Reel Life (Sep 1913 - Mar 1914)

6 Reel Life 3io ^^MaUml (^i For the last three months, there has been in preparatiodi, here in New York, a series of motion-picture plays — educational, descriptive and dramatic — which will be released each week thioughout the entire year, beginning Jan. 19th. and which are different from anything heretofore attempted in motion-plays. The idea is based upon the generally admitted interest m every city and town of the United States in the daily life — the celebrated sights and personages— of New York — the second city of the world and, in many respects, the greatest. And the method of portraying all this upon the motion-picture screen so that it may be caught by the spectator at a glance — and understood as quickly iby persons of efyen moderate education — lies in depicting the daily life of a young girl who comes from a small interior town to visit city relatives and is launched by them into the whirl and fascination of New York society life. To those who may justly claim that to become a social leader in New York is not altogether the sumum bonum of earthly existence, it may be explained that a very considerable number of people in the United States so consider it — and the interest in that sort of thing is a very real one. It may also be claimed that comparatively few girls, arriving in New York, ever have the chance to participate in the lotos-eating life of those at the top. But they do have a chance to observe that life from the sidewalks — and this series of aims enables every man, woman and child in the entire country to observe it with them. Without wasting too much of the spectators' time in details of her earlier home life — varying in no respect from that of thousands of other American girls — this fortunate young woman is showin arriving in New York upon her first visit — in the home of her wealthy Aunt, where a certain amount of training for her society life is first necessary. Little mannerisms and personalities — not objectionable in her country home — go through a modifying process reminding one of the polishing of a diamond. Then her costume demands attention. Gowns entirely suitable for dances of the Monday Night Social in Oshkosh or Kalamazoo are a long way from being comme il faut at Sherry's or the exclusive houses of the New York Smart Set. There are visits at the parlors of a famous Modiste— at equally famous shops and department stores — until the girl's personal outfit is a liberal education in up-to-daite dress in all its multitudinous details. In this connection, the fact should be strongly emphasized that every gairment worn by the Mutual Girl in these films was purchased outright and paid for by the producing Company. In no single instance has any portion of her wardrobe been loaned as a model. Norma Phillips, the "Mutual Girl" Once launched in New York society, the girl naturally meets a large number of famous people — world celebrities — and the camera has faithfully recorded each of these meetings — the little every-day mannerisms of the celebrities and the matter-offact way in which such meetings actually take place in the daily life of the favored ones in this great metropolis. Private houses — famous hotels and public buildings — famous steamships and de luxe trains — suburban country-places which have been described by the press all over the country — society functions at famous city homes — at Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House. In short, nearly every feature and detail of metropolitan life among people whose incomes range from one hundred thousand to a million dollars a year. In selecting a girl to portray such a life as this, the "Mutual" was confronted with a difficult problem. In a motionplay, an average girl may be taught conventional manners and observances within the limits of two reels at the outside— but in actual life, the process is a much longer one. It was therefore necessary to obtain one who was at home in such environment from the very start, one needing no long course of coaching. Personal attractiveness was naturally another oonsiideration — also, coloring. For various photographic reasons, a light complexion was preferable to a brunette. Then simplicitynaturalness — i freedom from self-consciousness before the camera, etc. After weighing very carefully the merits of many young women in their companies, the Mutual Directors finally selected a Maryland girl — born in February, 1892, at Cambridge on the Chesapeake — raised in Baltimore — and educated at Mt. St. Agnes College, Mt. Washington, Md. She left college in her junior year to obtain a position in the theatrical company supporting Richard Carle — supported Blanche Ring in the "Wall St. Girl" — and then joined the London Opena House Company in "Come Over Here." Crossing the Atlantic again for a brief visit to her mother, she was persuaded by Director Ritchey to join the Reliance Company, and has been with the Mutual ever since. As a talented young "lead" of the Reliance Company, her face and acting, an the screen, have become familiar to millions of people in this and other countries who will welcome her in this new and vastly more important role. As The MUTUAL GIRL is one of the most stupendous productions ever attempted by any association of film manufacturers, we present to the readers of Reel Life — on these two pages and the cover of this issue — portraits of Norma Phillips — The MUTUAL GIRL.