Reel Life (1916-1917)

Popular Mutual Gloom Chasers The men wfw make you laugh hav e no cinch job by any means FEW professions offer more opportunities to break your ribs or batter your head, perhaps, than making comedy for motion pictures. The Stock Exchange might offer it a close race. But who wants to rant and tear about and store up money on “the floor” when one can store up immortality on the screen ? That is the way more than one of the funmakers appear¬ ing in Mutual comedies feel about it. Doing “stunts” is much more pleasant than “doing” other people. Take Riley Chamberlain, the Thanhouser (Mutual) comedian. Mr. Chamberlain is a funmaker of several winter’s sea¬ soning. He gave up a career of forty years’ standing on the legitimate stage, to do comedy stunts for the Mutual. Mr. Chamberlain’s creed, so he says, is to thank Providence for everything which comes his way and to believe that everything is for the best. It is well that the comedian adopted such an optimistic outlook on life before he choose pictures as a steady occupation. It must comfort him in more than one hour of trial and of abuse. It is his particular lot to be cast, usually, as a mistreated and despised old fuss budget, who is kicked about and pinched and twisted, thrown into the sea, and tumbled down stairs. Does that sound like fun? “Knocking down a constable with a brick, he escapes on the latter’s motorcycle.” This casual little statement ends a synopsis of Jerry in Mexico, a one-reel Horsley (Mutual) “Cub” comedy featuring George Ovey. The motion picture comedians think nothing of bricks out in California. Bricks on the head, bricks in the nose, bricks in a brick wall are all the same to them. Experience with bricks has taught them to take bricks as they come without too much fuss. George Ovey threw the brick, the same casual little synop¬ sis says, because he had been bayonetted out of town, thrown from a three-story window, dragged and beaten soundly. That was all for one little reel of comedy film. There are others like it to be produced every week of George Ovey’s existence. And still he says, “It’s great to be in ‘Cubs.’ ” Russ Powell, the heavy-weight favorite of the Vogue (Mutual) studios, says that there is only one great draw¬ back to weighing 300 pounds and trying to be a screen comedian at the same time. “When they roll you into a lake, the camera man has to be back about 300 feet so that the water won’t rise up and engulf him. Then he can’t get any ‘close ups’ of a fat man being drowned.” Johnny Sheehan, the American (Mutual) funmaker could tell a tale or two which would curdle the blood of the ordi¬ nary peace-loving citizen. In A Trunk An’ Trouble, a new Beauty comedy, in which he is playing with Carol Halloway, he is packed into a small trunk, trundled over rails, thrown in front of on-coming trains, dashed down hill and kicked about more generally than a Missouri houn’. In Some Night he is yanked down by his feet from a high brick wall and allowed to settle in a limp but cheerful heap at the bottom. And yet he has refused ten contracts during the past year which would sever his connections with the celluloid drama. Budd Ross has been starring in legitimate comedy all his life, but he declares that his years were lost until he reached the position of star comedian for the Gaumont (Mutual) John Sheehan, famous funmaker of “Beauty” ( Mutual ) forces. The inimitable George Ovey, “Cub”— Mu¬ tual com¬ edian. company. Pictures have dealt gently with him, onl) demanding once that he paint New York with ham and eggs, which, he says, is much more easily accom¬ plished than painting it red. In the Casino star comedy entitled Ham and Eggs, Mr. Ross plays the role of a young and starving artist who paints ham and eggs on his empty plate to make his friends think he has plenty of food. In his dreams he paints the Woolworth building, the Met¬ ropolitan tower and all the streets with the same delectable eatables, and wakes up to find his landlady leaning over him with her rolling pin. No matter that the upraised pin comes down on his nose. “Bud” Ross appeared in “Floradora,” “The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary,” “Who’s Looney Now?” “The Spring Chicken,” and a great many other stage hits of the past years. He’s satisfied, now, with the pictures. There are other happy, dyed-inthe-wool comedians among the Mutual’s cohorts. There is John Steppling, “the nice fat father” of the American studios, who is scoring a distinct success as Billy Van Deusen in that series of “Beauty” comedies. Then there is Arthur Cun¬ ningham, the Falstaff player, who divides his time between serious drama and comedy. There is Sammy Burns, the one and only original Sammy, who stars in a company of his own out at the Vogue studio. There is Oral Humphrey, the eccentric English comedian, who is making distinctive humorous pic¬ tures at the American studios. It is a strange occupation, this one of making people laugh at the motion picture screen. None of those who are engaged in it can tell you exactly why they prefer being juggled about to living a sane and ordinary life. There is a fascination in its risks. There is another appeal about the comedy pictures that is not so often dwelt upon — the big opportunity for the exercise of individual ability and originality, the ever present chance to introduce “new business” and to do some¬ thing outside of the script. The reputations of not a few of the best known screen comedians have been built on things that “just happened on the spur of the moment.” The accidental and unexpected is a considerable part of the interest in every comedy. When an actual accident happens in a comedy production it is sure to be funnier than the scenarios intended. REEL LIFE — Page Fourteen