Movie Weekly (1922)

MOVIE fTEEKLY Page Twenty-five marble had be!«i substituted for the rose-colored stone the queen loved. It was as delicately fluted and carved as a Greek temple. Priceless Upestries bnng on th<? walls, with here and there a masterpiece by Watteau, Ducresne and Verambault. The grounds, arranged by d'Estrees just before his departure for the United States, were a bewilde'ring mass of gorgeous vistas, dainty kiosks, bronze and Carrara marble statues and magnificent foimtains that tossed their crystal spray high in the heavens. There we're trees and shrubs trained in the shape of huge fans, pyramids, pagodas and fantastic birds and beasts. In auldition there were cmmingly arranged bosques, arbors, pergolas and chalets, some half hidden by flower, vine and tree. Skilled musicians in hidden nooks discoursed ravishing music, while far and near were tables loaded with every delicacy art could devise or monc^ command. Roast whole swans and peafowls q>rinkl«l with amber dust and perfumed with attar of roses stood cheek by jowl with partridges, hares, pheasants broiled in the Navarraise mamMfr, pate de foi gras, snails stewed in Burgundy wine, frogs' legs swimming in olive oil, eels fattened oo oysters and fried in rose leaves, and ortolans braised with plovers' eggs and truffles. WhiW the whole world showered its rarest delicacies to grace the prodigal tables of de Praille, the hon vivoMt, at the magnificent wrought iron gatcfS of Bel-Air stood a crowd of starving beggars, their gaunt chedcs and sunken eyes telling more pitiably than any words could do, of their privations. They stood diere too listless to move, hoping against hope that some of th^ nobility might be moved to fling them a few coins. What had been wasted on this feast would have fed the tiiirty thousand beggars infesting Paris for a month, but the aristocrats cared even less for ti»e common people than they did for the dogs that barked at dieir gates. But. thougji they knew it not. a force was gradtially growing that was to sweep away their proud privib^TS with a ruthless strength t<!mble in its power. "After us the deluge." cynically acknowledged the far-seeing, beautiful and 'unscmpt^oas Madame de Pompadcw — and die dduge was not far . away. The senseless extravagance of the period was shown in the elaborate coifftires or head dresses of th^ women. Some of them four and five feet hig^, decorated with flowers, feathers, ribbons and j^els, with hats in proportion. In and out among the guests danced male and female coryphees, clad, for the most part, in graceful curves and a joyous smile. They showered the guests with roses as they danced. Flowers that were cauj^t up and pelted back at the dancers. Many of the male guests clasped soft hands and willing waists and would not release their hold. Female guests were not slow to follow the example. Red lips soug^ nectar fran lips that were only too eager to return the favor. Suddenly the fountains began to spout wine instead of water. Rich and glowing with a ruby lustre, ddicious jets of rare old \nntage shot high in the air, wafting their inviting bouQuet far and wide. Guests rushed forward and. cupping their hands, drank long, delicious droughts of the heady liquor. As the orgy grew more pronounced they began to splash one an"dier with the precious, bubbling blood of the grape. Finally even that grew tame. "Who will follow me? Who dare follow me?" taunted the young and lovely Marquise dc! Bellemeatix, as she stood on the rim of one of the fountains. Only a moment she poised on the brink and then, clad as she was in lovely white satin and Valenciennefs lace, dived headlong into the ruby flood. Her example was speedily, followed by others, and soon the fotmtains were one mass of laughing, struggling, splashing men and women. In and out of this Bacchanalian revel strode Maurice de Vaudrey, a disdainful expression on bis fine, handsome face, a face and head diat mig^ have be<to lifted bodily from the Apollo Belvidere. This sort of thing disgusted him and he took no pains to hide the fact. As in an earlier day Petronius was bdoved of die Roman populace because he had expressed sympathy for them and bad tried to alleviate their sufferings, so the Chevalic^ de Vaudrey was loved and reverenced by the fickle Parisians for the sympathy and aid he had shown them. Many times he had emptied his nurse to the suffering poor. Many times he had bought the entire output of a bakery and distributed it to the hungry and suffering. Once the obscure Danton. shortly to become a blazine meteor in a troubled sky, bad said to him : "Ah, Monsieur, if all the aristocrats were like you our bek>v<d oountry ' would be saved a frightful fate." Just now de Vaudrey 's heart was heavy as he contemplated the senselrts extravagance that overburdened tables with food which would have brought jny and health to thousands of hungry mouths instead of merely serving to titillate appetites cloyed to the point of surfeit. "The people cry for bread and th^e is no bread for them." he remarked pointedly, with a significant glance from his wineflushed host to the crowded tables. Marquis de Praille tittered. How absurd to speak of cattle in such a place! He raised his jeweled lorgnette, contemplating a huge cake, a triumph of the culinary art, containing a mass of figures, trets. dwdlings and animals in vari-colored frosting, and asked in all seriousness, "Well, why don't they eat cake ?" The revolting cruelty and callous ignorance of true conditions shown by the remark was afterwards attributed to Marie Antoinette and had much to do with the overthrow of the dynasty and the bringing of the latter's beautiful head to die guillotine. Realizing the folly of arguing with such a man, dtf Vaudrey turned away sick at heart. Sick with sorrow for the people at the tender mercies of such monsters and sick, too, with apprehension of what the people would do to thc!m when once diey gained the upper hand. That this day would come he, unlike the rest of the nobility, had the wisdom to perceive. .