Screenland (May-Jul 1926)

SCREENLAND 101 still a novelty. A tenth is duty, routine, he comfortable studio is left behind regret' illy. But after a hundred location trips, ichard Dix informed me, news that his cur' nt production will take him afield carries welcome change from the regularity of udio environment. There's always the ■omise of "action stuff". That spirit exains why Dix fits so thoroughly into the irroundings in which each new picture pre' nts him; and no man on the screen td-day is been seen against a wider variety of cturesque backgrounds. He is the ideal cation star. Action stuff thrills him. When those ito racing scenes in "The Luc\y Devil ere being filmed the director, Frank Tuttle, >jected to Dix risking his life. "Your face ill never show in this scene," Tuttle pleadl. "We've hired a professional daredevil." "It's my face isn't it?" Dix laughed and me through the day without a scratch. Tuttle sighed out his relief. "Lucky rvil !" — and incidentally that remark be me the title of the picture. "Sure," Dix agreed. "But the double ight not have been." .... Paradoxically the worst location trip Dix er achieved brought the most beautiful reIts — those gorgeous backgrounds of "The jnishing American" . There were sunsets when purple shadows retched eastward from the buttes and the w sun, revealing unseen depressions in the iinted Desert, washed them red and brown id blue until from the hills to the lavendar jrizon breathless color tried to condone the irk brutality of day. But the days never could be forgotten by e company living week after week under nvas and blazing sun — targets for such ndstorms as drive only across the Painted esert. They had wandered 130 miles from hite civilization at Flagstaff, Arizona, far id deep into wasteland hues which lay on eir faces as grime, and what the screen ould frame as a thousand glorious can.sses burned and blistered in reality. There as nothing to hearten them. Just when ey would plough back through the hori' >ns was too distant to forecast. Here in:ed was Tophet, a location of everlasting rment; and their devil was a nine-year-old idian boy, who had not even won a name r himself. They called him Manhammer's 3n. Cast for the part of Nasja in "The Van'ling American" , his role was an important le, but Manhammer's Son wrapped himself stolid Indian indifference, or perhaps a gnified fear of these whites who were new id strange to him, and who ordered him to :rform before a camera that was equally ;vv and awesome. The company watched and prayed. No hope of breaking camp until the lad could be induced to act. Day followed day. There seemed no way to pierce the little fellow's reserve. At last Director George Seitz gave him up. "See what you can do with the kid, Rich. He's beyond me." So on Dix fell the job of winning the boy's friendship. Dollars helped not at all. Manhammer's Son silently accepted the coins, examined them, grunted a word or two in Navajo, and threw them in the sand. Dix tried candy from the cook's tent, but this the lad took as something due to him, and the gift brought Dix no closer than before. . . . The end of another gasping day. At the foot of the butte, weather-beaten automo' biles and trucks formed a rampart for tents; figures dawdled about and smelled hungrily of cook-house odors. Somebody asked, "Where's Rich?" Somebody answered, "Over beyond looking at the desert." Somebody groaned. Dix lingered on the butte. The colors of sunset beat on his body, bared to the waist. A lizard poked out of a crevice, darted its blue tongue, and wondered at his weariness. The vast stillness and silence arrested him. A soft twang; then an arrow struck the ground a few feet from him. On a knoll nearby stood Manhammer's Son defiantly holding a small bow. Picking up the arrow, Dix carried it to the boy and presented it gravely. Then he returned to where he had stood before. Manhammer's Son shot again. Again "the arrow was delivered in person by the human target. Five times the performance was repeated; each time added to the lad's admiration and decreased his desire to shoot, Manhammer's Son accepted the sixth return of the arrow with a grin. He fitted it to the bow and aimed in another direction. "Go get him!" he ordered. Dix retrieved the arrow. He retrieved a dozen more at the little redskin's bidding before Manhammer's Son opened his heart enough to admit a paleface. [You must know this: Manhammer was a chief; his fathers had been chiefs before him; and the kingly line carried a tradition of command, to which Richard Dix was happy to bow.] Queer isn't it? The obedience of one of the screen's greatest stars to Manhammer's Son established a friendship that made it easy to direct the lad thereafter. Even more than that — it completed the motion picture epic of the same redskin pride that burned in that unconquerable little imp. I've Met Them All (Continued from page 23) [ was up very early this morning, you now — riding in the Park." "I thought you ere going to Bermuda, last week," I relied, with a tone usually reserved for the assic line, "So's your Aunt Emma." At nine o'clock in the morning," said ouise Brooks very earnestly, "Bermuda, or eaven, are equally distasteful to me." It was one o'clock in the morning — and ^nita Stewart was sound asleep. She was lvolved in a law-suit at the time and I had 5 get the "low-down". A sleepy voice "om her bedroom cilled, "Come on in," nd entering I saw a sleepy but sweet:mpered star scrambling into a negligee. "1^ don't mind a bit, really," she smiled. "I'm glad to see you any time (I believed her). Do you mind if I don't put up my hair? Ma, let's have some hot coffee." Anita is in a class by herself. Surprises? I met D. W. Griffith on the beach of his' old .studio in Mamaroneck, on Long Island Sound — the beautiful old place which has since been destroyed by fire; it was more like a summer home than a film factory. If you can imagine Hamlet in kilts you will get some idea of the way I felt when I saw David Wark in his bathing suit. But gosh, the man could swim — and he did. This Olympian seemed to be try Sent NO HONEY [>owN n't thia smart *» k look like a $25.00 k model? It is one of New \ York's newest styles B carefully reproduced in H% a delightful material Hft —Bilk -mixed canton crepe. It has all the ■^m style and snap of (ho original but on ly costs you a fraction of the price. „ Created with th* new Cadet Style Circular J flare skirt. We Will Send this Heau tiful Fnck ON APPROVAL Without aTenny in Advance Circular bottom has band i contrastingcolor. Puff rimmed sleeves and itted cuffs. Half belta of self material tie in back in Bash effect. Collar is trimmed with Bilk inlaid braid Colors. Pansy. 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