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July 12, 1919
THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD
241
UNIVERSAL MAN ON RUBBERING TOUR
R. J. Johnson Starts on Voyage to Singapore for Purpose of Filming Plantation Processes
ONE of the longest and most adventurous motion picture expeditions ever undertaken will be started July 10, when a cameraman representing the educational and industrial departments of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, boards the steamship “Empress of Asia” at Vancouver, B. C., for Singapore.
Under the supervision of Harry Levey, general manager of these departments for Universal, the cameraman will tour the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Java and others to the south of the Malay Peninsula. The tour is being made primarily in the interests of the rubber industry of America, but while in the countries visited, the cameraman will “shoot” thousands of feet of film' devoted to the life and customs of the peoples encountered.
Will Film Rubber Plantations. Roswell J. Johnson, the man who is making the trip, will make port first at Hong-Kong, where he will be compelled to wait two weeks before catching a steamer for Singapore. Sumatra and the other islands to be visited are within short sailing distance of this famous British port. Practically every rubber plantation of importance on the islands will be visited, and the camera will register the growing and harvesting of every kind of raw rubber produced. The most interesting feature of the trip, however, is the fact that Johnson will be compelled to traverse little known trails in his journeys from plantation to plantation. The rubber growing industry is peculiar, in that the largest and most bountiful supplies are obtained from trails cut through unexplored jungle. These trails branch off, usually, from a cleared space, and extend for miles back into jungle country in which, after nightfall, wild animals prowl.
Has Plenty of Equipment. Johnson’s equipment will be the finest, it is said, obtainable. Just before entraining for Vancouver, he visted Rochester where all the various articles necessary for developing and printing his own negative under tropical conditions, were purchased. Among other things, he is taking 30,000 feet of unexposed negative, which makes quite a bundle of itself. In all, Universal is said to have expended $10,000 for equipment alone. The expedition, it is thought, will take at least six months and possibly a year.
Will Be Used Educationally.
The coffee growing country of Java, and the countries of the other islands which offer opportunity for exclusive film devoted to the details of tropical occupations and industries, will be visited by the expedition. Several thousand feet of film, it is expected, will be brought back, depicting tropical scenes which have never before been caught by the motion picture camera. The film will be used in the production of an extensive series of educational pictures, to be released by Mr. Levey’s department.
Sterling Has Frank Hall Specials.
Sterling Films, Limited, the new Canadian exchange, announces that it has secured the Canadian franchise for re
leases of the Film Clearing House and the company will be handling Frank Hall specials, J. Stuart Blackton productions and Rothapfel Unit Programs. The first release, “The House Divided,” will be ready for booking shortly. The Montreal office of the new company is located in the Orpheum Theatre Building, while the Toronto office is at 172 King street West.
Films Record Construction of Famous Players Studio
ON the roof of an apartment house in Long Island City, from which is afforded an unobstructed view of the construction work going on at the new $2,000,000 studio of the Famous
APRIL FOLLY,” the five-part feature production starring Marion Davies, to be released by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation as a Cosmopolitan Production, was finished at the Biograph studio last week after five weeks of arduous work on the part of Director Robert E. Leonard, Miss Davies and a large cast.
“April Folly” gets its title from Cynthia Stockley’s novelette of the same name, which ran serially several months in the Cosmopolitan Magazine. The story is that of an aristocratic girl, the petted daughter of an English earl, who balks at family traditions and slips away to meet the man her family refuses to allow her to marry. Before she goes she annexes a family heirloom, a valuable diamond secreted in the head of a Buddha. She expects this to be her dot to her future husband.
As April Poole and Lady Diana Mannisters, Miss Davies probably does the best work of her screen career. The
A High Spot in “High Pockets.
One of the pocketful of high ones in this Louis Bennison Goldwyn feature.
Players-Lasky Corporation, a stand has been erected to hold a motion picture camera and each day a few feet of pictures are being taken of the rising structure. The films are being consecutively numbered and will be pieced together, so that when the building is completed, some time during the coming fall, it will be possible to show the work of months in about fifteen minutes.
From a point alongside the motion picture camera, pictures are also taken each day with a still camera, and if it is found that varying light has impaired the quality or effectiveness of the motion picture, the still shots will be pieced together in one continuous film, thereby obtaining the same effect, though at the expense of considerably more labor.
In order to be certain that all the pictures will be taken from the same angle, the stands of the cameras have been carefully marked and the lenses placed through holes in a stationary board.
parts that she portrays in this single production are widely divergent: one, the tenderly brought up young Englishwoman ; the other, the exceedingly shrewd Secret Service agent.
Conway Tearle plays opposite her. Esther Marshall is seen in the early part of the story. Hattie Delaro essays the part of the dowager. J. Herbert Frank, who plays the villain, was formerly with Richard Mansfield, E. S. Willard, Wright Lorimer, and in the support of a number of screen stars, notably Norma Talmadge, Olga Petrova, William Farnum and Kitty Gordon. Spencer Charters, who plays the detective, will next season be seen in “Oh, My Dear!”
Billings in Charge of
R. & F. Twin City Chain
HARRY BILLINGS, manager of the Minneapolis New Palace, has been appointed general manager of Ruben & Finkelsfein’s twenty-one moving picture theatres in the Twin Cities. A1 Gilles, formerly manager of the Minneapolis Pantages, has been appointed manager of the New Palace to succeed Mr. Billings.
Running the New Palace Theatre has been Harry E. Billings’ job for the last five years. He was always to be found there, working on present and future bills. He has a reputation for taking care of his program in a thorough manner, and the public, not knowing him directly, likes him indirectly for his efficient work as well as do performers, who have many a story of kindness and courtesy to tell.
When you look at him, you never would suspect that he had been twentynine years in the show business.
Hughes Becomes a Triangle Manager.
The announcement has just been made by J. Unger, manager of the twentythree exchanges of the Triangle Distributing Corporation, of the appointment of M. C. Hughes, as manager of Triangle’s New York branch.
In 1916, Mr. Hughes became manager of the Universal office at Pittsburg, and later joined the forces of the Metro Film Corporation as its district manager in Canada.
“April Folly ” Cosmopolitan Production ,
Will Be Released Under Selective Plan