Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

47 Teacups the Fan comfortably surveys the world of a few comments on rising and falling stars. Bystander over in front of the old Vanderbilt mansion on the corner. When he hung a sign out, "Auction To-day," such a crowd gathered that he really needn't have hired any extras. "Have you heard," Fanny asked idly, "about the man down in Newport who caused quite a sensation by comparing some of the society leaders to movie stars? He said that Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, second, reminded him of Norma Talmadge ; that Mrs. Howard Cushing resembled Nazimova, that Mrs. Joseph Widener was like Gloria Swanson and Mrs. Sylvanus Stokes like Nita Naldi. "Funny, isn't it? People are always saying that our motion-picture stars don't look like real society women and here is a man who has been going to Newport for twenty years who points out how much some of the society leaders resemble film favorites. I cannot figure out whether our motion-picture actresses are less individual and therefore easier to copy or whether by any chance the society women are better at acting." "Not that it matters," I announced superciliously, reaching for the stack of books Fanny had dumped on the chair next her. "What are all these for? Trying to appear intellectual?" "Just trying to catch up with the pictures that are being made. I'm reading 'McTeague' because ZaSu Pitts got me all enthusiastic over it and I'm reading 'Romola' because Lillian and Dorothy Gish are leaving for Italy in a few days to make it. It is a real proof of my devotion to them that I've survived eighty pages or more of it. And that," Fanny indicated the thickest book of the lot, "has a lot about the psych-analytic interpretation of dreams in it. Any one who goes to see 'Hollywood' a second time without trying to figure out that dream of the hero's is downright foolish." I had hardly had time to notice that Fanny's hair was cropped a la Pat O'Day, when she started raving about the opening of "Little Old New York." "It was the most gorgeous first night any film ever had," she announced with an air of finality. "The picture would have been wonderful in any playhouse, so you can imagine what it was like in a perfect little jewel of a theater designed by Joseph Urban and with an audience full of society and stage and film celebrities, not to speak of the mayor and his cohorts. What interested me most was trying to decide whether Irene Castle or Catherine Calvert looked more stunning. I couldn't. Elsie Janis was there, and so was Billie Burke, and Anita Stewart and simply mobs of smart-looking people. Marion looked just like a little girl at graduation exercises. "Remember when we used to look on the Griffith openings as the big event of the season? When he created a sensation by putting pictures on at regular Broadway theaters with special musical scores ? It looks as though 'them days are gone forever.' Now there are about a dozen pictures playing in Broadway theaters. And this picture of Marion's not only has Photo by Edwin Bower Hesser ZaSu Pitts came to New York to play in "West of the Water Tower." a specially decorated theater to house it, Victor Herbert himself is there at every performance to conduct the orchestra. "I think the theater is the prettiest one I have ever seen. Mr. Urban calls the decorations modern Colonial. That is, it is Colonial in feeling with a lot of interesting Viennese ideas added. The lobby walls are of Sienna marble and the floor is of black Belgian marble. The metal work is bronze and the lights come from behind bronze cornices. The stage is perfectly beautiful. There are exquisite crystal chandeliers and genuine old Flemish tapestries, and charming oil paintings of Marion, and "