Moving Picture World (Jul 1921)

426 MOVING PICTURE WORLD July 23, 1921 Decreased Prod net ion Chance Affords Metro to Obtain Exceptional Casts Whatever the effect of the decrease in production activities may be on the industry itself, it may prove highly beneficial to the theatregoer, for pictures now under production have casts that would have cost absolutely prohibitive sums six months ago. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than at Metro’s Hollywood studios, where five units have companies of players whose names read like a page from a theatrical “V ho’s Who.” In many instances, stars and featured players are to be seen playing seemingly unimportant roles in support of the Metro stars. At Metro’s . Hollywood studios, when Rex Ingram was adding the finishing touches to his new production. "The Conquering Power.” Alice Terry and Rudolph Valentino, who enacted the leading roles in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” had the principal parts in this picture. Among the other players are Ralph Lewis, Edward Connelly*, Bridgetta Clark, Mark Fenton and Nobel Johnson. Viola Dana is working on “There Are No Villains,” a second Bayard Veiller production. Gaston Glass, who portrayed the son in “Humoresque,” is playing opposite here. Edward Cecil, who has played with Miss Dana in four of her recent releases, also has an important part. Others in the supporting cast are De Witt Jennings, Fred Kelsey and Jack Cosgrove. Included in the cast for “The Infamous Miss Revell,” Alice Lake’s newest picture, a Dallas Fitzgerald production, are Cullen Landis, Jackie Saunders, Herbert Standing and four of the screen’s most talented child performers, Stanley Goethals, Francis Carpenter, Geraldine Condon and May Garaci. Bert Lytell has no less strong a supporting cast for “Junk,” his newest Metro picture, a Maxwell Karger production. Virginia Valli is enacting the leading feminine role. Thomas Jefferson, John Davidson, Victory Bateman, Leigh Wyant, Joe Harrington and Max Davidson are among the other play ers of note. George D. Baker has assembled a notable cast for “Garments of Truth,” his second production to be filmed by S-L Pictures for Metro. Gareth Hughes will be starred, while Ethel Grandin will play opposite him. The others are John Steppling, Sylvia Ashton, Francis Raymond, Walter Perry, Graham Pettie, Margaret McWade and Herbert Prior. ertory company during the past two years. In Mrs. Miller’s story he will have another chance at comedy with a spice of drama in it. Cullen in Lead Goldwyn has selected Cullen Landis to play the leading role in the first original scenario prepared for that corporation by the popular novelist and playwright, Alice Duer Miller. This comes as a reward of merit for the long line of parts that Air. Landis has played so effectively as a member of the Goldwyn Rep Mary Alden Is Not Middle-Aged Woman Mary Alden, known for her great performance of the mother in Goldwyn’s production of Rupert Hughes’ story, “The Old Nest,” now at the Astor Theatre, New York, is not a middle-aged woman as one would imagine after seeing the photoplay, but still young and beautiful. But she has specialized — not intentionally at first — in mother parts. Her first motion picture engagement was in 1914 as the mother in D. W. Griffith’s “The Battle of the Sexes.” In the intervening years she has played many parts on the screen, all of them, with a few minor exceptions, being wife and mother roles. She has played with such important male stars as Henry Walthall, Will Rogers, James Kirkwood, Jack Pickford and Donald Crisp. Quality Led Rothafel to “Star” Harold Lloyd, Says Arthur Kane In connection with the recent “featuring” of Harold Lloyd’s comedy, “Among Those Present,” at the Capitol Theatre, New York, Arthur S. Kane, chairman of the board of directors of Associated Exhibitors and president of the Arthur S. Kane Productions, made the following statement: “The decision made by S. J. Rothafel, of the Capitol, the largest theatre in the world, and who is considered an accepted genius of pres entation, to feature Harold Lloyd’s comedy, ‘Among Those Present,’ an Associated Exhibitors production, was regarded as a revolutionary deviation from the beaten path of exhibiting, and trade-papers as welll as the daily press treated the matter as a news item of importance. “An object of much discussion were the reasons which might have induced Mr. Rothafel to introduce an innovation by featuring a film which was considerably shorter than the hitherto demanded or accepted length for a feature, whose minimum was considered to be five reels. WHAT! LET BUSINESS INTERFERE WITH PLEASURE? NEVER! Mr. Rothafel knows that the public is not as unsophisticated and unconservative, as many a producer and exhibitor feels inclined to believe. In the course of his experience he has discovered that the public expects full value for its money in the quality of the film and not in its length. “He furthermore had come to realize the increased tendency of the public to demand realism in pictures, even’be they comedies. This is but a natural and logic consequence of the war, which has brought realism much more before the mind of everybody than in the golden days before 1914. He knows that this tendency is the main factor which is endeavoring to purge the pictures of the usual movie-hokum and that the formerly easy-going public has begun to assert itself. “He knew that even a comedian must be of a more or less realistic type to drive the humor of the sit Them’s Eugene O’Brien’s sentiments in the Selznick picture, “Is Life Worth Living?” Evidently it is uation home. In fact, the more realistic the type of the comedian, the more convincing and sincere is his acting bound to be, and the public, seeing itself confronted with familiar situations in the screen, is bound to appreciate such a picture.” Inter-Ocean Gets Rights to Arrow for Foreign Lands Horace G. Harper, managing director of the Inter-Ocean Photoplays, Ltd., returned to London on the S. S. Olympic last week, after having negotiated with D. J. Mountain, foreign manager of the Arrow Film Corporation, one of the largest individual contracts for the distribution of American films in foreign markets. Under the terms of an agreement made just prior to his sailing, InterOcean Film Corporation acquired the exclusive rights for the United Kingdom for all productions now controlled or heretofore acquired for a term of years by the Arrow Film Corporation. Among the more important product included in the contract is the series of four James Oliver Curwood productions which Arrow will distribute in this country and the series of Bessie Love productions which was. exploited in the United States with profit by the Federated Exchanges of America. Patterson Books Hodkinson Films Stephen S. Grow, Hodkinson representative in Atlanta, has just signed with W. C. Patterson, associated with Sig Samuels of the Criterion Theatre, Atlanta, for two of the most recent Hodkinson releases. “Lavender and Old Lace,” produced by the Renco Film Company and directed by Lloyd Ingraham, contains all the elements which go to make for popularity. Millions know and love the novel by Myrtle Reed from which the pictures were adapted. The reception being given “Keeping Up With Lizzie” indicates that it is due to create for itself a unique place upon the silversheet. The story, the first of Irving Bacheller’s to reach the screen, is rich in humor and wisdom, while the cast, headed by Enid Bennett, will be a strong factor in making for its popularity. Title Changed The second feature produced by Cliff Smith Productions for Associated Photoplays, originally titled “Hoofs and Horns ’’ has been changed to “Crossing Trails.” The picture is now complete. It is from a story by L. V. Jefferson, and Pete Morrison is starred. The cast includes Esther Ralston, J. B. Warner, Lew Meehan. Floyd Taliaferro. Jack AIcHatton and Dud Hendircks.