Screenland (May–Oct 1927)

92 SCREENLAND Try it 10 Days FREE New PHONIC Reproducer Makes An Up-ToDate Phonograph out of your old one! Gives the New Tone and Volume of Latest New Phonographs for only Now at last you can say goodbye to the squeaky, nasal, rasping, metallic tone of your phonograph. Now you can have the beautiful, natural, full-rounded tone of the expensive new machines which are startling the world. Yet you need not buy a new phonograph if you have an old one. The reproducer is the HEART of any phonograph — and the new PHONIC reproducer makes' your old phonograph like an entirely new one. Based on the new PHONIC principle. Makes you think the orchestra or artist is in the same room. Never Before Such Tone Tones never before heard are clearly distinguished when the new PHONIC reproducer is used. Test it on an old record. Hear the difference yourself. Listen to the deep low notes and the delicate high notes. Hear how plainly and clearly the voice sounds. Note the natural tone of the violin and the piano, and the absence of "tinny" music. You will be amazed. The new PHONIC reproducer is ideal for dancing or for home entertainments. Its volume is almost double that of the ordinary reproducer. 10 DAYS TRIAL Direct from Factory SEND NO MONEY You cannot realize how wonderful the New PHONIC is until you hear it. That is why we want to send it to you on 10 days' trial. Send no money now — just the coupon. Pay the postman only $3.85 plus a few pennies postage when the New PHONIC arrives. Then if you are not delighted, send it back within 10 days and your money will be refunded. If sold in stores the price would be at least $7.50. Our priceonly$3.85. Over 350,000 people have dealt with us by mail. You take no risk. Mail coupon now for 10 days' trial. BE SURE TO STATE THE NAME OF PHONOGRAPH YOU OWN. NATIONAL MUSIC LOVERS, Inc., Dept. 53 327 West 36th Street, New York Please send me a New PHONIC reproducer for •. "v.v will pay the postman S3. 85 'give name of Phonograph) plus few cents postage. If I am not satisfied after trial, I will return your reproducer within 10 days and you guarantee to refund my money. (Outside U. S. $4.10, Cash with Order) Name Address City State.. "I guess I was a tramp, all right," he says, rcminiscently. "Or maybe I am using the wrong term and was a hobo. I don't know. I loved to ride freight trains or, to be technical, the bumpers. I always was willing to work, when I could find some thing to do. Often, when I was hungry I felt sorry for myself, but now I can see that life was a good thing and has meant much to me. On numerous times, as an actor I have been able to recall types of people I encountered as a tramp and to reproduce them on the screen. "Once, I remember, just outside a little town in Kansas I fell in with a gang of hoboes. We were all sitting around a fire in the woods and the bozos were up against it for money. They were hungry and desperate. They were planning to rob, or as they put it, 'to knock over", the town bank. First, however, they needed some guns, so they decided to rob the hardware store and get them. They sent me into town to nose around and get the lay of the situation, to find out where they kept the artillery in the hardware store. I left them waiting for me to come back and I don't know how long they waited, because I didn't stop in that town or for five or six towns after that." Suddenly, one day, Conklin stopped moving about long enough to do some serious thinking about his future. He remembered with a warm glow of pleasure the rendition of "The Dutchman's Serenade" to his school back in Oskaloosa and he determined to become a vaudeville actor. He knew absolutely nothing about the stage or vaudeville. The full illustration of his ignorance may be discerned by what he did. He bought a joke book for $1 and prepared a single act for himself. Any vaudeville trouper will tell you that a single is the hardest thing in the world to get away with in the variety houses. Conklin, in the confidence of youth, thought it would be simple. He quickly learned otherwise. Time after time he lost his job but he kept his faith and plugged away. It was during these bleak days, however, that he discovered that walrus which has led him to success. At that time all the German comics on the stage used to wear a small chin goatee, such as Ford Sterling used in the days when the films were young — about twelve years ago. Conklin, with a flair for realism, didn't see why he should copy all the others. He remembered his old baker boss, Scholz. There he thought, was a typical Geiman. Why not wear a mustache like Scholz's? So he took some crepe and fashioned from it the magnificent soup-strainer which has since immortalized him wherever film unreels. Stranded in San Francisco, Conklin joined an animal circus as a clown at $12 a week. The circus took him to Los Angeles. The whole city was agog with interest and curiosity at the time about the movie actors who were engaged in some mysterious work in fenced enclosures outside the city limits. Back in the Middle West, someplace, Conklin had met Charley Ray so that he was delighted to meet him again on the streets of Los Angeles. Ray told him that he was acting in pictures and advised Chester to try his luck. "You arc funny, and I think you could make a big success of it," Ray told him. Conklin walked the three miles to the Mack Sennctt studio and after some parley was admitted as an extra. He commenced the display of his art as a Keystone Komedy Kop. He was paid $3 a day, when he worked. It wasn't long, however, before he forged to the top in the busy pie-heaving factory. With Ford Sterling, Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle and later Charley Chaplin, Conklin was one of the leading comedians of those distant days. During the ten years that Conklin spent hurling custard pies and dodging plates and being chased all over the streets of Hollywood, the movies have grown up. A famous personality to the fans, he was really obscured because he only played in two reel comedies. The big break for Conklin came about a year ago when Malcolm St. Clair, that brilliant young director, chose him to play Pola Negri's uncle in "A Woman of the World." There is a story in St. Clair's choice. As a gangling youth of eighteen St. Clair, just out of the office of a Los Angeles newspaper, had worked with Sennett as a Keystone Kop and had admired the pantomimic skill of Conklin. He told Conklin to give breadth to his characterization of the small town uncle who was visited by the worldly Countess. The result was, to those who saw "A Woman of the World," one of the funniest pictures ever viewed. Wherever it was shown, the theatre walls reverberated with such mirth that Jesse L. Lasky heard the echoes in his NewYork office and lost no time in having Mr. Conklin sign a five year contract. Remember Chester's tatoo of trains across his arms that seemed to move as he flexed his muscles? It was a scream, girls. Since then Conklin has been seen in "Say It Again" with Richard Dix, "A Social Celebrity" with Adolph Menjou, "The Wilderness Vyoman" with Aileen Pringle. "The J^ervous Wrec^ . "We're in the ~N.avy J^low", "McFadden s Flats" and in Gilda Gray's "Cabaret" and Ed Wynn's "Rubber Heels". Apple Green for Patsy — continued from page 29 day, had an overwhelming urge to express herself in "green". On this wave of enthusiasm she fared forth to return with yards and yards, and bolts and bolts, of luscious shimmering silk. And for days when anyone wanted Pat. she was not to be found . . . until some knowing soul came to the rescue, and burrowed under mountains of apple-green. Then from out the billows, would emerge Pat herself, all tumbled hair, accompanied by needles, pins and scissors. "You know, I really can't sew at all," Pat tells you, "except when I am inspired by an idea." This then was an inspiration! For she did most of the making. At last it hung resplendently around her dressing room. Even her lovely rooms at home, became "The Rhapsody In Green". It developed into charming cushions . . . bedecked with silken flowers and lace. You reclined upon it — you sat upon it — you leaned against it. And with Pat, you revelled in it. The whole world seemed clothed in apple-green. It was a heavenly shade! So now, you sink into a cool green cushioned chair. And "the beautiful lady" brings forth a huge box. "Flowers", flashes across ypur mind. It is in such boxes that Stars and Heroines of Books always receive American Beauties. You watch her silhouetted against the green, like a lovely painting, as she bends over the box, the dark hair glinted with