Moving Picture World (May 1919)

May 3, 1919 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 653 RUBBERNECKING IN FILMLAND SAWTELLE, the place where you change for the car line that passes the Brentwood Country Club, is 45 minutes and 65 cents round trip from Los Angeles. I do not think that cigarettes are good for growing boys, but I am glad that Luke, a youth who lives in Sawtelle, smokes them. If Luke didn't have the tack habit I would not have been able to eat lunch with the Brentwood players, sympathize with Nancy Chase when a horse stepped on her foot, see Zasu Pitts act, or write this installment of Rubbernecking with the usual dash and spirit. Here is how Luke busted into the plot. Cars Haven't Enough Patience. The Palisade car that connects with the beach lines at Sawtelle sticks around the junction with the utmost patience waiting for the beach car to bring it passengers, but no sooner does the foot of a passenger from the beach car strike the ground than the little car arranges to be gone. Its bell rings, its motor throbs, and its trolley pole pulsates with impatience. It will not even wait long enough for a chap to listen to a lady giving the conductor of the beach car a piece of her mind for stopping his car where she has to light on a pile of dirt thrown up alongside of the track by some Mexican revolutionists who are working on the railroad between revolutions. Finding an Unlost Jitney. Another car would not be along for 30 minutes, and after it came along it would take another 30 minute's to get out to the Club. I must find quicker transportation or be everlastingly late. I would go up to the village and find a jitney. But no jitneys were to be had. Every automobile with the exception of Luke's car had gone to the soldier parade back in the city. Luke was on the verge of going himself. He was also on the verge of lighting a cigarette. Fast Cars for Fast Places. The second devoted to the pernicious paper pipe habit saved the day. I burst upon the scene just in time. I talked Los Angeles Scribe Is Cast as One of a Pair of Fast Traveling Nuts, but Luke Gets There By Giebler to Luke with tears in my eyes and 50 cents in my palm. Luke wanted to go elsewhere, but he yielded. "All right," he said, "if you don't mind riding kind o' fast." Luke's car is what is known as a speedster, one of those cute little af?airs with the seat about two inches from the floor, that allows you .to sit with your chin on your knees nice and comfy or, if you don't care for scenery, to lie down on your back and look up at the sky. I had thought to remonstrate with Luke about smoking cigarettes, to tell him how they stunted the mind and withered the imagination. But I didn't. Luke's imagination needs a little withering. He was a wild and weird driver. I held converse with him only once during the trip. I saved up enough breath to scream the question : ".Aren't yOu afraid we'll get pinched?" And the Cops Would Have Been Right. "No!" Luke roared back. "We're on the Ascot Speedway. The cop'41 think we're a couple of nuts trying out a new racer." We were a couple of nuts — I'll tell the world we were — but I'll say this much for Luke, he got me there on time. I was out of the machine, into the Sun Room of the Country Club, had said "Hello" to King Vidor and apologized to S. P. Trood for being late, and was inserting a grateful spoonful of soup into my system within eight minutes after Luke had given his little car the gas back in Sawtelle. I don't know how far we traveled, and I don't want to know. I'd be scared yet if I knew how fast that kid slipped that speedster over the road. The little party was given to celebrate the shooting of the last scenes of the Brentwood players' new film, "Better Times," and it was a pleasant little party. There was food for the mind as well as provender for the system. President Haynes Talks. Mr. Trood made some pleasing remarks; King Vidor spoke of the upward trend in picture making. Lloyd Haynes, president of the company, talked of his belief in the story with a heart, a soul, and a message. He said that the story was relied upon to hold the audience and should receive the first consideration, and that the players should be cast purely on a basis of their fitness to depict the parts they were to portray, and that if a story required two or three, or even half a dozen stars, they should be put in the parts. A. W. B. Hodges, one of the owners in the corporation, spoke of pictures that help, themes with practical suggestions that may be carried home and applied in the daily life of the people who see the stories worked out on the screen. All of the company was there. What's in a Name? Zasu Pitts, who did not get her weird name because of her fondness for a popular brand of ginger snaps, as many suppose, but because two aunts had to be remembered at christening time, and the difficulty was solved by taking the last two letters from Aunt Eliza's name and the first two letters from Aunt Susan's name and giving them to the helpless child, David Butler, who is playing the lead opposite Miss Pitts in the "Better Times" film; Jack MacDonald, who, as Ezra Scroggs, the heavy, has to drown himself in the lake ; George Hackathorn, leading juvenile; Ola Cronk, Hugh Fay, Billy de Vaull, Aileen Manning and Nancy Chase, Willard Barrows, treasurer, and James W. Hum, secretary of the Brentwood corporation, were all there. Visit Surgeon After Lunch. King Vidor brought his wife, Florence Vidor, and his secretary, Sara Mason; and of course Billy Thornly, cameraman, On the Left Six Little Maids from (Riding) School Have Just Stopped for Their Picture. On the right the Brentwood bunch appears in a scene of much eat-mosphere aroiiml tho w.k. banquet board.