Moving Picture World (Aug 1919)

August 2, 1919 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 661 Well, Goodbye, Jim-Take Keer Yourself Is What Insurance Man Will Say to Jim Corbett When James Starts On Features After Completing "Midnight" Serial. Round 21.— This round was short. Sullivan was visibly distressed, but he assumed the aggressive. He attempted to rush, but received Corbett's left in his face with terrific force. It staggered him and the Oig fellow backed to his corner. Corbett was now like a tiger. He delivered blow after blow * * * • Corbett swung his big right hand to the point of the chin and that lick made him the hero of the day and the world's champion. THE lights go down. The stage is in roaring blackness, and the scene shifts with amazing rapidity. The ringside at the Olympia in New Orleans, gripped by the cholera scourge of 1892, becomes the ringside at Rector's on New York's little own Broadway, clutched in the grip of the prohibition of 1919. Corbett is not now crouching like a waiting tiger over the form of the dethroned Sullivan. Twenty-six years, ten months, twelve days and nine minutes have elapsed since the moment John L.'s rugged strength fell before the speed and science of the marvelous young Corbett. Gentleman Jim, instead of being like a bit of cork in the trough of the waves of yelling humanity at the New Orleans arena, is surrounded by a quiet little group of press representatives at Rector's and is ordering sliced peaches as the opening round of a midday grapple with the demon hunger. A Different Kind of Grapple. The luncheon grapple was taking place only a few doors below the offices of the Clipper, from whose pages the above account of the final round of the Corbett-Sullivan conflict was taken. The setting was perfect. Jim Corbett, having completed his serial, "The Midnight Man," for Universal, was in New York for a vacation, and Lowell Cash of the Big U publicity staff had co-starred with St. Swithin in getting a black, midnight-like hour as an appropriate setting in which to ensconce this meeting with "The Midnight Man" himself. St. Swithin was supporting the publicity man with barrels and bucketfuls of talent. It could not be seen which was predominant, the barrels or the buckets. But, anyhow, the weather was wuthering in that sheetlike formation of rain which made so many congratulations pour into St. Swithin headquarters last week. And the clouds were many and of the blackest hue. And the thunder was supplying the incidental music for the occasion and leaping from one Broadway canyon to another in tone deafening enough to remind the listener of Bvron's "Childe Harold." Ebony Setting for "Midnight." The only appropriate, surrounding circumstance which the publicity man had overlooked, was the fact that the meeting with "The Midnight Man" had not been called at the moment of midnight. It was probably out of deference to the ladies present, however, that Mr. Cash had put this thought out of his mind. But such was the dark and lowering setting for the meeting with Gentleman Jim Corbett, "The Midnight Man." He By William J. Reilly was the center of the occasion last week just as his physical beauty and the graceful force of his body made him the cynosure of eyes at the New Orleans battle over twenty-six years ago. At 52 there is not a gray hair in his head, which is still crowned by the same hirsute adornment which many, many days ago won him the soubriquet of "Pompadour Jim." Jim Corbett is still the big, straightas-an-arrow, well-proportioned man he was a quarter of a century ago. He has taken on weight, and his nose-glasses give him the air of a college professor of social survey. But undeniably there is still that athletic poise about him which made the Clipper representative at the New Orleans ringside write : "Corbett, tall, straight and shapely in "Gentleman Jim" Corbett Hasn't lost his smile, pompadour, pep punch or poise in Universal's serial, "The Midnight Man." every line and curve looked the ideal of the artist. Every muscle was gracefully cut and laid in place with artistic accuracy, and each curve had the ideal length and radius. His proportions everywhere appeared to absolute artistic perfection. His movements were graceful, but there was a power behind them that spoke volumes for the tremendous force wrapped up in that graceful exterior." Will See Same Old Jim. Such was the Jim Corbett of yesterday. And such, plus a few units of avoirdupois, is the Jim Corbett of today, the Jim whom the serial fans and the Corbett admirers will see in "The Midnight Man," the first of whose eight een episodes will be released in September. Jim's favorite gesture, as shown at the luncheon, is a motion approximating no other like it does that of a trained boxer assuming a defensive attitude with his hands. His ring experience is responsible for that, of course, but the habit has been encouraged during the past six months more than ever. For it is during the past six months that Jim has been working, every day, on "The Midnight Man," and it safely may be assumed that no battling bets were overlooked in any episode. Not one of the eighteen chapters goes by but Jim wages fistic war on the villainous hordes of the picture, collectively or individually. And the fights are none of the rolling-on-the-ground, chairthrowing, punch-pulling kind. They are of the stand-up-and-take-what's-coming variety, each one a classic in feinting, footwork, ducking, and all the other arts of the ring. Corbett Has Many Admirers. Jim personally conducted the writer and several other representatives of the press through two episodes of the picture in one of the Universal projection rooms, so the above is not conjecture. It was all Sam Zierler, Big U exchange manager, could do to keep his entire office force out of the projection room in which Jim was commenting on each trick of the villain and each punch delivered into the anatomy of some serial brutish one. And a lot of exhibitors who had come to book Big U pictures and who met Corbett, undoubtedly went home with a mental reservation to pounce on "The Midnight Man" when he makes his debut in September. Jim is not new to the acting game, as he has been on the legitimate stage and in vaudeville ever since he won the laurels of the world's best fighter under the Marquis of Queensbury rules. His big following of admirers, including those who knew him in his ring days, those who followed him on the stage, and those who read "Corbett's Corner" on the sporting page of many large dailies, will be augmented when his first serial starts its circuit through the country in the fall. Will Make Five-Reelers. And in the fall the big Californian is going back to his native heath to make five-reel features at Universal City. The first item on his working calendar will be a visit to his insurance office. After writing out a few odd extra thousands of insurance for Jim, the agent, mindful of all the villains who are still nursing bruised ribs and reflectively stroking fatal chin points at Universal City, will wipe away the tears from his eyes, wring Jim's hand (and have his own arm pumped off) and say: "Well, good-bve, Jim. Take keer yourself." Better opportunities are offered in The World's Classified advertising than in anv other medium known to the trade. Large needs have been supplied by small advertisements. Think it over and then try it.