Movie Weekly (1922)

Page Eighteen MOVIE fVEEKLY The Qish QirW Triumphant Careers BucMng into ^ ^ the Movies Editor's X'ote : Sophie Potts has rciunicJ to "Movie Weekly," follo7oiiig a temperamental departure from the silver sheet and a tempestuous absence from the realm of the portable typewriter. }'e Editor sent out trailers and detectives and alt the usual "hinit'em-up" things necessary to excavate a lost celebrity, but reports continued to disappoint. No discovery of Sophie Potts. Finally, without any warning zchatsoever, Sophie Potts sends us the following missive. She gives no explanation for her long silence. She just pops up "i'ith the same impudence with which she disappeared — the same swagger, cheery, nonchalant individual. We were so happy to hear from the happy-go-lucky one that zee find no harsh words iti our heart to sling in her direction. It is welcome back to "Movie Weekly, " Sophie Potts. Do our readers join with us '' If you have any questions to ask about the movies, send them to Sophie Potts, c-o the Editor. She'll answc'-'them in her Zi'eckly article. At least ive suppose she ■Jcill. We hesitate to say positively, for you know how these temperamental "celebs" conduct themselves now and then. Hollywood, 1922. Mk. H. O. Potts, Hog Run, Ky. Dear Maze and Folks : Yours of the 13th insipid received and read with the usual interest, and was glad to hear that, inspired by "The Sheik," Tad Faubion and the Maple twins had run away from home the next morning and head" 1 for Arabia, planning to go via Louisville and Lake Erie. I admit that if they continue heading in the tjent-ral direction they started they are far inuro liable We didn't have much to do c-xcept sitting around little tables atid consuming near beer. to land at the Xorih Pole than in .Vrab^ i, but Mill u s the spirit of the tiling that counts, or "Homo sapiens," as H.imlet' so aptly remarked to Queen Victoria a', the signing of the Magna Charta. Anyway, utterly regardless of whether they land in Arabia or Patagonia, Hog Run can't help but be' improved about fifty per cent by their departure. Well, maw, I added still another nationality to my long list of screen portrayals today, and acted the part of a female Parisian. Honest, folks, if I have to portray many more different nationalities for the so-called flickering camera, it won't be long before I'll begin to feel more like an illustrated Atlas than a movie actress. The picture today v.as one which Mr, Lasky was making, with the help of me and Betty Compson and a few other lesser artists, and was originally called "The -Voose." But I guess the title must of aroused unpleasant memories in the minds of some of the members of the' cast who had had horse-stealing ancestors who had died of acute sore throat, or something, because it wasn't very long before the\ re-christened the piece "The/ Green Temptation." Which same is an ideal movie title, inasmuch as it has nothing whatever to do with the story, and wouldn't me^n anything if it did. Well, anyway, me and a flock of tnurderous looking hoinbres ;ind wild women was supposed to play the part of Parisian Apaches. This isn't the kind of Apache, Maw, which specializes in war-whoops, feather bonnets and close hair-cuts, but is a European variety whose tastes incline toward milder pastimes, such as arson, murder and grand larceny. They are known as inhabitants of the underworld, because their usual habitat is that portion of the home originally mailr famous ljy Mr. Volstead, There was a flock of about thirty of us altogether and, ju'lging from the variegated hues of our costumes, I would say at a guess th;tt the rainbow must be the national flower of Apache, Paris. The men wore a three-days' crop of whiskers, jersey sweaters, red sashes around the waist, and neckties and pants which would of driven an .-Mabaiiia negro delirious with envy. The women, including me and Hctl> Compson, sported jerseys also, and was conspicuous in addition for wearing wild facial expressions and lop-sided Tam-o-shanters. Honest, maw, ' beside of our happy little gathering, a weekly meeting of the Associated Anarchists and Affiliated Thugs of the World would of looked like a highly respectable Sunday School picnic in comparison. We didn't have much to do all morning except to sit around at little t.-.bles, looking hard-boiled and consuming near-beer on a wholesale scale, which, as far as I can make out, is the sole occupation of Apaches. .\nd if it is, I don't wonder that their morals is supposed to be conspicuous largely for their absence. Because after I'd consigned about the tenth glass of near-beer to a protesting interior at the director's urgent request, I began to feel very strong criminal instincts developing myself. But, immediately after limcli, the action started. It began when the director called for a couple of volunteers to stage an .Apache Dance in the aisle between the tables, A big, hard-boiled looking hnmbre who looked like he should of either been in the Marines or juggling pianos for a living, volunteered for the male portion of the act. And then I managed to get myself elected as the other combatant, knowing as much about the technique of an .