The Moving Picture Weekly (1916-1917)

■THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY ■7 rHE MAINSPRING" by Charles Agnew McLean, editor-in-chief of all the Street and lor, held up to comparison with any film on any prograun. Dinanner and with a wonderful cast. Story will be novelized by in one of the Street and Smith magazines. Ben Wilson plays 1 Francelia Billington proves lovely foil for him. choice of telling it and so spoiling the pleasure of the person who sees it, or of maintaining a strict silence, which is very hard to do when the story is so good that it just bubbles out in spite of oneself. Suffice it to say that in this case there is an admixture of high finance, mistaken identity, love and romance, abduction, shipwreck, stock exchange and long desired revenge. All of these elements, carefully interwoven and mixed, serve to form a movie plot that really thrills. This was the story that was given to Universal director Jack Conway to film, and Conway was at once very enthusiastic. With his long experience on the stage and as a moving picture director, he realized the merits of the wonderful plot and predicted that the finished film would be a winner. The first thing that he did was of course to select his cast, a task that is not such an easy one in Universal City where the great array of talent presented makes it very confusing. It is always hard to select the best of the best. The part that gave Conway the most trouble was that of the hero, Larry Ashmore as he is called in the play. Asmore is the modern American type of man, athletic in appearance and quick-witted, the kind of a man who can rise to any emergency just as this one did when he was confronted with the colossal task of saving the fortune of a great family. And with all this requisite bearing and manner, the actor had to have a great deal of real acting ability ^s well as the courage necessary to pull off the stunts in the film and act a dual role, a feat that often phazes the most capable performers. The one man on the lot who seemed to fill perfectly all the requirements was Ben Wilson. But Mr. Wilson has for the last few years been acting in the capacity of a director as well as an actor and has been turning out pictures of such a high quality that of late he has put on several in which he did not even appear himself. The latest of these was "Honor Thy Country," a Universal special picture that was a tremendous success. Wilson was approached to see whether or not he would accept the part and he willingly took it. Too much praise cannot be showered on him for this as it is not usual for a man who has once directed his own piHures so successfully to submit to the direction of any one else. But Ben says that he enjoyed it very much and claims that it was a very novel experience to go about without a continuity in his pocket after so many years of slavery to a script. Needless to say Wilson's performance in the difficult dual role is up to his high standard. He is an actor who always studies his part care■ fully and gives to each role just the Thomas Jefferson as James Sharp, and Marc Bobbins as Israel Famum in the declining market which spelled ruin to their hopes of crushing Craven. Larry Craven plays a trick on his captress and escapes. shade of interpretation that it requires. The part of Larry Ashmore will long be remembered as one of the best characterizations of hi« career. The rest of the cast was not such a hard matter. Miss Francelia Billington fitted very nicely into the part of the heroine who helps Ben Wilson to save the fortune. Miss Billington, who by the way can act as well as look beautiful, is the possessor of one of those famous daring personalities of the films. She is not known as a "stunt" actress, but she has the enviable record of never yet having refused to take a dare. It was on a dare that she took her first part and so broke into the moving picture field. She was watching her sister play a part a few years ago and the company needed a girl to play a small part. Francelia was urged to do the bit, but here she demurred as she said that she had no ambitions to be a movie actress. Then some one in the party intimated that she had stage fright and dared her to take that part. That settled the matter right there as she took the dare and went on. But the remarkable part of the (Continued on page 26)