Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1927)

57 Manhattan Medley News and gossip of New York's film world. By Aileen St. John-Brenon RIGHT on top of Lois Wilson's fight for independence, she got a job. Calamity howlers had told her that her split with Famous Players would mean a skull and crossbones beneath her front doorbell. Doleful Dora had told her she'd never get a job again. Whereupon Bob Kane loomed up, pressed a contract into her hand, and asked her to come up to the Cosmopolitan Studio and report for work. That's how she became the heroine of "Broadway Nights." Will you recognize Miss Wilson as a young soubrette — an amateur-night habitue? Of course, she's really a good wife and mother all the time, but Joe Boyle, the director, has fashioned what may be termed "some snappy stuff" by way of showing Lois' versatility — don't's and' domesticity, as it were. The Lure of the Movies. Little Helen Chandler seeks a career in the movies. If you know your Broadway stage, you will recall the childlike Helen in "The Wild Duck" and "The Constant Nymph." It is the latter drama which Helen boldly deserted for the celluloid attraction, "The Joy Girl." And she swears that the prospect of the location trip to Palm Beach had nothing to do with her decision. It was at Olive Borden's party that we met Helen, and she vowed that "The Joy Girl" offered far greater histrionic possibilities than "The Constant Nymph," hence her sudden departure from the sleet and grime of late-winter New York to the balmv air and sunshine of Florida. Helen had had a bit in Allan Dwan's "The Music Master," and it was on the strength of her performance in that that he signed her up for the second opus. Marie Dressier is also in "The Joy Girl." You've seen the buxom Marie in films before, though not for some time. Most actresses object when they're termed "buxom" in the public prints. Not so Miss Dressier, whose superabundance of avoirdupois is her stock in trade, as any one who saw her years ago, in "Tillie's Punctured Romance," with Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, will remember. Neil Hamilton, farmed out by Paramount in our modern commercial fashion, is hero for the film. A sadder and paler Neil joined Dwan's troupe. For weeks past he had been wrestling, not with the histrionic requirements of a new role, but with an onslaught of grippe germs, encountered shortly after he had finished "The Music Master." He had' expected to play in Paramount's "The Telephone Girl," but while he was busy losing fourteen pounds, Lawrence Gray played the role that he was to have had. Madge Bellamy's apartment is thronged with interesting people whenever she is in New York. A Much-maligned Young Lady. Which brings us quite naturally to Madge Bellamy, for Madge is the aforesaid "Telephone Girl." And you should hear Herbert Brenon on the subject — he directed the film. "Little Madge is going to run away with the picture," he says, and you know what a stickler he is for good acting. Madge is a much-maligned young lady. You probably realized that when you saw her in "Sandy." Just that one»performance quashed all the unkind things the critics had ever said about her. And to quote the boulevardiers, she has "kept up the good work" ever since. She came all the way from California to make "The Telephone Girl," and her mother came with her. Madge loves "New York. She loves its many interests — for Madge is a many-sided person — and its great variety of people. The keen, active lives of New Yorkess fascinate her, and she numbers among her friends some of the brightest minds in the metropolis. When she isn't busy at the studio, you would be surprised at the throng of callers who seek the Bellamy fireside. And yet she has found time to write a play. Daniel Frohman will tell you about it. He is one of her oldest friends, and helped her along the road toward fame