Moving Picture World (April-June 1915)

1584 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD June 5, 1915 Lawrence B. McGill. Catching a Steamboat in Rome. Larry McGill Takes Four-Day Trip in Quest of Atmosphere for Metro Picture. LAWRENCE B. McGILL, recently appointed directorgeneral for Metro Pictures Corporation, admits, what no director ever was heard to deny — a craving for accuracy in settings. As a producer for the Eclair, the All Star and the Life Photo Film companies, he proved to his own satisfaction that there is no such thing as a good substitute. This or that, is, or is not, needed in a picture, and if it is needed, why time spent in the quest is well utilized. He had been with the Metro Corporation only a few days before his artistic creed was put to the test. What happened makes a good story. We will call it "In Rome, Ga., or Catching a Steamboat," and introduce Mr. McGill as the hero. "I was considering plans for the picturization of Hulbert Footner's novel, 'The Sealed Valley,' " he said, "and found that an old-fashioned s t e a mboat propelled in a rapid river was necessary. Now it is easy enough to locate oldtime steamboats and one does not have to go far to find a river with rapids, or shoals, as they call them down South; but striking the two together is not so simple. Then there was another point to be considered. Mr. Footner's tale is of the Northwest and precludes southern vegetation. "After a deal of unprofitable enquiry, a friend of mine suggested Rome, Ga., as a possibility. He was certain that I would find the right sort of a boat floating in a suitable river. On his recommendation I went to Rome, arriving there early one evening, knowing that I must complete my business and catch the four o'clock train back to New York on the following afternoon. It took me just about half an hour to learn that a likely craft was making daily trips up the river — a river with shoals — and that her captain lived quite a piece down the road. Rome's jitney bus is a 1905 model automobile that runs on smooth pavements, but is not trusted elsewhere. It carried me to the captain's home at 8.30 o'clock and obviously everyone had gone to bed. There are few limits to a director's nerve, but somehow I did not have the courage to rouse the household. Instead, I scribbled a note asking the captain to stop for me at the hotel on his way to the boat in the morning. This I stuck in the screen door where it couldn't be missed. "The hotel clerk called me at seven, I took my time at breakfast and waited in the lobby. Half an hour passed and I became uneasy. I looked up my old friend, with the jitney bus, and asked to be taken 'down the road' again. A young woman met me at the door. 'Didn't the captain find a note?' I enquired. 'Sure, he found it, all right,' came the answer, 'but he said he was too busy to stop. He went up the river with a load of sand at five o'clock.' "We jitneyed back to town and to the docks where a number of motor boats were anchored. Half an hour later I had found the owner of one, and arranged to be taken to Livermore's Island, where 'The Panther' was reported to be spending the day. Opposite a mud bank, a mile out of town, the motor broke down hopelessly. We pushed to shore; I scrambled up the bank and boarded a trolley car headed for Rome. At the hotel they told me of a man with a real automobile, who might, if properly approached, be of service. It seemed that no one had ever gone to Livermore's Island by the land route, but after a little urging the owner of the car was willing to try. "That man ought to make a success of life. He said he never had started for any place without getting there. Nothing stopped him until we came to a freshly plowed field, over which, in the distance, we could see smoke rising from the stack of 'The Panther.' Then he allowed that he guessed we had better leave the machine and walk. Another obstacle ■was a canebrake between us and the river, and, having reached this, we couldn't attract the attention of anyone on the boat anchored at the island, until a laborer rowed to shore to get water from a spring. He took us out to the captain, we came to terms and located a place where the boat could be photographed going up the rapids with only rocks in the background, so that the scenes will not appear incongruous in a story of the Northwest. Altogether, I was away four days to arrange for a picture that will occupy about 300 feet in the completed production." Mr. McGill said that he probably would take his company to the Adirondacks for the greater part of the action in "The Sealed Valley," every foot of which will be photographed out of doors. He is going to build cabins in the wilderness and is determined to have things precisely as the author intended, if it takes all summer. W. A. S. Douglas Leaves for France. WA. SHOLTO DOUGLAS, for some time serial manager for Pathe, and more recently assistant to the • Vice President, Charles Dupuis, sailed for France on Saturday, May 15, by the American liner St. Louis. Mr. Douglas is to join the forces of Charles Pathe in Paris and expects to remain abroad permanently, where he will represent the Pathe American interests. Mr. Douglas's career makes interesting reading. Born in the north of Ireland thirty years ago, he ran away from school at the age of fifteen and volunteered for service in South Africa against the Boers. Because of hi^ height his story that he was twenty was accepted, and he remained in the army for nine months, taking part in the battle of Paardeburg, and entering Pretoria with Roberts' triumphant army. Returning home he tried the entrance examination for a commission in the army, but was "plucked." Then he enlisted in the famous South Lancashire regiment known as the "fighting 40th," which was recently cut to pieces at the battle of N e u V e Chapelle. With a section of his regiment he went to West Africa and saw service in the native rebellion of 1905, where as sergeant in charge of a maxim gun he was severely wounded. Later he was promoted to a commission as second lieutenant. He resigned his commission and went to Hayti as a soldier of fortune, becoming a major in Simon's heterogeneous army. He was with him at the capture of Port-au-Prince, at which time Mr. Douglas came to the United States and entered the newspaper field, serving four years on the staff of the Philadelphia North American, and three years on the New York Evening Journal, which position he left to join the Pathe forces. Mr. Douglas is a relative of the Marquis of Queensberry, who devised the rules by which modern boxing matches are governed, and is himself in the line of succession to that famous Scotch title. His great great grandfather was the celebrated Duke of Queensbury, head of the house of "Black Douglas" and famous in literature as "Q," bosom friend of George IV., and the hero of novels by both Thackeray and Conan Doyle. W. A. S. Douglas. "THE SPENDER" (United Prohibition Drama). "The Spender." a two-reel photodrama from the pen of Rev. Clarence J. Harris, the Unitarian minister who left the pulpit to write motion picture scenarios, has been chosen by the National Unitarian Church Association to be used as a campaign picture in the fight of the church and of the National Unitarian Temperance Society against intemperance. This picture will be shown all over the world as a positive factor in the temperance fight and will replace the filmization of Jack London's story, "John Barleycorn," which was used last year, and was sent to Unitarian churches, meetings and temperance conventions over the entire world.