Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

To My Followin', Dear Sir: Well, gently reader, I have just had a breath-takin' adventure which convinces me that 1 overlooked a bet when I didn't start interviewin' picture stars years ago. I thought that bein' a war's corespondent durin" the recent luill with Germany, duckin' aerial torpedoes in dear old London and hon jour ma cherics in the land of oo-la-la, was quite the experience — but I had to go out to Hollywood to get a real kick ! After I wind up my pleasant engagement with this magazine, I am gom' to keep on prowlin' about the movie studios and pretend I am still representin' it, as by doin' that I can get away with stuff which no mere visitor wouldst dream of attemptin'. I have found out that a interviewer for Picture-Play is as welcome at a movie lot as a cold shower wouldst be in Gehenna, and if said interviewer don't have a nice time hithers and yon about the various lots, why it's his own fault. Let us take my recent visit to Tom Meighan, for the example. The first movie I had the pleasures of viewin' Tom in was "The Miracle Man," a picture you prob'ly seen advertised a couple of years ago and which along with "The Birth of a Nation" and a couple of other films which knocked the public for a row of cigar boxes and turned in profits that caused all the Rockefellers to tear The Miracle If, like our author — on the right — you were rehearsing a scene which you were to go feel? The man who convulsed the nation able to answer that question, but he tells amused on read By H. C. their hair, is still bein' used for bait by the gents which sells stock in imaginary picture companies. Well, anyways, I gazed upon Thomas in "The Miracle Man" and immediately joined the ranks of his wildest admirers. Here was a part in which for at least three fourths of the picture Tom was a unprincipled, cold-blooded, callous young crook — a tough baby if they ever was one — which packed a mean gun and beat up his girl and generally acted in a way which wouldst of caused him to get throwed out of the Y. M. C. A. on his ear. A character which in the old days of the Bowery gun operas wouldst get hissed dizzy every time he showed up on the stage. So you might say that for most of "The Miracle Aian," Tom JNIeighan played a very unsympathetic part. Yet, gently reader, it was in this part of the imgentlemanly gunman that Thomas scored the astoundin' success that you all know about. In spite of the fact that the picture was also equipped with one standard, late-model hero, which besides bein' pure was a good-lookin' wealthy Illlllllllllllpii'illlillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII^ THEY'RE off— New York's motion-picture c o m m i s sioners. This triumvirate of film fixers i? on the job — at seventy-five hundred dollars per job, and nothing to do but look at pictures. Who wouldn't be a ward boss with a chance of getting a berth like that? The distinction of being the first to be received by the new tribunal went to a ]\Iartin Johnson travel picture. The manager of the firm releasing it reasoned that the hour immediately following the induction into office of these regents of the reel might be propitious, and, therefore, saw to it that he was first under the ropes. He was right. His picture, showing the toddle as it is toddled in the best circles of the South Sea Islands, as well as various other habits of these syncopatic savages, was passed with f^ying colors, notwithstanding that Betty Blythe, in "The Queen of Sheba" is attired like Aunt Agatha in comparison with some of the belles appearing in this production. If one may judge by this initial ruling, nuditv on the New York screen henceforth is to be a matter Right Off An interesting mixture of comment opinions about the By E. Lanning liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ of geography, speaking, be it understood, territorially rather than pulchritudinously. In any event, the censors held that the picture was good stufif — "educational," as it were. They will forgive me, I am sure, if I say personally I prefer a home-brew schooling in such matters. The South Sea Island picture must have possessed some poignant points of appeal, for it was thumbs down for the next one that came along — a regular, sureenough drammer, in which some ladies of our own set and color appeared for a brief instant slight^ en deshabille as artists' models. "Never! Never!" chorused the court, although, I am told, on competent authority, that the models appearing in this film were verv much less of a strain on the eyes than the dusky maidens who preceded them. In such quick succession that poor old Times Square hadn't a chance to find out what had hit it, a number of other pictures were declared "out"^ — not turned back for the elimination of scenes or substitution of titles.