Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

“Old Ironsides” Has Its Premiere Before Hollywood A T the Grauman Egyptian Theatre just a few nights ago “Old Ironsides” had its premiere with most of the notables of Hollywood attending. Mr. Sid Grauman, who is one of the “good fellows” of Hollywood apparently was so engrossed in the opening that the matter of trade paper reviews was overlooked. As a result The World correspondent to review the affair as closely as he might have under less crowded circumstances. However, there is scarcely any doubt that Sid Grauman realizes the importance of trade paper comment and we confidently expect to have one of his characteristic comments on this subject before many numbers have gone to press. Fairbanks Won’t Emulate DeMille After several months devoted almost exclusively to considering a gigantic production which would embrace “The History of Civilization” Douglas Fairbanks has quite suddenly placed thumbs -down on that proposition. One of the reasons for Fairbanks abandoning this reported idea reached us as a belief that a Civilization epic at this time would be too similar to De Mille’s biblical story “King of Kings.” It now seems definitely decided, however, that Fairbanks next production will be based upon a story by Jackson Goodrich titled “Captain Cavalier.” Pathe Serials Reach Forty Per Cent of American Theatres Walter Wessling, Pacific Sales Chief, Points With Pardonable Pride to the Realism Incorporated in Modern Pictures of Adventure PATHE is now not only the one producing 'company specializing in the making of serials but it is finding a m'arket for those serials in approximately forty per cent of America’s 20,000 motion picture theatres. They cost on the average of $125,000 to make. The trend of the times is necessitating that their continuity be along feature lines with worth-while sets and meaty stories. These are a few of the facts which Moving Picture World gathered this week in one of the most intensive investgiations into serial production which has ever been made in Pathe’s Hollywood studios. Anna May Wong, the Hal Roach player, in an Oriental bathing costume designed by Will Lambert. Although this article centers on production activities, the box office potentialities and facts concerning the making of Pathe’s newest serial, “Melting Millions” which will be released in ten two-reel episodes late in February, yet the general facts presented above are of unusual interest to the trade since they were obtained from Walter Wessling, Pathe Sales Chief on the Pacific Coast. In substantiation of his statement to The World that he believes the prospects of well-made serials are now better than ever before in the history of this particular phase of production, Mr. Wessling states that Pathe’s Los Angeles exchange is this year sixth on the list nationally in the distribution of serials. The significance of this may be appreciated when it is learned that the rating of the same last year was among the lowest on the company’s records. It was explained that about one-third of the second run houses in America and other theatres in the smaller cities and towns largely comprise the forty per cent mentioned in our lead. At the Pathe studios it was conceded that the days for serials with grotesque characters, stories of the wildest melodramatic hokum made on sets left over from other productions were at an end. Present day production methods made such product an insult even to the intelligence of the average child, with the result that producers who failed to take cognizance of the change have been literally forced out of the business. Where the average serial a few years ago included as many as thirty-six episodes or sixty-two reels of film, we learned that Pathe is now increasing its annual serial output but keeping the episodes of each picture to a maximum of about twenty reels. That serials stories are the backbone of some of the larger national magazines and that serial pictures can be so produced (Continued on page 421) ‘ ‘Me l ting Millions 99 A Pathe Master Serial i