Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1923 - Feb 1924)

The "Tiger Rose" of the motion picture was called on to do strenuous things only suggested in the play. » The Blooming of "Tiger Rose" Lenore Ulric revives one of her colorful heroines for the silver screen. By Robert McKay Allerton A PAIR of lustrous eyes shot forth a look of fear and trembling; a pair of tiny hands twitched and clutched nervously at each other, a mass of bushy dark hair quivered and shook with excitement. In a moment, Lenore Ulric, crouching beneath the narrow oaken staircase, would have screamed, but she clapped her fingers to her lips and saved the climax for another scene, as the thunder gave one gasping roll, the lightning buzzed and crackled, and the director shouted. "Cut !" I was watching the tangled, spasmodic action of "Tiger Rose." the melodrama of the Northwest, famous on the stage for its Belasco sunrise and rainstorm, and the personality of its star. It was the time of the transplanting of this Northern bloom to the novel terrain of the films. Miss Ulric had come 'West following a long engagement in the frivolous French play, "Kiki," and was delightedly entering into a new adventure. I had entered the set at a crucial moment — one of many in this trick thrill play. The heroine had just hidden her lover in a grandfather's clock, hoping he would not be discovered by the mounted policeman who was hunting him down. He had been accused of murder, and there was apparently no means of escape, as he had been tracked to her dwelling by the posse, and it was now merely a question of where he was concealed. . Stimulated by the pressure of an electric button in Director Sidney Franklin's hand, a violent storm was raging outside the room. The studio lightning, the sheetiron uproar, the rain trickling off the roof were all real enough to make a man put up his coat collar and look for an umbrella. Most of the characters were getting steadily drenched, for it was incumbent upon them to dash out every once in a while into the wretched night, or else be doused with the sloppy prop-room sponge. Miss Ulric undoubtedly found her situation in keeping with her experience on the stage. There was quite as much noise, and perhaps a trifle more rain, but that did not seem to dampen her ardor. It seemed to whet it (if I may be permitted the pun) for she entered into, the scene with esprit. She was exhibiting plentifully and enthusiastically all the piquant and taking mannerisms, the quick motions of her hands, the flare of her vivid eyes, the pur sings of her lips that have been perhaps the source of her charm and her success in the spoken drama. In all, she was a picture of energy and life and animation, with a touch of exotic picturesqueness that augured more than pleasantly for her return — because it happens to be a return in her instance — to the misty lights and shadows of the screen. Miss Ulric's previous adventure into the silent drama was not an especially significant one. It was in the halcyon days that followed Griffith's "Birth of a Nation,'' and she made a series of plays for Fine Arts. The whole five, I believe, were filmed in the time that is now generally allotted to one. and out of them possibly only "The Heart of Paula" is even now slightly remembered. At that period Miss Ulric had but recently been acclaimed queen of the Hawaiis in "The Bird of Paradise." She had caused the zephyrs to blow across the ukulele strings from the Pacific to the Atlantic. She was, in