Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1924)

% close-ups 6? long shots By Herbert Howe Drawing by Ralph Barton TUNIS, AFRICA— When I arrived in Paris to join Rex Ingram I found that he had gone on to Tunis to pick locations for "The Arab," leaving the company to join him a week later. The company consists of twenty-five birds from eight different nations and God knows how many jails. It beats Barnum's. There are hunchbacks and dwarfs, a dancer with funny legs, an old jazzbeau with a henna beaver, an actor with a Shakesperean voice and a John Barleycorn nose and a lady whose passion is playing the victrola and memorizing the joke records. I'm the only unnaturalized American, Alice Terry having become Irish when she married Misthter Ingram. Rex met the boat when we arrived at Tunis and immediately taught me the proper Arab salute. It consists of shaking the other guy's hand and then passionately kissing your own. It's not very thrilling but it's sanitary. Having mastered this and six cups of Mohammedan coffee the size of quinine capsules I was ready to step out among the yashmaks. THE harem beauty of Tunis of whom you've heard so much wraps herself bulkily in sheets until she looks like the week's washing coming home. Her face is bound tightly in black stuff with only a slit for a peep hole. At a distance you'd swear she was Al Jolson playing ghost. The swell dishes never get a hoof out of the harem except on Friday afternoon when they're treated to a ride to the cemetery. That's the only exercise they ever get. A wife of my friend El Beji missed one Friday and lost the use of her legs. "They were no use anyway," she said philosophically. I HAVE seen Bedouins and Berbers from the desert who were quite 'andsome fellows, but the downtown cake-eaters are no more imposing than our own. There's a distinctly modern note to their dress. The burnous falls just below the knees, allowing a fascinating glimpse of Paris garters, socks and bull-dog shoes. They still wear turbans, but I predict derbies next season. FI company with Rex I visited an Englishman's Moorish house at Sidi BouSaid. We wire received through portals of hammered brass by an Arab servitor in pant aloons. Passing bel ween slim marble pillars supporting Moorish arches and walls so delicately hand-carved they appeared to be embroidered We were stumbling weak and weary out of a Paris cafe at six in the morning when I suddenly saw Fanny Ward skipping gaily past us to her car. She looked as fresh as the dawning sun. Man Dieu, 1 groaned, it must be wonderful to be sweet sixty Pencil Sketches by Rex Ingram ivory, we entered a cool and fragrant court where water played over an alabaster lamp into a marble basin of floating roses. The balcony was enclosed with grilles and panels of painted gold inlaid with rich enamels. Xo sound but the trickle of water in the basin and the faint stirring of petals in trays of amber under a mystical light. Then we visited the home of a high Arab chief. The reception room was papered with illustrations cut from ancient issues of the London Times. The drawing room was furnished in red plush with crocheted tidies. Countless photographs of relatives, deceased and active, intermingled with paper butterflies and Japanese fans, adorned the walls. Aside from his fez, denoting Arabic nobility, our host looked as though he might belong to the noble house of Kuppenheimer. He wore a fashionable stout business suit, and his hands played with a heavy gold watch chain that swung across his vest like a suspension bridge. THE Bey of Tunis signified through one of his ministers that he would be pleased to receive Mr. Ingram and Madame, but first would like to know if they could take a photograph of him. and, if so, how large a one. We were glad to know that the Bey, like ourselves, was interested in Bigger and Better Pictures. REX made another one of his startling "discoveries " the other day. He saw a photograph of an Arab maiden in a postcard store of Tunis. The shopkeeper assured him that he would have her there in the morning ready to work in the picture. When Rex called for his "discovery" the next day the obliging shopkeeper made humble apologies. The beautiful girl was unable to come because she had been dead for twentylive years. Another case of just missing a good part. UNABLE to sleep anight while crossing the Atlantic. Ramon Xovarro announced upon landing that he didn't intend to see Paris and die, he intended to see her and sleep. And he certainly did. I have never known anyone capable of such soporific concentration. He never wasted a moment. Whenever he got into a taxicab he had to leave word for some one to call him at his destination. At Louer's while Yvonne Georges was singing "Why Did You Make Me Care" for his special benefit he slipped right off to dreamland. Later he fell downstairs and [CONTINUED OX PAGE 1 26 ] 56