\pache D&nce as an orang-outang does about the Solar System, but being willing to take a chance at anything once. We -got away to a bum start. Not being able' to think of anything else at the moment, I took a desperate chance and emulated the Apache customs as delineated by "Bowie Bill's Greater Wild West and Dog and Pony Shows," when they 'played in Hog Run last summer. AV'hich same consisted of me kinda crouching over and stamping in a circle around and trying to hit myself in the chin with my knees at my partner, letting out a war-whoop at every step, eich whoop. But, judging from the quality of the director's remarks, I must of had the wrong idea. "Nix on the squaw stuff ! ' he yelled. "This is supposed to be Paris, not Arizona ! Your partner knows what I want done. Let him do all the work!" So I did, and believe me, maw, he did ! The onl>« ilifference between what ensued immediately there.ifter and a first class prize-fight was that there \v .isn't any breathing space' between rounds, and rothing was barred except biting in the clinches. He pened hostilities right off the bat by clamping a stranglehold on my neck with both hands and doing his level best to choke me to death. I indignantly n taliated by kicking him violently in the shins. Which must of made him mad or something, because he promptly picked me up and threw me bodily over a counle of nearby tables, after which I made a neat I illiard off a stone wall and hit the floor. Then, when I tried to get up, he repeated the stunt very enthusiastically, only this time I missed the stone wall and one of the tables on my way to the' floor. I tried to assume an upright position again, but with the same results. Honest, maw, of the next five minutes, I spent three on the floor, and two in the air en route. Finally, I got disgusted at the bird's persistency, and refused to play any more. "What's the idea ?" yelped the director, when I declined to conie uo for any more punishment. "Why don't you go on with the dance?" "Dance, me eye!" I retorted. "If th.at big pi'edriver still craves a dancing partner, get Dempsey to pla" with him ! I'm through !" Which I guess will be all for this time, only if the melee I went through is merely the idea which inhnbitnnts of France ha\e of a "dance," then no wonder W. Hohenzollern stooned with such painful suddenness when he hit the Marne that time. Your loving daughter resp'v vours, SOPHIE POTTS, vi.-i Hat. Wfi.t.« • — Clamping a .Hranglc hold on my neck and doing his level best to choke me to death, (Continued from page 7) told Mr. Grifrnh so, with the result that he usee! it, although 1 did not want to receive screen credit tor tliat httle bit. Dorothy was just on the fringe of the picture. ■' 1 hen came an exiiericnce which I shall never forget and which was worth more to me than any other in tny life. Mr. Griffith wanted to make a war picture and the British and French (jovernments were perfectly willing tcj assist him, for they were in the midst of a recruiting campaign and needed propaganda. Mr. GrilFith came to me and asked me if I would he willing to play the leading role. I didn't know wliethcr I couid carry it, for, as you know, the other pictures v ere all group stories. 'The Birth of a Nation' dealt with the Cameron family ; 'Intolerance' dealt with four dififerent groups, init "Heart.-, of the World' was about a girl. "We talked over the proposition with mamma and decided to go to Europe with Mr. Griffith. We were over there six months, part of the time in London and part of the time in Fran.ce behind the lines, around Compiegne. The worst part of our experience was in London. Our hotel was next door to another hotel in which the Air Defense was located. The adjacent building was tlie center of London's protection against Zeppelins and other German aeroplane assailants, and whenever the (iermans came flying over London the anti-aircraft guns would go off and rock our hiiildiniS; as well. "Moreover, it was during the blackest part of the war that we stayed in London. The streets were filled with horribly wounded men and it was nerve-racking, especially to mamma, even to walk down the ytreets and to see those pcor, mutilated .soldiers. Air raids, were frequent. [i(jmbs fell very near to us, and we were in a continual condition of suspense. "But we were able to learn how to portray such emotions as we shall never again have the opportunity to observe. Theretofore we had been acting with repression, doing scenes quietly, but we learned over there that in real life people are not accustomed to repressing the great emotions that surge over them. When a German bomb struck the schoolhouse in Whitechapel, killing nearly a hundred children, we were on the scene half an hour after the explosion. We saw the poor mothers searching for their children, their hysteria and terrible grief, and we learned what mother love really is at that time. "Then we went to France. "The best part of our experience was that we saw the war closeup. That experience hurt mamma most of all. She has never been well since that time and her present illness is more or less due to shell shock from the concussion of the guns in the building next to our London hotel. If it weren't for her illness, I would say that my experience over there was worth fifty years of life, and that if I should live to be a hundred in this country I should never acquire what I acquired during those months in England and France. I learned what modern war is like, and realized the spirit behind it. "We made eighty-six reels of negative in France, and returned to the United States to make interiors. We had enough film for 'Hearts of the World,' and for two other program features which Mr. Griffith made subsequently. 'Hearts of the World' was, of course, a tremendous success, because it was the first picture in which the actual war and not a studio makebelieve was used as a background. It gave Dorothy her first genuine opportunity in a big role and was the first picture in which I tried to carry the theme of the story myself. It also assisted in giving Dorothy hei reputation as a comedienne although we both think she is far better suited to dramatic roles and that her work in comedy has been solely clue to the fact that that is the inediuin in which she has most often appeared." The third article of this story unll deal unth the makiiu/ of "Broken Blossoms" ; with Lillian (^i.ih's direction of her sister, Dorothy, in "Remodelinfj a Husband"; ivith the making of the Ihrillinq ice srencs in ''Way Down East," and the co-starriny roles the tivo sisters play in "Orphans of the Storm.'' as xvcU as with some of their ideas on present day picture problems.