Moving Picture World (Jul 1920)

July 24, 1920 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 445 RUBBERNECKING IN FILMLAND THE nice cool fogs are gone and our celebrated sunshine is putting in some of its best licks. Filmland is hot, but since the nights are cool — thank goodness — fairly happy. The time we took off to celebrate the fifth of July set us back somewhat, both industrially and financially, but we are catching up on both ends. Quite a few folks from Filmland went down to Tia Juana, where they could have a little firewater with their firecrackers. Things are about as usual in the colony. Eddie Rosenbaum’s wife went east for a visit last week, and right away Eddie got into trouble. Eddie takes care of the “Snookie” monk comedies that Billy Campbell is making for C. L. Chester on week days, and on Sunday he goes to concerts and soaks his soul full of harmony. The West Might Have Rebelled. Saturday night he bought a seat for Sid Grauman’s Sunday morning concert, and went to sleep with thoughts of a pleasant day to come. The next morning he got up to put the dog out and closed the door behind him, locking himself out — and it not being the proper thing in spite of the free and democratic spirit of the West, to go to a Sunday concert in green and pink striped pajamas, Eddie had to miss his music. Henry Lehrman is shooting comedies again. I stepped in at his studio and found him up to his ears in what he calls a poetic slap-stick story with a baby, a hod of bricks, a twelve-story building, a hen and chickens, two goats and two rose bushes in the cast. The gas shortage is getting acute. John D. Rockefeller Jr., who is out here touring, was turned down by eight different gas stations one day this week. When a guy like that can’t get gas, what’s the use of other folks trying? Cornering the Horse Market. A lot of players are beating the gas game by buying horses. Roy Stewart has four; Bob' Brunton has a whole stable full. Monroe Salisbury, Bessie Barriscale and Fritzie Brunette have all got mounts, and a lot of others are planning to nab themselves a nag in the near future. Viola Dana worked two whole nights at the Metro studio so she could get a couple of days off to celebrate Independence Day. Buster Keaton is twenty-four years old and is still unmarried this week. Fannie Hurst is going to rent a bungalow in Hollywood m which to write a play for Priscilla Dean. Olive Thomas has gone to New York. May Allison is suffering from a strained neck from riding in an airplane and looking out to see how far it is to the ground— and Ruth Stonehouse is putting up peach preserves. Ruth Has Another Tough One. I stepped around quite a bit this week One day I paid a visit to that section o Brunton occupied by Pathe, and watche< the Ruth Roland company working on thi twelfth episode of “Ruth of the Rockies,1 a serial pulsating with plot, reeking witl revenge, daring deeds, deviltry, airplanes horseback stuff and gun play. Ruth Roland and Herbert Heyes ar< the leading players; that is, they are a: ar in the lead as the hero and heroine ir a serial ever get. The heavies are crowd ang them all the time. Why, there was om Mostly About Ruth Roland But Somewhat About Green and Pink Pajamas By GIEBLER. iiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiimimiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii time while I was there that Ruth and Herb had to hide the priceless ruby in the horn of a stuffed deer’s head to keep some of “them dirty devils” from getting it. Norma, the “Half Heavy.” “Ruth of the Rockies” is equipped with three and a half heavies. The chief dirty work is handled by that clever duo of double dealers, Tom LINGHAM & BINGHAM Stanley. These rhyming, monikered rascals are assisted by Madeline Fairchild as first lady heavy, and Norma Nichols. Norma is the half heavy. She would be considered a full fledged heavy in most movies, but in a serial where only the most intense and aggravated brand of villaining is used, the light heavy work used in doing a little vamping and trying to put the skids under love’s young dream is not heavy enough to entitle her to a full union card. Ruth Roland explained it. “You see,” she said, “All that Norma does is to try to steal my sweetheart, and that’s nothing at all in a serial.” A Nichols Worth. It must not be thought, however, that because Norma does only about a Nichols worth of nefariousness when compared to the other villainy in the film, that her part is unimportant. She may be a jitney heavy, but otherwise her work looms up like a Nichol-plated limousine in our celebrated sunshine. “Ruth of the Rockies,” which was adapted from a story in the All-Story Magazine entitled Broadway Bab, by Francis Guihan, looks like it was going to be a typical Pathe serial, and as full of punch and pep, love and adventure, and big moments as Pathe serials that have gone before, and Norman Manning, manager of the studio, says that I’ve got absolutely the right dope when I make the above prediction. I got so interested watching the stftflt that I stuck around the stages for over an hour, and when Director George Marshall took the company down on the back lot to work out some action on a big western street, I traipsed along. Ducking the Bronchos. The western street was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was a fully populated street; every store and shop had a proprietor and a lot of customers in it. The hitching racks were full of horses, and on top of this there were about twenty-five or thirty tough looking, gun-toting eggs on horseback. I don’t know why it is, but some way or other,, I don’t get along with movie horses. I don’t think they like me. Every time I get on a western set and pick out a nice place to stand to watch the show, along comes a horse that wants to cut up and do wild west show stuff right on that spot. Marshall and his assistant, Ivan Kahn, staged a scene in which a gang of cowboys rode through the town and stormed a building in one of the side streets. When the riders got to the ground and rushed into the house, most of the horses stood still like good horses, but one onery cayuse C. Stoffel and H. Switzerland Comes to America. Faesler, representing J. and Milton Sills, Realart Speck & Co., big Zurich film star at Hollywood studio. exporting firm,