Moving Picture World (Dec 1920)

;S4 MOVING PICTURE WORLD December 4, 1920 Rubbernecking' in Filmland ■ I’LL try anything once” is all right for some things — in fact, there are many things that one only wants to try once, but not “rubbering” moving picture studios. I tried that once, and ever since I’ve been wanting to try it again. My chance came this week. The “Neck” is up to his ears in work on the big Christmas number we’re getting up, and when I asked him if he didn’t think I might help him out by doing the Rubbernecking for him this week, he “fell” for it at once. “I wish you would,” he said, “It will be a great help,” and he plunged back into the sea of work before him and has not come to the surface yet. Before I tell you about the pictures I saw in the making, however, I want to report on our invalids and tell you of the important members of the industry we welcomed to Filmland from the East. Little Jackie Improving Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle, Abraham Lehr and J. L. Frothingham all arrived early in the week, and Allan Dwan, Catherine Curtis and Flerbert Rawlinson followed along later. Dustin Farnum is the most important departure of the week. Of our invalids, little Jackie Coogan, who played the “Kid” in Charlie Chaplin’s new comedy, has given us the greatest anxiety. He was seriously hurt in an auto accident and for several days his life was almost despaired of, but he is better now and says he is going to be well before Christmas so Santa Claus won’t be disappointed. A letter from his pal, Charlie Chaplin, saying that he will be back on the coast by that time, is another incentive to Jackie to hurry and get well. Syd Chaplin, who was in a hospital for several weeks, is now at home and practically well. Tom Santschi, who was separated from his appendix a few years ago, expects to be himself again in a short time. May Allison an Invalid May Allison, our remaining invalid, was sick a whole week before she knew it. She was working in a scene for “Are Wives to Blame?”, when in crossing the stage she stumbled and fell over a chair. The mishap was regarded as a joke at the time, but as the days went by May began to feel strange pains in the upper part of her body, and only an X-Ray examination revealed the fact that two of her ribs had been broken as the result of her fall. May expects that a few weeks’ rest will put her in good shape again. So many of our picture makers are away on location at this time of year — off to the mountains for snow stuff, to the beaches for water scenes, to Arizona for Indian and desert atmosphere — that I considered myself in great luck when I found two companies at work at the same plant. Both companies are at the Hollywood studio, and as it happened, both pictures will be released by Robertson-Cole. "What’s a Wife Worth?" Christy Cabanne was making scenes for his new picture, “What’s a Wife Worth?” and Pauline Frederick was transferring “The Mistress of Shenstone” to film. I watched the Cabanne company first, because they were already at work when I arrived. The Frederick company was not quite ready to start. Cass on Ferguson Learns How to Manipulate Baby in Story of Wives By NORA B. GIEBLER “What’s a Wife Worth?” is a strong story of domestic life that deals with a vital question: Is the wife, whose sole ambition and desire is to shine as a society leader and to follow her chosen career, worth more to a husband than the selfeffacing woman whose only thought is devotion to home and children? It’s a story that grips the heart and ma’ es a lump come in your throat. Christy Cabanne told me it was that kind of a story, and he ought to know because he wrote it himself. The action he was working on was where the butterfly wife, played by Virginia Caldwell, refuses to break an engagement because the baby is cross and fretful. Casson Ferguson is the young husband, James Morrison, and Ruth Renick the former wife, whose marriage to Morrison has been annulled. Not Really a Butterfly When the butterfly wife is about to leave, Morrison takes her to task for leaving the baby if it is sick. She replies that the nurse is perfectly capable of taking care of the baby and she does not see the necessity of breaking her engagement. Morrison is worried and shows it plainly. He takes the baby tenderly in his arms and looks at it pityingly. I thought Casson Ferguson did that bit of acting exceedingly well, considering that he has probably not had much experience handling a baby. “That baby’s a darling,” said Miss Caldwell to me. “He has behaved beautifully and he’s only ten weeks old his mother says.” Miss Caldwell is not a butterfly wife at all in real life. She was married during the summer to Wesley Ruggles, a director of J. Parker Read Productions, and her new home in Hollywood is the pride of her young life. She told me of all the nice new labor saving devices and the modern equipment she is installing in her kitchen, and of the tasty dishes she cooks up for her husband after she leaves the studio. I don’t think the disturbing question of what’s a wife worth will ever come up in the Ruggles household. In Re St. Louis After close-ups were taken of Miss Caldwell, Casson Ferguson and the baby in his crib, they began to get ready for the really big punch of this particular episode, the scene where Ruth Renick, as the poor, wronged little first wife, steals into the house and kidnaps the baby. The minute Mr. Cabanne is through directing a scene he is up and walking about, here, there and everywhere. “How long since you left St. Louis?” he whispered to me as he passed. “Three years,” I whispered back when he came my way again. “And you?” “I haven’t been back since 1897,” he re sponded, still in a whisper, “when I staged a big Red Cross benefit at the Odeon.” “I’ll keep your secret,” I assured him, in the same tone of voice. But I must have loo’ ed displeased, because I wondered if he was ashamed of the old home town, that he spo’ e of it only in a whisper. He only laughed, however, and explained that it always made him so hoarse to direct that he could only speak in whispers afterwards. I forgave him and went to see what the sounds of merriment issuing from the Frederick set meant. Impromptu "Harmony" Pauline Frederick, her director, Henry King, and Roy Stewart, leading man, were giving an impromptu concert in the hall of an English inn for the benefit of the rest of the cast. Miss Frederick had the violin, Roy Stewart the cello, and Henry King the little organ belonging to the orchestra, and each one was “sustaining” a long drawnout note not at all in harmony with the two other notes being played. To add to this melee of sound Lydia Yeamans Titus was singing — that is, her mouth was open, and suggested the thought that she might be singing, but here voice was not distinguishable in the din. When the real musicians had regained control of their instruments and Roy Stewart had complained bitterly because he had not had the foresight to conquer the cello instead of horses in the early years of his life, Mrs. Titus sang “Sally in Our Ally” and another song for us, and then Henry King called out : “Now let’s get to work, we’ve played long enough.” Fateful Incidents “The Mistress of Shenstone,” by Florence L. Barclay, author of “The Rosary,” is an English story, and the action taking place in an inn, where the Mistress of Shenstone meets the “Man,” was being filmed the day I was there. First, Roy Stewart was taken in the act of gazing soulfully out of a window in the hall of the inn, a dear old-fashioned lofc’ing place with a real fireplace at one end and the floor of flagstones. When Roy has gazed out of the window long enough he goes into the dining room of the inn just in time to draw a chair out for a lady just finishing her meal, and to pick up a handkerchief dropped purposely, for another lady w'th coquettish tendencies, played by Mrs. Titus. All this time Miss Frederick is sitting at another table watching the by-play. And then the fateful meeting takes place. Tweedale Says So Roy Stewart has long been identified with typically western roles in the films. “It’s certainly a pleasant change from the wild and woolly western parts I have played in the past and I hope I’m getting away with it,” he said. “They seem to think I am.” And he is, if one can believe the word of Bernard Tweedale, an Englishman who has not been in this country very long and who has just recently joined the Robertson-Cole organization. “He depicts the English country gentleman in an easy and natural manner,” says Mr. Tweedale, “and he looks the part as well.”