The Moving picture world (February 1920-March 1920)

1088 vTHE MOVING PICTURE WORLD February 14, 1920 E. J. Smith Cleveland Universal manager whose office won $2,500 of $6,000 sales prize. Cleveland Salesmen Win Universal Prize Contest UNIVERSAL'S big business drive is over. As was told in these columns last week, it was won by the Cleveland exchange salesmen ui.der the direction of Manager E. J. Smith. They made an increase in business of more than SO per cent, in the last three months over the three preceding months. As a result, the big end of the $6,000 prize, or $2,500, was awarded the Cleveland manager and salesmen. The office in Cleveland has reached large proportions. Its output is popular in Ohio and the exchange has become a headquarters for Cleveland and Ohio exhibitors. The seven salesmen employed by Mr. Smith more than doubled their average sales during the run of the contest. They are H. J. Rogers, M J. Click, T. G. Colby, N. P. Fleisher. H. S. Brown. F. L. Davie and J. W. MacFarland. H. C. Rogers is Mr. Smith's assistant. Gold King Screen Advances. Announcement is made by the Gold King Screen Company, .-Mtus, Okla., that, beginning March 1, the price of Gold King Screen will be raised to seventy five cents a square foot. S. H. Jones, inventor of the screen and president of the concern, states that this raise in price is imperative as the cost of manufacturing materials has trebled in the last twelvemonth. The Gold King Company has purchased a building site in Oklahoma City and plans to erect a three-story factory thereon. William Bowman, Director, III. Antonio Moreno is himself directing the fourteenth episode of "The Invisible Hand," his current Vitagraph serial, owing to the sudden illness of Director William Bowman. The episode includes some of the biggest scenes in the chapter play, one requiring the star to drive an automobile over a cliff for a sheer drop of more than fifty feet into a river. It is expected that Mr. Bowman will be recovered in time to direct the fifteenth and final episode. DeMilles ''Why Change Your Wife?'' Picturizes Married Life of Today WHY CHANGE YOUR WIFE?" the forthcoming Cecil B. De Mille production to be released by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation as a Paramount Artcraft special, is described by those who have seen it as being a companion picture to Mr. De Mille's other successful domestic dramas, "Don't Change Your Husband" and "For Better, For Worse," and as embodying the spectacular effects and the wealth of detail which characterized those two productions. In "Why Change Your Wife?" which is expected to be released in the near future, Mr. De Mille, it is said, takes up another angle of the domestic problems which he handled in "Don't Change Your Husband" and "For Better, For Worse." The three pictures, however, are declared to be in no way related to one another, except in the fact that they treat of modern married life. This grouping of productions is said to be something new in motion pictures, although the group of works has long been known in literature. Just as Balzac in his "Comedie Humaine" and Ibsen in his social dramas wrote a series of works built around the same general theme, so Cecil B. De Mille has produced a group of motion pictures developing various phases of married life of today. Has Unusually Strong: Cast. In this picture, which is marked by the sumptuous settings and profusion of accurate detail of scene and action which have come to be associated with Mr. De Mille's name, the director shows how a husband, blinded to his wife's true worth by the monotony of existence, can neglect her and become enamored of a beautiful divorcee, only to realize his mistake after he has come to an open break with his wife. Guy Empey Secures Scenes for "OiV Despite Inhospitable Southern Sun IT isn't the 'Sunny South' it's said to be," is the burden of the song which Guy Empey's press agent makes the telegraph wires sing in his dispatches to the New York offices since the arrival of Guy Empey, Florence Evelyn Martin, Director Xorth and others of the company producing "Oil" at Shreveport, La. The company had pinned its faith on Southern propaganda which gloried over the sunny smile which "nature always wears south of the Mason and Dixon line" — and landed in a sea of mud in Shreveport. Record rains had soaked the entire Northern end of Louisiana. .Vevertheless, the author of "Over the Top," "The Undercurrent" and "Oil" managed to coax enough sunshine from the weather man to start filming the oil-land scenes which are necessary for the completion of his big special production. Last accounts had it that the Sunny South had redeemed itself. Lake Caddo, a veritable valley devoted to the oil industry; Homer, a boom oil town ; Shreveport and other places yielded many picturesque shots. N'isiting these places Empey resorted to army tactics in moving his impedimenta. He mounted men and materials on highwheeled, broad-tread transport wagons and helped push, as in old artillery days on the western front. Many Picturesque Shots. .About a week or ten days more of picture-taking will conclude the filming of scenes for "Oil." Latest advices indicate that the company will go as far west as Tulsa, Okla. With production work three-quarters finished, "Oil" promises well as a production of considerable magnitude. Besides the star and his leading woman. Director North and his assistant, Philip Quinn, Cameramen Malloy and Baker and Still Photographer Moran, the party includes Templar Saxe, William Eville, Denton \'ane, Harry Lee and Harrv Burkhart. Pioneer's Wrestling Pictures Open to Capacity Houses at Cohan 's Theatre IF a succession of crowded houses on Broadway is an indication of success the pictures of the wrestling contest between Joe Stecher and Earl Caddock, owned by the Pioneer will be one of the greatest sensations of the year. Joe Stecher. who appeared on the stage of the Cohan Theatre before several capacity houses, received a thunderous ovation, but smilingly declined tp make a speech. As the pictures were shown on the screen he was perhaps the most interested spectator in the house. Elaborate preparations had been made at the Madison Square Garden, New York, for the filming of the bout. Several batteries of arc lamps flooded the padded arena. Seventeen cameras and a i)hotographic staff of over fifty were perched on the roof girders, balconies, platforms and ringside to catch the battle from every angle. Quick Work on Positive. Twelve hours after Stecher had won the world's championship, the first print of the contest was shown at the Pioneer offices. That the public at large are interested in wrestling is proven by the large advance sale which has been reported by the Cohan Theatre. On Monday the pictures began a tour of the K. & E. time, beginning at the Nixon Theatre, .Atlantic City, where the film was shown for three days. At the Pioneer office offers are being received from all parts of the world.