Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

86 Photoplay Magazine And Moliere, coughing away his life, when remonstrated with by Boileau replied as his reason for continuing to act: ''Alas! It is the point of honor that makes me keep on." ''And what point of honor have you?" sneered Boileau; "you who paint your face, and put on the moustache of Snagerelle, and go out on the stage to be given blows from slapsticks !" Griffith did not put on whiskers and rereived no accolade of slapsticks — but you see, Moliere was the precursor of the Sennett comedy. "Those early Biograph days." ays Griffith, "were the most picturesque since the time of Moliere and of Villon : true, there was no 'sleeping under the end of a star' and there were no medieval vagrancy classifications for us ; but there were the freedom, the change of scene, and the coursing about the country as Romans, pirates, royalty, great lovers and great villains ; some days we would be playing at Commodore Benedict's great countryplace up the Sound, or at Seton-Thompson's home, and again would be chasing down a punch scene on the Bowery or in the midst of the human sewer seepage of Rivington street. "There was then unusual interest in the new form of amusement, the Movies ; we were generallv treated with respect and given welcome and the consideration due to artists; but there were the sharp contrasts which give to life its personal dramatic fillip. "It was in one of these expeditions that I discovered Cuddybuckville. the most beautiful, altogether the loveliest spot in America." "Where is it?" eagerly asked the interviewer. "I forget exactlv ; ^somewhere about a hundred miles from New York: I don't think you can find it in a Gazetteer for I don't even know how Jo spell the name; I don't want it found, and spoiled, for I hope some time to see it again, still untroubled by trippers, unmoved by flying tissue paper picnic napkins, untainted by cigarette-smoked advanced minds. "Cuddybuckville is a place where Goldsmith could have written as he did of Auburn '; which Tennyson would have peopled with the lovely majesty of romance : and where in our small way we found a perfect 'location' for scenes for a film of 'The Last of The Mohicans ;' the film is now and happily forgotten, but no one of that company can ever forget Cuddybuckville. "That place illustrated what was the charm of that life : there we were in the dress and the demeanor of the Leather Stocking days, acting on a stage that was set by the One stage director to a perfection that even Cooper could not have described. "There is a quality about the light there, particularly a twilight that I have never found elsewhere : it is transcendently illuminative for pictures. "It was a natural place for romance, and here it was. I believe, that Mary Pickford's romance began. "Moore and Mary were in the companv ; there were moonlight canoeing parties, there was every quality that develops, nurtures and fructifies romance. "Mary was very young, and the most beautiful, charming girl known to the stage or the pictures: the lake at Cuddybuckville never had reflected so fair a visage in the gentle mirror of its bosom. "She is more beautiful as a woman now ; but she is remembered there as dressed in a colleen's raiment in another picture that is also like the Mohican happily forgotten— save for Mary's part in it. "What a pity that picture cannot be made again as pictures are now made ! "There was an old gentleman named Godfrey who had a place nearby, something of the order of an English country seat; and he said of Mary: 'If Thackeray could only have seen this girl, and had let his heart work while he was writing of her. he would be the only man in the world who could do justice to her beauty and charm.' "The whole world loved her; everyone does now who sees her. Mary to us all is like * sunbeam, like a rose-white cloudlet in a clear skv. like — well like nothing other than Mary. "Everyone loves her and everyone is glad that she married the man she loved." Before we leave Cuddybuckville. I'll tell you how it was discovered : it may be that you will want to do a picture there, so you will like to know the Griffith manner of finding what he wants — and getting it. Some one had whispered the secret to him of Cuddvbuckville's beautv. and