Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1919)

56 Photoplay Magazine name of Dawson. In one of his asides to the director, therelore, Mr. Mack, observes: "I know that Rex Beach will hold me personally responsible lor any indiscretion or discrepancy in the story. Therefore I must warn the director that wherever the equipment of the scene puzzles you, see me before you shoot. I would like to see one Alaskan picture in which the detail is so faithfully carried out that all the old sourdoughs all over the U. S. will yelp with joy when they see it." And here are a few of the "Stop, Look, Listen" signs that Mack posts in his scenario: "Be sure and make Sam drunk," he interpolates, in a scene where a rowdy character in the gold rush days accosts a young woman who has just arrived in the north. "I do not wish to create a false impression of Alaska in the old days, because a good woman was a d sight safer in Dawson or Nome than she ever was in New York. The distinction between good and bad was drawn much finer than it is here in the big city." Again: "I do not wish to see guns and knives hanging on these characters in the bar-room scenes. The indiscriminate carrying of firearms was not tolerated in Alaska, at least not this side of 1898." Again: "Please, when you shoot the Bonanza saloon and dance hall, which are all supposed to be morning scenes, do not show a lot of girls ambling around. It was a big night and they're all asleep." There is nothing revolutionary in all this. After all, it is much the same as a bank manager telling the cashier that he much keep his books straight. Lady-S pies By Delight E g vans T HESE Lady-Spies! Have you Seen them? You Know — These Curious Creatures Who Go About Making the World Unsafe For Anything but Democracy. — meeting bearded men in the park. They Act As if they Started the War, And their Own Particular Spying Was Going to End it. The War Couldn't Go On for the Minute It it weren't for them. In fact, Just about the Whole Responsibility For this Great Struggle Seems to Rest on their Shoulders; And goodness knows, Some of these Brunnette Brunnhildes Look Strong Enough to Bear it. They're Never Blonde — Even Director Knows They have to be Kept Dark. Usually Tin' Lady-Spy Has a Difficult French Name — The Scenario Writers see to it — Prefaced always by "Madame" — They Think it's Safer. Have (hey Ever Really Lived? I don't Know. Their Press-Agents, The Caption Writers, Credit them with a Past. One has Been A Favorite in the Sultan's Harem;' And we Understand Also That Crown Prince Wilhelm Thought a Whole Lot of her. They are Always Stepping In and Out of Motors, And Meeting Bearded Men In the Park. They Lower Window Shades All the TimeSignalling To the Spies Across the Street. They Put the Papers In a Safe Place — For Instance, In Their Pockets, Or Fastened in the Window Shade — (No Wonder Wilhelm Sent 'Em!) There are No Lengths To Which they Won't Go. Why, one Even Laid her Hand on the Hero's Coatsleeve — (She Just had to Have those Papers.) Usually The Hero Is an Intelligence Officer— ( He doesn't Look Intelligent.) The Lady-Spy Figures Largely In Scenes showing A Jeweled Hand Pouring a Sleeping-Potion Into a Wine Glass. (On the Wilhelmstrasse They Do It.) She Lets him Come To In her Own Boudoir; and Lets Even-body in the Audience Think There's Going to Be Something to Censor. There Never Is. She Can't Spy In Anything but a Spangled Gown. For the Close-ups, She Registers Cunning — A Curious Kind of Cunning — It's Gotta be Different. The Lady-Spy always Has an Accomplice, who, The Sub-titles Insinuate, Is Part of her Past Back in Berlin — ( But he Looks to Us An Awful Lot like Heinrich Lutz, The Butcher Around the Comer.) Spies have Pasts, But Seldom Futures. The Lady-Spy Is Always Led Away In the Last Scene — (After the Detectives have Come And Found the Papers, And the Girl-who-Loved-the-Hero-All-the Time Twines her Arms Around his Neck, and calls him "My Hero"— She Can Have him — ) Why, then the Lady-Spy Passes Out, And Throws Back her Head, And Laughs at them in Passing. I Don't Blame her. And so She Sweeps out the Door, and Off the Screen, And Out of the Picture — As you Knew all Along she Would — And you Get Up And Wander Out, And thank heaven We're Winning this War. And the Next Night, You Forget, And Go to Another Picture-Show, And there's the Same Spy, And the Same Papers — Just the Same Old Stuff— And vou Think "To Hell with the Kaiser!" She lets him come to in her own boudoir.