Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

Hollywood High Lights 71 Whereupon the magazine was produced. "Oh, sure." agreed the producer. The Goldwyn people were phoned, the peculiar circumstances were explained, everybody laughed, but Tom won the part of the lieutenant in "Ponjola." A Temperamental Geezer. Luck is certainly not kind to Helene Chadwick. In fact, they don't even seem to be on speaking terms at all. Up in Yellowstone Park, for example, where she was working in "Law Against Law," she tried to see what made the geysers spout, and she selected the largest one for her investigations. This giant hot-water shower is supposed to operate only once or twice a year, and it wasn't scheduled for another performance in month's. But something went wrong with the time-table, or the geyser's alarm clock, and instead of remaining quiet while Helene looked into its depths, it commenced to gurgle and growl and emit ether advance mutterings of an eruption. Miss Chadwick and her companion, an assistant director, drew back but not in time to avoid being burned. In fact, all the members of the company had to scoot away as fast as possible from the spot which they were using as a loca tion, and which they had thought absolutely safe by all the laws of geyserdom. Miss Chadwick was not seriously injured, but suffered enough just the same for a few days from the effects of the scalding. Lew Cody is the most conspicuous figure in "Law Against Law," which is a Rupert Hughes production. The reason is that he will, in the course of the story, have mo less than three wives. One of these is played by Miss Chadwick, and the other two by Carmel Myers and Hedda Hopper respectively. For a time they were talking of calling the picture "Who's Whose," so you can imagine that Cody has a time of it deciding who's his. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is1 going to be the idol of thousands of youngsters for his generosity. He was one of the first recently to offer to help finance a concert especially for their pleasure at the Hollywood Bowl. Incidentally, the boy has just about finished his first starring picture, "Stephen Steps Out," adapted from the Richard Harding Davis story, and he seems to be enjoying his experience in the films immensely, as would, no doubt, almost any youngster. Two Country Affairs. "I worshiped the very ground he walked on, and it will be a long time before I can ever think of marrying again" — that was the most significant comment that Corinne Griffith had to make in connection with the downfall of her domestic peace. The marriage between her and Webster Campbell, who directed her in pictures for a time, looked once like a very happy one, but a little over a year ago they decided to separate. It was at that juncture that Miss Griffith came to California and secured a release from her Vitagraph contract. She is now contemplating staying on the Coast, for she has bought herself a lovely eight-room house in the fashionable part of the Wilshire district in Los Boisterous Ma Pettingill, one of the most entertaining characters in modern fiction, has stepped out of the pages of Harry Leon Wilson's uRuggles of Red Gap" and on to the screen. To Lillian Leighton fell the honor of playing this part in James Cruze's production of the story. Angeles, and so anxious was she to get in her new home when we saw her last that she said she would probably be willing to sleep on the kitchen stove and use the ice box for a dressing table. It came out in the newspapers finally, after being kept a secret for all of eight years, that Marie Prevost was married. The revelation was incident to the filing of her divorce suit. Her husband's name is Gerke, and in view of this fact — that is the divorce and not the name — she and Kenneth Harlan will probably have to wait a while longer before they are wed. Thumbnail Criticism. We have several predictions to make regarding Charlie Chaplin's production, "A Woman of Paris," which is now about to be shown generally. First, it will cause everybody to be astonished at the work of Edna Purviance. Second, it will make the reputation of that excellent player, Adolphe Menjou. Third, it will upset the present notions of acting on the screen. Outside of this — well, the story is a peculiar one. It indulges in many subtleties that may not be readily understood. But you can put it down in your note book that it is going to be far reaching in the respect that it does not wait at any point for some star to clog the camera with his attempts at registering a thought. It revives the good old days when action was action, and words were words, and the screen was not overburdened with its modern verbiage. More Domestic Problems. Filmdom's intelligentsia have discovered a new occupation for their leisure hours that is curiously different. They have prevailed on Sadakichi Hartmann, the Eurasian mystic, to explain to them the reasons for divorce. Mr. Hartmann is busy in the daytime on Douglas Fairbanks' picture, "The Thief of '" Bagdad," but his evenings he frequently gives to enlightening a group' of assiduous devotees on life and customs of various times and peoples. We understand that he works out his theories regarding marital happiness and marital troubles quite mathematically, with a sort of illustration via diagrams. The process seems a little too complicated to repeat here, but it is all very interesting because Hartmann delves deeply into the past and tells just why Cleopatra was attracted to Mark Antony, and why she gave Julius Csesar the air. His explanations are so convincing that several people who were just on the point of racing to the courts have put up their aggravations to him, so we hear, to see if he can't find out what is the proper algebraical formula for them to live by and be happy. Other evidences of a scientific trend are not lacking in Hollywood. There is a sudden interest in astronomy. It all started over the eclipse of the sun which was observed in September in California. Among others, Lloyd Hughes secured a telescope, while he was playing in "The Huntress" 'and started in to explain to Colleen Moore about the constellations. As they could only look through the contraption satisfactorily at night, and Hughes was safety married, and Colleen quite safely engaged, their lessons didn't get Continued on page 83