Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

92 What a Fan Club Really Does Continued from page 25 contain quite a bit of moving-picture news. If your weekly newspapers carry no movie reviews or comments, you will find these periodicals very interesting, if you can gain his permission to use theni. Promise him your cooperation in interesting your friends and persuading them to attend the theater more often, if he will cooperate with you and show a better class of pictures. "How are the exhibitor and the fan club of your town coming out?" I asked a friend, on meeting her in the city. "He is very much interested in our club. He may let us help him arrange his lobby display, and we are going to assist him in advertising his pictures if he will promise to show at least one picture a month that isn't over four years old." After you have won the exhibitor to your side, you must try to get the community to take an interest in your club. In all small towns there are people who are prejudiced against any attempt to make a change, but usually there are others just as eager and willing to help you make a success of your club. Even if you are a very timid club, and do not feel that you have power enough to influence the exhibitor or interest the community, you can still do good by spreading as much correct movie information as you can, and see if you can't root out some of those dreadful press-agent stories that were circulated in the early days. You would be surprised at the way people cling to them, and I think they have done much to retard the advancement of moving pictures. Last summer I made a trip through a numl:ier of small towns, and I do not believe there was one — in fact I know there wasn't — where I did not hear these same old tales. You have heard them, I'm sure. There is one that has whiskers now, about Theda Bara having been born on the Sahara Desert. Of course you have been told time and again that all motion-picture actresses have had at least three husbands. Then there is the old standby, that all players are intoxicated at some time while the}' are stopping in small towns to make personal appearances. Try to get the other organizations in your community to help you in fighting for better pictures — the Mothers' Club, the literary society, and other social groups. Your club must work with your community, not in opposition to it. In a small town you fans have a wonderful opportunity to have a club room. Not crowded in apartments like your fellow fans in the city, some member can, most likely, offer the use of a not-much-used room in her home, or as rent is not high in a small place, and usually there are a great many vacant offices over the business houses of the town, you can rent one, or perhaps you can persuade the owner to donate the rent to the club. A room would not take much furnishing — some chairs, a table, and window curtains. However, you city fans are not in as close touch with the manager of a theater and the community as the small-town fans. You do not need to be, as you get to see the latest releases and the best class of pictures. Your club is placed so that it can judge the merits of these, and you are fighting, not for just good pictures, but better pictures. To get them you must, as a club, express } our opinions every chance you get. Write to newspapers and magazines, and say what you liked and disliked, and why. Remember what Helen Christine Bennett said : 'Tf you want better movies, get out your pen and ink and paper and prepare to write and write and write — and get all your friends to do the same." Do not despair, fellow fans of cities and small towns, if your activities seem to be failures when you consider how meager the results are. The smallest effort on your part will ]:)robably have a greater influence than you realize. Above everything else, decide to have a good time in your fan club, and have it — let your imagination be your right hand. If you won't be a ^nere fan, be a merry one ! Continued from page 91 that as the dangerous stuff was really necessary to the pictures, I should do it, because if I happened to be injured, it wouldn't mean any loss. Besides, it was an opportimity for me to learn film acting." To many this will appear as a strange revelation of a cinema deception. It is known that many stars have doubles for their stunts, but this is a rare instance of its being a family affair. "I don't think that two people were ever thicker than Harold or Speedy, as I call him, and I," Gaylord told me. "We've always been chums — even since we were boys together in Omaha. Though he was just a kid brother, he was always with me then. He was always welcome in my gang because he was smarter than most boys of his age — a lot smarter. "Father used to go around Avith us a great deal, too. He's living with us now, as a matter of fact. In Omaha they used to say, whenever they'd see us together, 'There goes Foxy Grandpa and his two boys.' Double-Double — "Harold hasn't changed since that time as far as I can see. Of course, he's a lot more clever, but he's just as much of a boy as he ever was. "There isn't a morning goes by at home but we turn the house upside down. We always have a roughand-tumble before breakfast. I hate to get up and so does he. And naturally whoever is up first generall}' makes it hot for the other fellow, throwing water on him and pillow fighting. "We've been having the house fixed up, and so we don't care now what happens. We throw water all over the walls, which are being tinted, and have even smashed a window or two with the pillows. Lots of excitement these davs ; take my word for it! "Generally I get the worst of the battle. I have to admit it. I may look heavier than Harold, but he's really stronger than I am. And he never gives in. He has more grit than anybody I know." It struck me at the time that not all the slapstick happens in the stu dios. In Harold Lloyd's case it seems more in vogue at home. He usually avoids the destructive sort of fun-making in the films when he can. Gaylord Lloyd will, however, probabh' smash things up considerably to make the world laugh. For he's starting in on one-reelers, and believes that you have to depend on the zip-bang stuff for your ha-ha. Lie's going to try hard to put the character of Lonesome Luke back in the gallery of comedy heroes. Nor has he changed it materially from the original — just given a different slant to the eyebrows, that's about all, while keeping the miniature mustache — about as large as two good-sized freckles. He's using much the same costume as Harold wore three or four 3'ears ago — that is, after Luke became stvlish instead of a roughneck. But he keeps the original tramp clothes of his brother in his own dressing room for atmosphere. And thus, in a detached sort of way, he's keeping right on doubling for Harold.