Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1925)

MARCH 1925 Pictures and P/cfurepuer 53 Dvrothy Mackaill and her mother arc both staunch movie fans. person in an audience destroys the effect we've laboured so hard to build up, it is only natural we are upset over it. " With the exception of my own films, though. I enjoy seeing pictures in the regular motion picture houses.'' Anna Q. and .her husband live on a ranch near Van Nuys, California. Two or three times a week, after dinner, they drive into town and go to the movies, just the way ordinary country folks do. Hollywood, en route for the movies, is just like all the other coast to coast thousands, who after a strenuous business day, want to relax for an hour or two and laugh and cry with their favourite hero or heroine. And laugh they do— Doug has a famous chuckle — and Harold Lloyd's grin is just as wide viewing Buster Reaton's antics, as it is when he faces the camera. And once, sitting next to Pola Negri, who has broken up more homes than I could count — on the screen — I was startled to hear the tiniest of sighs brought forth by a film husband's infidelity. Most of the stars have the happy faculty of forgetting the business part of picture-making when they are watch ing a story unfold on the screen. A love scene is a love scene, and not just part of the day's work, when it is viewed from a theatre chair. Constance's gasp is quite audible, when she sees Buster's foot slip on the window of a twenty-storey building. She has forgotten it is only a camera stunt. \Jorma's eyes always grow tender when Baby Peggy gazes down at her audience from the silver-sheet, while Dick and Mary Hay Barthelmess, reminded of their own small daughter safely asleep in her nursery at home, invariably whisper, '* Isn't she darling?" Nor does the problem .of " What to wear?" appear to concern the Hollywood fan, hastening to be in time for the nine o'clock showing. " I can't possibly go in this," says Viola Dana to her sister, Shirley Mason, indicating the blue and white gingham frock she is wearing " Yes you can," returns Shirley, who hates to get in after the picture has started. " I didn't stop to change, either" If fastidious Gloria, of the gorgeous Paris gowns, finds she has forgotten her gloves, she tucks her hands in the pockets of her sports coat and scans the picture just as blithely; and just the other night I saw Mildred li.nh, Harold Lloyd's lovely wife, whisper something hurriedly, and Harold draw foi iii .1 '•! i .it squat e of white linen which in attempted to pass t<> hei with the utmost secrecy. Mildred had foi hanky." \ ( s mo\ ie stars, when they turn movie fans, an just like you and I. The stars, lik< i \ < ryone i l e, their children to the movies every Fri day night, because there is no school next day. Jackie Coogan and Bab\ v usually make their screen appearances then, and are heartily applauded by their playmates, and Charlie Chaplin's tnek cane and funny shoes are as gleefully greeted in Hollywood as they are in the East by his youthful admirers. IWIetropolitan Los Angeles has some of the most beautiful motion picturetheatres in the world. When a motion picture is to have its premier showing at one of these, filmdom attends in full force. Powerful studio lights beat down upon ermine clad, jewelled women and their escorts, as they step from their limousines.. Literally thousands of people, massed about the theatre's entrance, applaud the various stars as they pose for photographers and cameramen on their way into the theatre. For a moment, the white glare of publicity is picking out the Talmadge sisters, Corinne Griffith, Pola Negri, Thomas Meighan, Tony Moreno, Eugene O'Brien, as they " go to the movies." Which reminds us of an oft-repeated talc told of two of the most famous stars and how they attended the premiere of a picture. The night that Rosita opened in Los Angeles, with the usual fanfare of trumpets and array of film stars, Norma Talmadge put on a shabby old suit and hat. Eugene O'Brien dressed up like a mechanic on his evening out, and together they fared down-town on the street car. The usual thousands were massed against the ropes stretched across the theatre lobby, and Norma and 'Gene wormed their way to a place of vantage, quite unrecognised. As their fellow film stars stepped haughtily from glittering limousines, in ermine wraps and evening dress, Norma and Eugene would hail them with all sorts of remarks, complimentary and otherwise. Each time a tinge of red mounted to the cheek of some haughty star, as Norma's jest reached home, the two conspirators renewed their barrage. They had a perfectly gorgeous time. hut Hollywood waits impatiently for the day Norma and Eugene will pay for that evening's fun. And the stars will make them pay. But the following night, had the funloving duo looked for an ermine clad, jewel-decked target upon which to hurl their shafts of humour, they would have found not a single film star, hut instead many film fans, sitting in the little Hollywood picture houses, watching their favourites on the screen. Helen Carlisle.