\lready there were filtrce mutterings that portended the coming storm. NejAew of the all-powerful prefect of police, de Vaum^y was invited everywhere, but seldom went anywhere. In a moment of ennui he bad accepted this invitati<m, an acceptance he already regretted and was m(<ditating a plan of escape, for at twelve the gates were locked and the feast degenerated into an orgy rivaling the worst that Heliogabalus or Tiberius ever staged, when suddenly two triefnds of his aunt swooped down on him. They were fairly oozing with the latest scandal. "What do you think?" chuckled the dcxwager Marquise de Varraneuf, holding her ivory and ostrich father fan so as to enhance die size and color of her dark eyes, still bright despite ail they had seen. "The Martinis de Praille has made another conquest !" "Oh, it's true," the young and lovely Comtess^ de Ventniyeac hastened to confirm as the chevalier made a gestture as though of disbelief, holding a dainty diammid inlaid mirror before her beautiful face and applying a lip-stick lavishly. "He is boasting of his great hick to everyone. He found a lovely peasant girl— so he claims, thou^ that is ridiculous! How could a peasant be beautiftd? — joume>-i ; by stage to Paris, so he had his pandar. La Fleur, abduct h<^ and she is to be brought here toni^it. He is anxious to display his new-foimd treasure." The chevalier smiled cynically. "From what littie I have seen_ of bis «!xploits," he answered li^itly, "die country girls he abaocts have been perfectly willing Ttctans." There was a stir among the vast assemblage, a craning of necks and a standing on tip-toes. Somediing out of the ordinary in that very extraordinary assemblage was about to happen. A gilded rosewood palanquin had been carried in and set down. Then the rose and hyacinth decorated canopy was tossed aside! and the deathly pale but inexpressibly lovely featiires of Henriette were exposed to the view of the astonished assemUy. Feeling herself completdy in La Flenr's power, Henrietta had fainted. While still in a comatose condition the former had taken a small vial and poured a few drops of the contents on the girl's tongue. Unconsciously she swallowed it. then sank back into a deeper slumber. Th^ lovely form did not move as ^e was set down, and of that crowd of enniiied aristocrats, not one of the female persuasion but what envied the child of the people her regular features and marvelous complexion, not one of the males but what envied de Praille his supposed conquest. La Fleur motioned the servants to one side and then carefidly, solicitously, for de Praille's burning, wolfish eyes were upon him, applied a restorative. Henriette opened her lovely forget-me-not eyes and gazed in silent stupefaction at the strange scene around her. Once or twice she brushrf her slender white hand over her brow as though trying to recall the past, then cruel memory came with a rush and she sprang to her feet with a cry of anguish. For an instant she was overwhelmed by the sea of facets around her. Faces in which amusement, curiosity, disdain, cynicism, pique, lust and jealously could easily be descried, but nowhere could be detected one spark of real, human feeling. The change from the bare little square in front of th^ coach house to this aristocratic, scornful assemblage was striking in tht? extreme. For a moment she stood there dazed while the favorites of fortune wondered what she would do next. Her first thought — the ruling passion in her life! — was for her sister. She gave one quick, frightened glance around. Louise was nowhere to be seen. (Continued next week} Broadway*s Youngest Prima Donna Engaged to Jack Pkkfard (Continued from puge 23) son's Finish," was dug up and Jack, being an expert horseman, pounced upon it. He came on to New York only recently to film exteriors here and in Louisville, before returning to the studio in Hollywood with his director and cameraman to shoot the interiors and engage his supporting cast. Mary ynW not be his director in any of his pictures, according to Jack. "I can't afford to pay her her salary," he said whimsically. Jack went on to Boston to see Marilyun, and it was upon his return to the city that their engagement was announced. When news that the long-denied engagement rumor had been admitted was brought to Ziegfeld, he is said to have been in a decidedly bad frame of mind. "TTiis marriage will be a great mistake for Miss Miller," he is said to have declared. Out on the Coast, however. Jack's family are decidedly happy over this engagement. And after all. Youth commits trespasses that sophistication avoids, so why shouldn't Jack and Marilynn be happy together? They have their life before them and by reason of experience, it should be richer and deeper and make them more lenient to those human failings, in each other. Here's happiness to them both. Some Screen Statistics Sixty-eight and two-tenths per cent of the popalation of the United States attend movies more or less regularly. Of this majority, few if any attach any physical effort to the viewing of a motion picture, yet the combined physical effort wasted by a movie audience at one exhibition is enormous. For instance: s s a Thirty-nine per cent of all movie audiences are females. In a house seating 3,000 persons there would be 1,170 women present. Every fourth woman in a movie audience chews gum. Although the round-trip cadence of the jaws is almost invariably regulated by the rise and fall of the excitement created by the picture being screened, gum-chewers are, conservatively speaking, 34.7 per cent more industrious and efHcient while viewing motion pictures than at any other time. The physical effort wasted by the 292.5 gum-chewers in every movie audience of 3,000 spectators, geared up to a proficiency 34.7 above norrnal, if applied to the following other lines of effort would be equal to .38624 minutes at washing dirty dishes, .42658 minutes over a washtub, .51783 minutes at general house-cleaning, or .60000 minutes at mending socks and sewing on buttons. S S B During sentimetal or emotional movies, every third member of the audience sheds an average of 3.1 large-sized tears. On the basis of an audience of 3,000, this would represent 3.100 tear drops, or approximately 1.2343 gallons of water — sufficient moisture to guarantee the successful maturity of enough wheat to make 102.6 pounds of flour, which would keep 12.7 Russian orphans alive for 32.1 days. see Forty-eight per cent of all movie audiences are matured males, or, in a house of 3,000 spectators, 1,080. During the comedy every third one of them slaps himself (or the person sitting next to him), on the knee at least twice. This represents 960 slaps, jwhich, if diverted to carpet-beating, would thoroughly renovate 2.62X2 medium-sized carpets, or would be sufficient to administer to 14,1222 small bad boys a moderate chastisement 2.7111 times a day for 6^2228 days.