Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

AUGUST 1924 Picture s and Picture pver PICTU RES AN D TH& PICTURECOE-R THE: S G R. I M & VOL. 8. No. 44. AUGUST, 1924. Editorial Offictt : 93, Long Acre, London. Regutered for 7 rammiuion by Canadian Magazine potl. PictwK^oer PitvPncks al Roach and Mack Sennett modestly call themselves, in an advertisement, " the only comedy producers that count." Yet I seem to have heard of a fellow called Chaplin. The idea of producing films without titles seems to be dead. Most recent films suggest that they're trying out the idea of producing titles without any films. G loria Swanson says that clothes do not make the actress Seems if she'd caught that idea as from Mack Sennett. What? O well, Gloria was his first Bathing Beauty. Talking of Gloria she came to England to persuade Sir James Barrie to let her play Peter Pan. If she tells him she played in The Admirable Crichton he'll be mighty surprised. Don't supposed he ever recognised it. And talking of Peter Pan, Betty Balfour's claim to the part is that she was a relation of Robert Louis Stevenson. I hear that Conway Tearle is going to claim it because his brother Godfrey played in What Every Woman Knows. Flora Le Breton offers to cut off her hair if she can have the part. I'm expecting to hear any moment that Ben Turpin will have his eyes put straight if Sir James will say " Yep." There's a rush of colour films just now. Next we shall have natural colour films, we are told. Then, of course, we shall get perfectly natural colour films. After that perhaps they'll let us have films again. When Doug, was in Paris he signed his name on the tablecloth to make them remember him. Other stars have seven thousand feet of photographs taken to make us forget them. If an American producer had come over here to make " Love, Life, and Laughter," he'd have spelled it differently. He'd have called it " £ove, £ife and £aughter." Betty Balfour. Whenever you read that a film having a special run in the West End is " turning people away at every performance " look out. It usually means that even those with complimentary tickets can't sit through it. This is a Fairy Tale. There was once a Famous Star who never read anything that appeared about her in the papers, and who never gave interviews to a pressman. The End. A famous theatre created interest for The Sea Hawk by displaying in the lobby the original costumes worn by the actors in the film. I understand that when they showed The Temple of Venus the idea was not considered practicable. M ost of the stars that have won the American public," I read, " have been wistful and little and scared." Doesn't that just explain the fascination of Bull Montana, Wallace Walter Hiers. Beery and Walter Hiers? During the last twelve months the staff of First National read 5,000 novels in the attempt to find one suitable for the screen. No flowers, by request. 1 can't see the sense in all this talk about " highbrows." It's easy. A " lowbrow " is a man who sees it through, while a " highbrow" is simply a man who sees through it. Theodore Roberts long ago earned the title of The Grand Old Man Of The Screen. After Black Oxen it only seems fitting to call Corinne Griffith The Gland Old Woman Of The Screen. Eddie Phillips has been teaching Hollywood how to rollerskate. He says it's for a film. The real reason probably is that they're tired of skating on thin ice. A nna Q. cut off her hair to. play Ponjola; Bert Lytell bleached his haii to play Rupert of Hentzau; Lon Chaney wore a • rubber suit t o play the Hunchback. I've just seen Nazimova's re-issues, and Nazimova — Oh well, she just acted. A acwwiv.