ser- vian general, and, instead of having us both shot at sunrise he has you made a commander- in-chief or a duke or something—anyhow, they give you a little iron star that must cost eighty cents a dozen, wholesale. And they let you take a lot of pictures—fine pictures, stuff that’s enough to make every exhibitor in the U. S. A. go mad with joy. Is that enough? It is not!” Taggart only laughed. He and his camera man had really done a good deal already. A pure hunch, sheer guesswork, that prophetic smelling out of trouble to come, had sent them abroad. They had followed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand to his death at the hands of a Serb as- sassin at Serajevo, the kindling of the fire that was to sweep all Europe. Wonderful pictures of that tragedy had been taken by the impassive Reynolds; later, Taggart’s skill, and his fore- Just in Time to Catch the Fall of a Monoplane thought in arranging a code with the home office that looked like the plainest of language, had enabled him to arrange to get the film to Anti- vari, on the Montenegrin coast, and thence, by means of a yacht owned by a friend of his chief, to America. And then, instead of calling it a job well done and scuttling for home, Taggart had done still more. He had waited in Belgrade for the fight- ing he was sure would come; thence he had gone to the banks of the Drina, where the tiny Servian army had gathered to oppose the Aus- trian army. His camera, with its all-seeing eye, had detected an Austrian flanking movement that the Servian scouts had not discovered; his reward was a remarkable battle picture, and a decoration from the King of Servia, together with safe conduct to Constantinople through neutral Roumania and Bulgaria. Thence he had shipped his films on one of the last British ships connecting at Genoa with an English liner for New York. But he and Reynolds had not taken that liner. Instead they had made their way, guided by Taggart’s knowledge of the country, to Rotter- dam, still neutral territory, even after the declaration of war by England and Germany. Holland, though she feared that she would share the fate of Belgium and Luxembourg, and be invaded by the German army, striving to reach its hereditary enemy, France, had not yet been drawn into the general conflagration. “Now—this ain’t a bad town,” said Reynolds. “There’s lots of good stuff here, too. And there’s bound to be more. All these refugees, for one thing. Why, I got a picture yesterday of a guy that can draw his check for half a million at home—and he was beg- gin’ some one to lend him carfare! Why wouldn’t this be a good place for headquarters? Eh, Clem?” “We start to-morrow,” said Taggart, impassively. “I’ve doped out a way to get up to where there’s some real fighting.” “Oh—well—huh—that's different,” conceded Billy. Billy didn’t have Taggart’s utter indif- ference to danger, perhaps—except when he was actually at work. Then nothing could take his mind from the scene before him, and he handled his camera with a view to getting all that was in its range. But Taggart had noticed, with delight, that all of Billy’s complaining, since the day they had left Vienna for Serajevo, had been done in periods of inactivity. “I got tired of trying to get permits,” Tag- gart went on. “I tried the German headquar- ters, and the French. And the English didn’t even answer me. I even tried to get with the Belgian army, and all they promised me was that they’d arrest me on sight! So we’re going it alone. If these people think I’m going to take any more orders than I can help, they’ve got some more thinks coming.” Which explained the silent hegira of Clem Taggart, Billy Reynolds and the things that are needed for making pictures, from Rotterdam. Their course was not that of the ordinary trav- eler. They had a motor car, it is true, but they were not motor tourists. The picturesque scen- ery of Holland was not what they were looking for. They were simply making the best time they could. And as soon as they had crossed the Belgian 'frontier into Luxembourg they The Picture Showed the German Uhlans Riding Straight Toward the Camera The Famous German Black Hussars—the Pride of the Vaterland