Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

66 Right Off the Grill New York's Motion Picture Commissioners ruled that tliis group of bathing girls should be eliminated from a news film, but tliey considered a group of seminude savages "educational." Who Said It Was An Amusement? The superior court of California has just declared unconstitutional an ordinance which the city authorities of Pomona — one of the most religious communities on the map^ — passed, prohibiting all Sunday amusements for which an admission fee was charged. The court held that the ordinance was class legislation, because, while prohibiting theaters and similar enterprises from operating on Sunday, it allowed churches to take up collections, which, the court declared, was virtually an admission fee. Where Has He Been? Don't miss "Partners of the Tide," produced by Irvin V. Willat, if for no other reason than to see a future "great" in embryo. He is Marion Faducha, a boy of about twelve years of age. Of all the performances of youngsters that I have seen on the screen, his is the most perfect. The boy is a future Barthelmess or Valentino, the two best bets of the rougher sex in films to-day. Watch him ! Gloria Has Her Great Moment. "The Great Moment" gives Gloria Swanson her great moment — the first appearance of Cecil De Mille's matchless clothes model as an actress and a star. And, be it said, she proves her right to be called both. The production also marks another debut — and exit. It is the first original screen story to be written by that venturesome vivisectionist of the valvular organ, Elinor Glyn, and likewise her last picture for Famous Players. Henceforth she is to guide her neurasthenic nomads along their primrose paths independently. Just why this should be so, I don't know, unless Mr. Lasky found the task of lining Mrs. Glyn's story with asbestos too great a strain on the nerves and pocketbook. Certainly it is a notable maiden effort — a really worthy contribution to the advancement of the artistry of the screen. But playing with fire is not the most pleasant occupation, I suppose, in these days of combustible censors, especially when each scene of a production has to be taken at least six times to make sure that it is noninflammable, as, I am told, was done in the case of this picture. After reading "Three Weeks" and "One Day," it didn't seem conceivable to me that the eminent Elinor could compress the hectic heartbeats of her heroes and heroines into a single minute, but we live and learn. "The Great Moment" entitles Famous Players' new star to take her place in the select circle of the screen's genuinely emotional artists, now made up of Betty Compson, the most illustrious of the group in my judgment; Norma Talmadge, Lillian Gish, and Priscilla Dean. Things That Have Interested Me in Los Angeles. The sunburned knees of the outside office girl in a prominent film studio. The sign in the cafeteria at Universal City: "For the love of Mike, don't ask for credit. We still want to be friends." The jazz pipe organist of a "million-dollar" theater, playing, "Ain't We Got Fun?" The daily auto killings — every street is a speedway and every driver apparently an imitator of Wally Reid. ■ The sign in a Hollywood restaurant, "Brand-new waitress wanted." Another sign in the same restaurant : "Fair dinner for thirty-five cents. A good one for fifty cents." The reply by a former casting director of Mary Pickford to my question as to whether a palm-bowered grove we passed on Santa Monica Boulevard was a park. "Yes," was his answer. "A permanent parking place. It's a cemetery." The difficulty experienced in getting a good drink — ■ of orangeade. An exc'ting moment in the career of Mary Alden who mothers on the screen, but who is more tempestuous off. The Fallacy of the Foreign Menace. Having looked at half a dozen or more German pictures that are seeking 1