Reel Life (1914-1915)

Twenty-four REEL LIFE Under The Head of Acting HlARPER than a serpent’s tooth is the divid¬ ing line between motion picture players and those of legitimate shows, the phrase being sometimes abbreviated to “leg” shows by col¬ lege youth. The stage actor lets the actresses carry their own luggage while the picture player has a home. Of course, it’s distinctly unfair to drag in the private life of public characters like these and use it as a peg on which to hang remarks. After all, the hun¬ dred million are concerned chiefly in what their favorite devotees of Thespis do on the screen. Acting for motion pictures is no sinecure. So many things come under the head of acting which are beyond the ken of the boy who played forty weeks on Broadway. Many have read of the famous actor of the speak¬ ing stage who was a won¬ derful stage cowboy. He had a beautiful silk kerchief wrapped around his swan¬ like throat, over which the b o a r d i n g-school misses rhapsodized every Wed¬ nesday and Saturday after¬ noon. He had a just-toolovely pair of “chaps” and nice highly-polished spurs turned up, not down, at the end. He had a nice striped shirt with “silk in the sleeves” and a Broadway label in the neck and a cute silver plated dinky little re¬ volver stuck across his manly “tummy.” With all these accoutre¬ ments, he worked up a reputation for playing cow¬ boy parts which percolated even unto the Rockies and beyond. So once upon a time a moving picture firm made him an offer to ap¬ pear in a Western picture; “special production,” “world’s most famous interpreter of rough-and-ready parts” and all that stuff. Great was the fall thereof. Ah, “great” is not putting it too strongly ! When the dainty star who used to slap the powdered sugar from his pretty breeches (oh, so carelessly!) with a quirt that never saw a live horse, was put upon a cow pony, he was dis¬ tinctly uneasy. When he found that his work required a little riding he was more uneasy. When he found that his part required a few stunts like swimming across rivers, being shot from his horse and a bit of tall riding he became positively pitiful. His hair stuck up like the quills upon the fretful porcupine. “Whaddyer mean I’ve got to ride that horse?” was the last heard of him as his press agent was leading him away by the hand. Then there was the actress from the “legit,” so-called, (meaning both the actress and the “legit” thing), who strolled into a motion picture producing company one morning and asked sort of bored-like for a job. She ran across one of the raucous-voiced directors. “Say, what can you do?” he asked. “Can you ride?” “No.” “Can you swim?” “No.” “Well, what can you do?” “Why, I am an actress.” Briefly, she didn’t get a job, because she couldn’t do the stunts that come under the head of acting. Either of these players might, with advantage, have taken a leaf from the book of little Mae Marsh for instance. Mae is only seventeen, but a popular actress and playing lead¬ ing roles in Reliance Mutual Movies. Mae has always been equal to the demands of the scenario. For instance, in “The Great Leap,” she and Robert Harron, a star actor of about her own age, riding double on horse-back leaped over a sixty-foot cliff into Au Sable Chasm. Something of a splash to that. Oh, yes ; lots of things come under the head of act¬ ing. Take the heavy man for instance. He comes in, tears his hair and rolls his eyes. Villain is stamped indelibly in his black mus¬ tache, in his riding boots, (oh, so shiny!) and on his cigarette. Off-stage, he may have a termagant wife and smoke cubeb cigarettes, but on the stage he’s a devil. He does the most perfectly horrible things that orig¬ inated in the brain of man or play-w right. And they all come under the head of acting. Let us all rejoice and be glad that soon the stage villain will be no more. Moving pictures are slowly but surely starving him out. Then there is the hero, the blonde young fellow who has all the good qualities of the saints of old and a couple of modern athletes rolled into one. What does he do? Oh, he acts a bit. At least it comes under that head. Never forget the sweet faced little ingenue, whose eyes blink so ingenuously ! And the ingenue’s big sister, the heroine. Also, the comedy characters. What they do comes under the head of acting. It really must be a source of undiluted joy to the theatre¬ goer to feel that the old school of aoting with its over-play¬ ing is dying out, and is being replaced by the modern natural school. Give a good part of the credit for this where it belongs, to the moving picture plays. An actor in motion pictures soon learns to be natural. Every gesture, every lineament of the face is magnified so many times on the screen as to be highly noticeable. Hence, the player who overacts appears foolish in motion pictures. The result has been a more natural school which must please those who enjoy what comes under the head of acting. Old Yellow Specs. •& . § Sonnets of a Darkroom Boy By MARTIN BURNS {Darkroom boy at Thanhouser Factory ) At eight bells in the morning, along comes Charley Gerke. He says, “Good Morning, fellows, it’s time to go to work.’’ So we start the old machinery, and we turn out every light, And we keep the stock a-rolling from morning until night. The perforators perforate; the printers print, they say; The developers develop all the livelong day. The dryers dry; the joiners join; the projectors they portray — All silently contribute to the Moving Picture Play. The “title man” makes titles, to guide us on the screen; The “color man” makes colors of yellow, blue and green. The machinist and ’lectrician, each in a different way, Helps produce the pictures for the Moving Picture Play. The actors act; the packers pack the reels up in a can; The painter paints; the “old maid” faints when confronted by mere man. The props get props, and no one stops until the end of day, And Saturday noon — it’s not too soon! — they all flock for their pay. & & & & 5 6 & & & & & & & & & & & & & & § & & & & & & & & & & & §