Universal Weekly (1917-1934)

-THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY 17 Fancy Shooting in 'The Reed Case." [fmlHAT would you do if you went up to a lonely shack in the Adii-ondacks to recover from a nervous breakdown, and were greeted on your arrival by a bullet through your hat? Then having convinced yourself that it was an accident, how would you like to have two bullets come sniping through the window as you lay in bed and land in the headboard? That was the reception which awaited the young detective, Jerry Brennon, hero of the Butterfly Picture "The Reed Case," and the spectacular shooting which puts punch in the story, was done by Universal's modern William Tell — Ed Jones. All the Universalites trust Jones to take pot shots at them whenever he feels inclined, for they have perfect confidence in his marksmanship. Allen Holubar, who wrote, directed and starred in the picture with Louise Lovely opposite, allowed Jones to put the bullet through his hat, and later to drive two shots through a pane of glass as he sat beside the window. He also feigned ^leep while the two shots whizzed into the headboard of his bed. "The Reed Case" is decidedly there with the punch. When ill health Scene from the coming Butterfly, "The Reed Case." forces the young detective to leave town, he takes refuge in a mountain cabin. Crooks have been there before him, and have hidden the kidnapped niece of Senator Reed in a secret room. They have to get rid of the detective, so they try to scare him with fancy shooting. They fail, and after a lot of fighting, the picture ends in a pretty love story. FARNUM CELEBRATES HIS PICTURE ANNIVERSARY RANKLYN FARNUM and Brownie Vernon are the stars of next week's Bluebird Photoplay "The Car of Chance," in which a young fellow "cut off without a shilling," makes his car earn a fortune and the girl of his choice. While this picture was being made, Farnum gave a dinner to a number of his friends from the Bluebird and Universal studios, to celebrate the anniversary of his picture debut. The dinner was piven at a Los Angeles cafe on the Scene from the coming Bluebird, "The Car of Chance: evening of Decoration Day, for exactly three hundred and sixty-five days before the actor played his first scene for the camera — in a picture called "The Heart of a Showgirl" which was released as a special, and in which he played opposite Ella Hall. Elmer Clifton, Farnum's new director, and the Nestor comedians, Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran, who live in the same club with him, were guests of honor at the party, and there were speeches, in one of which the host apologized to motion pictures for not taking them seriously at first, and failing to appreciate them at their true value. He was afraid he would miss the audiences to which he had been accustomed so long on the legitimate stage, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that pictures were a "comedown." But a month's experience of the life convinced him that he had never made a greater mistake, and now it would be impossible to persuade him to return to the stage. The regular hours, outdoor woi'k, home life, steady work with no disappointments, i;o weeks of rehearsal for a play which proves a failure, as well as the enormous public to which the picture actor can appeal, and the pleasures of finding that personal popularity has not been lost but rather increased, have proved to one more actor the superiority of pictures to the speaking stage.