Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1920)

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At all toilet counters or direct from us, in plain wrapper, on receiot of 63c, fi.04 or $2.08, which includes war tax iraele Dept. 1-23, Park Ave. and 129tb St. New York Free Book . C^ntainin^completc/ Btory of the origin f and history of that ^ wonderful iDStru-^ ment^the Easy to Play ^a§yteRay SAXOP>IONE ui Thia book tella yoa when to nse Saxophone — einRly, in quartett«3» in poitettes, or in regular band; how to tranapoae cello i art3 in orchestra and many other things you would like to know. Vou can learn to play the acale In one hour'o ^ practice, and p<ion bf p'ayinn [mpular aira. You can doijbl3 your inconK.-. vnur plcanure. and your popularity. Easy to pay by our easy payment plan. MAKES AN IDEAL PRESENTS Send for free Saiophonu hook jiinlcatfiK'K of i-verytbinK in True-Tom* hiindand ortht-strri instruments BUESCHER BAND INSTRUMENT CO. ^*'~^*'"*^"» 272 J.eluon SIrwt, Elkhart, Ind. l/fi//VE tiliht and Morning. Have Strong, Healthy Eyes. If they Tire, Itch, Smart or Bnm, if Sore, Irritated, Inflamed or Granulated, use Murine often. Soothes. Refreshes. Safe for Infant or Adult. At all Druggists. Write for Free Eye Book. HnHne Eye Remedy Co., Chiciso Yom EVES Reid played in a picture or two as a youngster in the Chicago studio and his father, Hal Reid wrote and played also. Wallie also did a little of everything else. There have been some funny changes in the business. Wallie "graduated" from actor to cameraman and I can remember one picture in which Alvin Wyckoff played the lead and Wallie turned the crank. Wyckoff is now Lasky's head photographer and laboratory head and in later years often "turned" on Wallie in the deMille productions. In 1909, Hobart Bosworth quit the legitimate stage for the movies, joining Bogg's company in Los Angeles. He was the first of a long procession of really notable players to enter the film game as a sole means of livelihood. Driven into outdoor work by ill health, he became a sincere believer in the future of the screen as a popular means of entertainment as well as an art expression and he proved to be one of the new drama's greatest and most efficient missionaries among the stage players who then looked with disdain on the silent drama. It justified his belief and besides gave him restored health, fame much greater perhaps than he would have acquired on the stage and a meed of fortune that probably never would have come to him had his health permitted him to remain with the spoken drama. Bosworth's defection was a continuous source of gossip in the theatrical colony of Los Angeles for no little period. His first picture was "The Saltan's Power" and his next "The Roman." Costume plays were highly popular then. Shortly after Bosworth joined us, we had quite an influx of stage people. In Chicago Milton and Dolly Nobles, forsook the stage long enough to do "The Phoenix," while the Los Angeles payroll was augmented by the names of Sydney Ayres, Betty Harte, Myrtle Stedman, Roscoe Arbuckle, Bob Leonard, Eugenie Besserer and Kathlyn Williams. Miss Williams became one of the most popular figures on the screen largely through "The Adventures of Kathlyn," filmdom's first serial, and abroad her pictures are still the favorite screen plays of multitudes. Roscoe Arbuckle was playing in tabloid musical comedy in a Los Angeles theater at the time and when summer came and the theaters closed he was glad to do a bit now and then before the camera at five dollars a day. I recall very well his first picture "His Wife's Birthday" and "The Sanitarium." Of course none of us realized then that he had the makings of a great comedian. There were no great comedies then and Charlie Chaplin hadn't as yet invaded America. Herbert Rawlinson was another of our Edendale company — the studio had "been erected there as a successor to the Los Angeles down, town workshop, by Boggs, and it was the first modern studio on the Coast. Herbert had been playing in stock in Los Angeles and for us he specialized in heavies. There is another thing for which I wish to claim credit in behalf of my company was the discovery — cmematographically — of California's chief beauty spots and points of interest including the placid Pacific. Boggs and his pioneer crew made the first invasion of the beautiful Yosemite for picture purposes; the magnificent Santa Barbara estates now in such great demand were first filmed by his cameraman and the buildings and parks of Los Angeles made their picture debut in Selig photoplays. Boggs also was the first to photograph the famous California missions. He produced one picture which consisted largely of scenes laid within the bounds of the historic Santa Barbara mission and to the best of my knowledge never since then has the picture camera been allowed to profane the sanctified precincts of the sacred garden of that mission. We also used San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando and other Southern California missions for various photoplays. As a matter of fact their restoration fund was started with the contributions we made then. Returning to the chronological resume of our California activities, it is a pleasure to recall our filming of "Cinderella" in 191 1 because it saw the birth of a real romance, the meeting and courtship of Mabel Taliaferro, our "Cinderella" and Tom Carrigan who played the "Prince." The famous fairy story was done in four reels and now, nearly ten years after, it is still playing both at home and in foreign lands. The next big milestone in our company's career was the making of "The Spoilers" in 1913. It was released on April 14, 1914 in nine and a half reels, the first big American photoplay. We had our "Quo Vadis," an Italian importation right before that but nothing like Rex Beach's great Alaskan story had ever been made in this country. I believe that most film men will agree that it still stands as one of the great American plays of the screen. I believe it was the first picture to contain a big fight scene, that between William Famum and Tom Santschi, and every once in a while you will still see a fight scene advertised as "as thrilling as the fight in 'The Spoilers.' " The picture in abbreviated form is still going the rounds of the theaters at home and abroad. I'll never suffer poverty while "The Spoilers" lives and it bids fair to live forever. I believe that I also established a record salary for that day in what I paid William Famum for that picture. Picture rentals were low then as compared (Wth those today. Had they been anything like what they are now "The Spoilers" wo'uld Rave made a profit of millions. Several years ago I abandoned the Edendale studio, centralizing all of my picture activities in the studio I built as a part of the big Zoo adjoining Lincoln Park in Los Angeles, which bears my name. In it 1 installed wild animals and birds which I gathered from the four corners of the earth and I have added to it until now I have what is said to be one of the finest zoological parks in the country. There is just another bit of Selig history of which I am proud, the early acquisition of film rights to books and plays when authors and playrights thought it a joke, albeit a well paid one, to receive fifty dollars for the screen rights of a novel or stage play. I do not claim to be the first to see the day coming when there would be an overwhelming demand for the published work but I was the first to go out and pay real money — at least it was considered real then — for a commodity no producer had any use for at that time. Since then I have resold the rights to some of these for many times what I paid for them. I still hold the rights to hundreds more which I expect to convert into photoplays. Some day I hope to write a more detailed history of my association with the magic camera art. Photoplay's editor asked me merely to touch upon the high lights and I have endeavored to do so in the foregoing, but there is a bigger, more human story in the little tragedies and comedies of real life which marked each successive step of our progress in the ear'v i days. That is the story I hope to be able to tell at some future time. Every advertisement in PHOTOPLAY JL^fiAZINB is guaranteed.