The Moving Picture Weekly (1917-1919)

12 -THE MOVING PICTURE W TWO STARS INJURED IN SERIAL-MAKING A SERIAL star's life is a hazardous affair, both on the screen and off it. We watch the astonishing stunts that they are called upon to perform as the episodes of the latest thriller are unfolded before us, and if we think about the making of them at all, we say to ourselves, "Oh, well, of course, it looks frightfully risky, but all that sort of thing is faked, you know, and the actors are really not in the least danger." The stars of the two serials at present in the making at Universal City receive such comments on their work with loud and iron ical laughter. At the present moment Marie Walcamp, the heroine of the coming "Red Ace," and Priscilla Dean, heading the cast of the nearly completed "Gray Ghost," are both n u r sing broken bones as the result of attempting alm o s t superhuman feats for their serials. It is a curious thing that the accident to Miss Walcamp should be a repetition in reality of a mimic one which was staged in "Liberty." As the heroine of that extraordinary performance she was shot in the arm — for the exiI gencies of the story — and appeared with it in a sling through several chapters of the serial. "The Red Ace" had gone no furi ther than the fourth installment, when, as Virginia Dixon, she broke her arm in earnest, and this is how it happened: There is a strange character in the story — a creature half human, half beast, of enormous strength — whose habit it is to wait in tree tops and drop upon the unsuspecting passer-by. The villains of the piece seem to manage to control its movements, and when the intrepid Virginia eludes capture, they send the monster after her. She is riding under a tree when the great furry arms reach down, drag her from the saddle, and snatch her up into the branches. There, high above ground, ensues a battle royai, and Miss Walcamp is a tremendous fighter and more than held up her end of the quarrel. In the midst of one of the most exciting scenes ever recorded on the celluloid, she lost her hold on the branch, and fell to the ground, with the "monster" on top of her. Both were picked up unconscious and rushed to the Priscilla Dean of "The Gray Ghost." hospital. Here it was discovered that the heroine had sustained a broken right wrist, while the actor who played the weird creature got off with painful bruises. Miss Dean's accident also happened in front of the camera. She varied the monotony by smashing her left arm, in the attempt to escape with the hero, Emory Johnson, from "The House of Mystery" in "The Gray Ghost." The pair fell through a trapdoor into a cell about eight feet below. It was planned that they should land on their feet, but something went wrong, and both fell heavily. Miss Dean landed with her left arm doubled under her and all her weight on it. The doctor's verdict was "One month." But serial stars don't pay much attention to doctors. In less than two weeks both the young women were back on the job. Miss Dean has made her appearance in several episodes with her arm in a sling. She was urged by Stuart Paton, her director, and Henry McRae, Manager of Production at Universal City, to take a longer leave of absence, but she knew that time and serials wait for no man, and she did not wish to handicap the production more than she could help. So back she came to work, in spite of the fact that the mending bones had to be broken again (Continued on page 21)