Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1920)

U-LJO 'Do 9t T.llc Uci£. U. S Pat OB ' I 'HIS is YOUR Department. Jump right in with your contribution. IVhat have you seen, in the past month, that was stupid, unltfelike, ridiculous or merely incongruous? Do not generalize; confine your remarks to speafic instances of absurdities in pictures you have seen. Your observation will be listed among the indictments of carelessness on the part of the actor, author or director. Error Island SPEAKING of "boners," there were several pulled in Houdini's "Terror Island." The first one happened when the heroine, plus the. famous "Pearl of Po," is captured and trussed up in gunny sacks and several yards of rope. She is carried quite a distance to a boat, where she is slung on the deck like a bag of meal. She must have had a marvelous respiratory apparatus to breathe through all that wrapping. An ordinary human being would have smothered, but not so our little Beverly, for upon being unwrapped she displayed the spriirhtline.'^s of a cricket on a hot hearth. The most glaring inconsistency was in the matter of the letter from the captured man to his daughter, in which he tells her just where he is, and how to save him. Wonderful! Particularly in view of the fact that there had been, supposedly, no white men on that island since he had been shipwrecked: But his letter reached her through some sort of superhuman mail service. C. B. Bradford, Benton Harbor, Mich. Imprudent Prudence IX "Avay Goes Prudence" there is shown a close-up of Miss Billie Burke as Prudence in the front seat of the airplane. When she lands she is in the rear seat. Did she change seats in mid-air as well as loopnthe-loop? P. M. K.. Chicago. 111. Who Would Fire Seena? IN "The Gift Supreme," Seena Owen, playing the part of the nurse in the operating room, wipes her hands all over the sterile gown of the surgeon who is about to save the hero's life. I've known nurses to be fired for much less. And did anyone ever see a blood transfusion done with yards of rubber and glass tubing of the half-inch size? The blood ran through as if there were 120 pounds pressure back of it. Send me the secret. E. S., Indianapolis, Ind. Should a Stoker Tell? IN the shipwreck scene in "Should a Woman Tell?" the water comes into the stokehold on the port-side and the two firemen shovel the water out with a shovel. Being a marine engineer t)y occupation I am curious to know where they shoveled the water to, as no more came in. Bernhardt Gerecke, Palmer, Mass. Icicle O'Brien EUGENE O'BRIEN must be cold— very cold. In "The Figurehead " he goes about wearing his overcoat, mufller and derby while others in the picture are in summer costumes and sleep on fire-escapes. G. M. W.. Baltimore, Md. The Same Way DASSING over the usual accurate eye of film-gamblers in •I taking a stack of chips at random and matching another of different size, I noticed while watching "The Valley of Doubt" that Bonnivet, after admonishing dealer to "deal from the top" wins an extra-large pot. immediately gets up and without taking the trouble to cash-in his chips, makes a dive for the door in pursuit of the heroine and her brother. I never won such a size pot but feel that the heroine would have to wait until I got my money. How do you feel about it? J. D. Van Brake, Long Branch. N. J. Changed Crafts IN the first episode of the serial. "Elmo the Fearless." the "gang" on the "Santiam" set the heroine adrift in a fully equipped life-boat. When we next see her. she is being tossed about in an ordinarj row-boat. Some poor fish must have thought the life boat too good for her. M. M. J., Winghendon, Mass. You Can't Beat Baptiste THE villain of course, his name was Baptiste — in Frank Mayo's picture, "The Brute Breaker." was the best I ever saw. He falls into a fireplace and burns his arms so severely that the fight is stopped and his arms put in slings. But in two days — two days. I say — he comes out to do battle with the hero, bandages off and his arms without a scar. Francis H. Snvder. Buffalo. 0 ■ ^ The Porter Forgot I SAW Earle Williams in "When a Man Loves." Barbara Tennant sends a letter from Japan to Lord Bannister, in England. We see her giving the letter and a coin to a porter in the Japanese hotel. Then immediately we see the letter in the hands of Lord Bannister — and no stamp affixed! M. Helen Freeborn. New York. How Careless of Her I WHEN the heroine of "A High Diver's Last Kiss" made her dive, she wore black silk stockings and high-heeled pumps. When she comes out of the water, she has no shoes or stockings on. E. B.. Peoria. III. Sure — In The Silent Drama IN "Go and Get It." Marshall Neilans newspaper picture. Pat O'Mallcy is seen on the wing of an airplane in mid-air talking to the man in the machine. Do airplanes have noiseless motors? Robert Klingcnsmilh. Wilkinsburg. Pa. 74