The Moving picture world (May 1920-June 1920)

May 15, 1920 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 933 RUBBERNECKING IN FILMLAND We see no more the lamb of Spring A-gamboling o'er the greens. Directors are a-shooting of Their Klondyke winter scenes, And Summer, fat and florid jane, Has stepped upon the screens. IN other and less poetic words, the hot days are with us. But outside of that, there are no flies in the vinegar of Filmland. Everybody is working, and the studio ghosts are walking with pleasing regularity. If there is anything at all that disturbs our poise, it is the three-minute parking law in force in the congested district of our fair city. This onerous ordinance has a tendency to get the goats of some of our fair players. Before the passage of the no-parking rule, one of the favorite feminine sports of the colony was to drive down in one's car and give the natives a treat. One would drive up to a store or shoppe and go in. When one got through shop (pe)ing there was always a little congregation of admiring yokels gathered around the car waiting for one to emerge, and if one kept one's ears open, one could hear such remarks as, "Oh, lookey, that's her — ain't she sweet?" Odds All Against Catty Remarks. Of course, one always took a chance of there being jealous persons in the crowd who would say, "Huh, she ain't such a much!" "Look, Steve, I told you she used dope on her hair," or something catty like that. But in the main, however, the simple rustics exuded nothing but admiration, and it was all a great and gratifying game. With the new law, under which any car that hesitates at any curb longer than three minutes is lost, there is nothing to do but trade at the stores in Hollywood, where movie players are regarded as part of the scenery. I was talking to J. Gordon Edwards this week. He has finished one picture with William Farnum and is almost through with the second. When that is done he will make another big Fox Special, an Egyptian story with two or three thousand people and an all-star cast, one of the big spectacular smashes that Edwards knows so well how to make. Laemmle a Deft Chauffeur. I went out to Universal City one day and saw the newly created governing board, composed of Isadore Bernstein, Sam Van Ronkle and Louis Loeb, functioning like a well-oiled machine with Carl Laemmle at the steering wheel. Henry McRae has just got back from Japan and other foreign parts, where he took Marie Walcamp, Harland Tucker and other players for scenes in "The Dragon's Net." Henry says the trip did him good, and he looks fine and fit and well set up in every way. He had a lot of interesting and exciting adventures while away which he promised to tell me, and which will have to go into another story. I didn't get to see Harland Tucker or Marie Walcamp, who is now Mrs. Tucker, because they were away picking out a honeymoon bungalow. I found Max Linder at work on his new comedy, "The Broken Mirror." Charles Dorian was directing the piece and Thelma Percy was playing the supporting lead. Max says he is going to make a few two Female Filmists and Curb Star-Gazers Yearn for Pre-No-Parking Days of Perfect Bliss By GIEBLER reel comedies and then broaden out and invade the five-reel field. Far from "Devoid of Brains." Having occasion to go out to the back ranch at U City, I called on Joe Martin. Mr. Martin had been working in the Benny Leonard serial, was all tired out and not very friendly, until Curly Stacker came along and said it was lunch time. Then Joe got real afifable, and said, "Gee, gee, gee," several times. Joe is a wonderful animal. There is a line in a stanza of the Fables of Fontaine that winds up some remark about animals thinking, with "Descartes goes further and maintains, that beasts are quite devoid of brains." I wish Descartes could have been with me. I should have liked to introduce him to Joe. Joe Martin has brains and he uses them. I saw him do it. Curly Stecker gave Joe his lunch, and Joe started eating, and with better table manners than some humans I have seen at chow. Then, to show how obedient the monk is, Curley ordered him to hand over the cup of milk he was drinking. Joe's Tender Heart Is Touched. Joe looked at Curly as if he didn't understand, then he turned to me. I was deeply interested, and had stooped down and was all bent over in a crouching position, looking at Joe in an eager sort of manner. Joe gave me one look and handed the cup of milk through the bars of the cage with a shrug that said as plain as words, "Oh, well, maybe he needs it more than I do. Let him have it." That Joe understood Curly's speech is positive; and that he thought I wanted his At Youth's Fountain. Olive Thomas .seen in a pretty "shot" from "The Flapper," released by Selznlck. milk is sure; and that he took me for a relative of some sort in distress is highly probable, unflattering as the fact may be. Joe Martin thinks, that's all there is to it, and I wish to goodness he could talk, I'd like to know what he thinks of the movies. Opportunity in Person of Mack Sennett. I dropped in at the Mack Sennett studio and watched James E. Abbe making high art for the movies. Mr. Abbe told me that he came out to the coast to make stills with special lighting effects, for Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin and others, and while here responded to Mack Sennett's invitation to come down to his studio and take a few shots of the bathing girls. While Abbe was working Mack came along, took a look and said "Why can't that kind of photography be applied to moving pictures as well as to stills?" And Abbe replied: "It can, but I've never had the time nor the opportunity to try it out." "Well, if you've got the time, the opportunity is here," said Mack. "Go to it." And Abbe went to it. Abbe's Photographic Work Known. The photographic work of James E. Abbe needs no boosting. It is known and appreciated wherever the best in photographic art is known, and if he achieves the effects he is striving for, Sennett pictures are going to be eye and soul as well as rib ticklers in the future. Mr. Abbe was working on a scene in which a dozen of the Sennett girls garbed as Roman maidens, were grouped into a picture with an ancient Roman gateway to a garden as a background. I love pictures, but I can not rave over them in the lingo of the artist. Abbe's wonderful lights made it loo'< li'<e fairyland. It was Dore and Alma Tadema merged and made to live and breathe with light. Ben for Eye Effects. Ray Grififith was directing the comedy action, which had Eddie Gribbon and Kala Pasha as heavy support for the girls, and Ben Turpin for the eye work. After this I went over on another stage and visited around with Billy Bevan, George O'Dell, Billy Armstrong of the English music 'alls, Virginia Fox, Fannie Kelly, Louise Fazenda, Little John Henry and Teddy the dog, who were all making a rural comedy, John Henry is a great kid— only a little over two years old, but one of the best workers of all the kid actors. Bill Wright Back in Harness. Another day I dropped in on my old friend William Lord Wright, who forsook the films a short time ago and set up as an orange grower. Bill has come back to give the old game another whirl as publicity director for the Kosmi' Productions at the earnest solicitation of his one-time college chum. Jack Wheeler, production manager for Kosmik. The Kosmik people have got a big idea for a serial— Stuart Baton for a director, Grace Darmond for a star, George Cheseboro for a hero, and Carmen Phillips, Bois Karoloff, William Marion, Capt. Clayton, William Buckley and Ethel Shannon as a rast. and it looks very much as if the trade were going to be treated to a whizz bang of a story when "The Hope Diamond Mystery" is finished and turned loose.