Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1925)

14 Picture s and Pichjre puer MARCH 1925 Illustrated by photographs from the Paramount film of the same name. They crossed the street and paused at the door of Miss Kearns' shop, behind which were her livingrooms. She would to-night go over Passion's Perils once more and send it to another company. " I wonder," she said to Merton, " if they keep sending it back because the sets are too expensive. Of course there's the one where the dissipated English nobleman, Lord Blessingham, lures Valerie into Westminster Abbey for his own evil purposes on the night of the old earl's murder — that's expensive — but they get a chance to use it again when Valerie is led to the altar by young Lord Stonecliff, the rightful heir. And of course Stonecliff Manor, where Valerie is first seen as governess, would be expensive ; but they use that in a lot of scenes too. Still, maybe I might change the locations around to something they've got built." " I wouldn't change a line," said Merton. " Don't give in to 'em. Make 'em take it as it is. They might ruin your picture with cheap stuff." " Well," the authoress debated, " maybe I'll leave it. I'd especially hate to give up Westminster Abbey. Of course the scene where she is struggling with Lord Blessingham might easily be made offensive— it's a strong scene — but it all comes right. You remember she wrenches herself loose from his grasp and rushes to throw herself before the altar, which suddenly lights up, and the scoundrel is afraid to pursue her there, because he had a thorough religious training when a boy at Oxford, and he feels it would be sacrilegious to seize her again while the light from the altar shines upon her that way, and so she's saved for the time being. It seems kind of a shame not to use Westminster Abbey for a really big scene like that, don't you think?" "I should say so!" agreed Merton warmly. " They build plenty of sets as big as that. Keep it in!" ""\y Tell, ril take your advice. And I shan't " give up trying with my other ones. And I'm writing to another set of people — see here." She took from her handbag a clipped advertisement which she read to Merton in the fading light, holding it close to her keen little eyes. " Listen ! ' Five thousand photoplay ideas needed. Working girl paid ten thousand dollars for ideas she had thought worthless. Yours may be worth more. Experience unnecessary. Information free. Producers' League, 562, Piqua, Ohio.' Doesn't that sound encouraging? And it isn't as if I didn't have some experience. I've been writing scenarios for two years now." " We both got to be patient," he pointed out. " We can't succeed all at once, just remember that." " Oh, I'm patient, and Fm determined ; and I know you are too, Merton. But bq MARRY LEON WILSON The second instalment of a movie story that will appeal to every movie fan. Merton Gill, an assistant in a small town general store cherishes secret ambitions of screen stardom. He buys all the film magazines published, hoards his images, and spend! every available moment playing " hero " in imaginary screenplays, using the store dummies for his "heroine* and " villain." After closing time, Merton calls at the Post Office for some new magazines, and meets Tessie Kearns, the Simsbury dressmaker, zcho aspires to achieving fame as a scenario zcriter. Her latest effort " Passions Perils," has been rejected and returned to her. the . way my things keep coming back — well, I guess we'd both get discouraged if it wasn't for our sense of humour."7 " I bet we would," agreed Merton. " And good ni?ht !" He went on to the Gashwiler Emporium and let himself into the dark store. At the moment he was bewailing that the next instalment of The Hazards of Hortense would be shown on a Saturday night, for on those nights the store kept open until nine and he could see it but once. On a Tuesday night he would have watched it twice, in spite of the socalled comedy unjustly sharing the bill with it. Lighting a match, he made his way through the silent store, through the stock-room that had so lately been the foul lair of Snake le Vasquez, and into his own personal domain, a square partitioned off from the stock-room in which were his bed, the table at which he studied the art of screen acting, and his other little belongings. He often called this his den. He lighted a lamp on the table and drew the chair up to it. On the boards of the partition in front of him were pasted many presentments of his favourite screen actress. Beulah Baxter, as she underwent the nerveracking Hazards of Hortense. The intrepid girl was seen leaping from the seat of her high-powered car to the cab of a passing locomotive, her chagrined pursuers in the distant background. She sprang from a high cliff into the chill waters of a storm-tossed sea. Bound to the back of a spirited horse, she was raced down the steep slope of a rocky ravine in the Far West. Alone in a foul den of the underworld she held at bay a dozen villainous Asiatics. Down the fire-escape of a great New York hotel she made a perilous way. From the shrouds of a tossing ship she was about to plunge to a watery release from the persecutor who was almost upon her. Upon the roof of the Fifth Avenue mansion of her scoundrelly guardian in the great city of New York she was gaining the friendly projection of a cornice from which she could leap and again escape death — even a fate worse than death, for the girl was pursued from all sorts of base motives.