Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

Advertising Section 109 Gray Hairs and Stardom Continued from page 29 characterization as a German musician. This is his first screen appearance, but he's so good that when Neil Hamilton saw him on the set on the first day, he asked, 'Does that German boy speak any English ?' A few hours later he and Cull were discussing the latest books, and Neil admitted that the German boy could speak English surprisingly well, considering that he came from Cleveland." "Mr. Francis \" boomed the call boy. "I'm sorry, I'm wanted on the set." Mr. Francis smiled a courtly apology. I walked over to the stage with him. It was a Bowery street scene, showing the outside of the theater. The strong man stood waiting for his cue, the barker was smoothing back his shiny hair. At a signal from Mr. Dwan the extras walked onto the set. Alec Francis became the music master once more. His face, usually so eager and animated, became sorrow haunted. There was a hint of unshed tears in his eyes. His straight figure bent wearily. There was pathos even in his walk, his lagging steps suggesting a fatigue that was mental and spiritual as well as physical. Memories of another music master surged over me, of David Warfield crying in a voice sharp with pain, "If they don't vant her, I vant her!" A famous line. It was once as common as "So's your old man." It was as though people were ashamed of the fact that the simple words tugged at their heartstrings, and so, when the} repeated them, they did it flippantly and facetiously. The story of "The Music Master" begins in Vienna, in the days. of the master's glory, when he is conductor of the symphony orchestra of the Royal Opera House. He is a great artist. His music so completely absorbs him that his wife thinks she is neglected and listens to another man's love. There is his daughter, Hclcne, whose doll has been broken. He has promised to fix it, but somehow the time slips by so quickly. Then one day he comes home to an empty house — his wife, his daughter, even the broken doll, are gone. Strange that, in the heart-racking days that follow, it should be the thought of the broken doll that reproaches him most of all. , The search for his loved ones brings him to America. He lives on Houston Street, giving piano lessons to the children of the poor and playing in the tawdry theater that houses Cosiello's medicine show. One by one the treasures he has brought with him are sold to pay for the disheartening search, until there are left only a gold-and-ivory baton, that was presented to him by His Royal Highness Prince Otto many years ago, and a pair of old-fashioned dueling pistols. He has a later use for the pistols, so he sells the baton, and with it goes the last shred of his glory. Nothing now is left. He is only a shabby, tired old man, who dreams of revenge on the man who has robbed him. But when the end of the search at last comes, revenge seems a paltry thing after all. There is still another cross awaiting the music master— the heaviest of all — but it is through it that he finally finds happiness. Lights flared overhead. The Bowery street was filled with a milling, laughing crowd. Two girls pushed past me on their way to the set. They looked as though they had stepped out of an old family album — just two quaint, old-fashioned girls of a past decade. They were talking vivaciously, but it was not the Dorcas Society nor the Sundayschool picnic they were discussing. "And he sez to me, 'Do you Charleston?' and I sez, 'Listen, if you think I'm one of those old-fashioned janes The other settled her spangled bonnet more securely on the back of her head. "Will you listen to that — 'Do you Charleston?' What century did he think he was living in?" They picked their long skirts up in their hands and sauntered onto the set. An old man in a broad-brimmed hat walked slowly down the street, picking his way timidly through the pushing, laughing crowd that had stopped to listen to the blandishments of the barker, and passed unnoticed into the tawdry playhouse. To me there was great drama in that old figure and irt the man who portrayed him, for Alec Francis has come into his own at an age when most other stage and film people are thinking of retiring. And I drank an imaginary toast to William Fox, who had seen beyond youth and had made a star of a man no longer young. SHOW CARD LETTERING [gam at Home Here is the very course you need if you want to get a good paying position as a Show Card Letterer or Sign Letterer, or have a business of your own. This course is complete and practical and especially arranged to meet the needs of the student who studies at home. It was written by E. L. 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