The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

June, 1920 33 Charles Lane plays, on the stage and on the screen, the Wall Street business man role It is doubtful if there is any better actor of parts that are unusual and extremely out of the ordinary than Lon Chaney. Lately he has specialized in roles whose physical characteristics are abnormal to say the least, while formerly he was a familiar screen figure as a straight, traditional "heavy." His first noteworthy departure was as "The Frog" in George Loane Tucker's screen masterpiece, "The Miracle Man." In playing this character, Chaney had to eliminate his own personality and physical attributes completel)' in order to depict the paralytic faker of the underworld who preys upon the sympathies of slummers. In Maurice Tourneur's "Victory," founded on Joseph Conrad's story of the same name, it would have taken an exceedingly close observer to discover him in the pock-marked, moustached, villainous Mexican, Riccardo. Later he was called upon to play not only a very different sort of part but two roles in "Treasure Island," each as widely divergent from the other as the two previously mentioned differed from each other; one of the parts assigned to Chaney was a blood-thirsty mate of the pirate crew and the other "Pew," a blind man. One must admit that it takes not only an artist to give life to such widely varying characters but an observing student of life and human nature as well. Last, but far from least (if the popularity of the vehicles in which this actor appears is any criterion — and the approval of the spectator must be adjudged the real verdict), is the delineator of the hero of the Western school of photoplay drama. Among the most popular stars of this type is Harry Carey, prominent on the screen since the old Biograph days, when D. W. Griffith was the leading spirit of that pioneer company. It was in Western dramas that Carey first attracted attention as leading man to Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish and Blanche Sweet, and in support of Henry B. Walthall. When Biograph passed into photoplay history, Carey went with Universal to become a star in the type of screen play he liked best and in which he was most popular. In his four years there his best and most recent productions include "Bucking Broadway," "The Secret Man" and "Overland Red." Finally, in this enumeration, comes the villain. No longer is the screen "heavy," the kind of character that was wont to scowl around on the stage in the days of the old blood-andthunder thrillers ; in today's picture stories he is urbane and polished — his villainy is sub-surface. Which is why Ivo Dawson, the artistic English performer, is in such great demand for these roles. Dawson has just returned to the American screen after five years' absence ; at the outbreak of the war he enlisted as a private in the British Army and won his way to a captaincy in the Royal Artillery during his four years of active service on the battlefield. Before the war he was prominent in the support of such stage stars as Ethel Barrymore, Marie Doro, Sir George Alexander, Sir John Hare and Cyril Maude. On his discharge he worked in an English motion picture production entitled "The Keeper of the Door," and since returning to the United States he has appeared in "Footlights and Shadows," with Olive Thomas, "Love Without Question," with Olive Tell and "The Miracle of Love," with Lucy Cotton. It is interesting, in passing, to notice this new, and by now prevalent, tendency to run to types. Specialization in every line of industry is surely reflecting itself in this art-industry. Gone are the days when one man doubled for Claude Eclair and Desperate Desmond. Gone are the days when Eliza, little Eva, and kinky-haired Topsy were one and the same person. Nowadays it takes more than a change of hat and the addition of a beard to make a characterization. A sophisticated public demands something more subtle. It wants to be fooled, and insists on rejecting that which is unsuccessful in this fooling process. The man who, naturally, looks the part he is cast to portray is obviously the man who, in the majority of cases, is most successful in projecting the desired idea. Here we rest our case. The actor pleads guilty to being a necessity in the screen productions that are usually so full of the females of the species — and the frenzied searching of directors for leading men and other male performers for their stories bears eloquent testimony to the great part the actor plays. There are many other types, but of lesser recurring frequency, and that is why we have confined this story to screen artists. But if I have started you thinking of the neglected movie male, my male pride is satisfied. Percy Marmont, popular leading man, has played opposite two leading women, in two different photoplays, on the same day