Universal Weekly (1914-1915)

THE UNIVERSAL WEEKLY 5 IN THE SAN GABRIEL CANYON THEY (>' HEARTS" COMPANY FINISHING THE LAST INSTALLMENT. OR the last fourteen weeks the leading moving picture houses of the United States have been showing each week the wonderful Universal serial film, "The Trey o' Hearts", by the well known author and novelist, Louis Joseph Vance. As the series was drawing to a close it became apparent to Director Lucas and to the cast that it would be impossible to crowd all the thrills which Mr. Vance had planned for the last installment into the customary two reels. The question was whether to extend the time to another week or to skimp the climax. Inasmuch as the next serial, "The Master Key", by another famous author. John Fleming Wilson, was crowding on the heels of "The Trey o' Hearts", the Universal felt that it would not be fair to the newspapers which have contracted to run this new story serially, and to the theatres which have contracted to show this newest thriller, with Ella Hall and Robert Leonard in the leading roles, to allow the closing serial an extra week. Therefore, it was decided to compromise and give the No. 15 installment of "The Trey o' Hearts" an extra reel, making three reels for this last installment. It is needless to say that this last chapter of the story is crammed full of interest and excitement, and Mr. Vance says that it contains enough to fill four ordinary installments. So great has been the mystery surrounding the production of this serial, and so successful has been the effort to keep up the suspense and keep any inkling of the real ending from creeping into the successive chapters, that the people about the studios even were in the dark and all curiosity to see how that last chapter was coming out. The melodramatic ending which the author has had in mind all the time, and which is so vivid that it startled even the wiseacres of the West Coast Studios, will be the most tremendous thrill of the entire series. "Trey o' Hearts" will wind up in a blaze of glory. The scene represented is in the wonderful San Gabriel Canyon, whitber the entire company had been transported. It is in the heart of Sierras, and here were staged many of the most dangerous scenes ever attempted in pictures. That many of them were not attended with fatal accidents seems almost a marvel. Here is a list of minor mishaps. "Cleo Madison, a badly lacerated knee cap and severe bruises about the back and shoulders ; George Larkin, one ear nearly torn off and bruised and battered legs and body : Harry Vellajo. a sprained wrist ; Leigh Smith, poison oak over both arms and his face ; Ray Hanford, a cut on the knee and bruises too numerous to mention ; Rex Hodge, congestion of the lungs ; Tom Walsh, sprained back ; Wilfred Lucas, a pair of feet swollen and blistered until he cannot walk on them ; Johnny Pierce, a broken nose" . The above quotation is not taken from newspaper accounts of the "Wreck of the Underland Limited", nor is it a hospital record after the battle of "Rxtamlsky". It is a paragraph1 taken from the report rendered by Dr. Joss, of the Universal! City hospital upon his return from San Gabriel canyon, where; he had spent a week with the Gold Seal company during their staging of the fourteenth installment of "The Trey o1 Hearts" series. Of the entire company, not one escaped without injury or illness, and every morning and evening before the door of the Red Cross tent would form a line of limping, coughing players hobbling wearily along with requests for bandages, liniment, lotions, cough remedies and a little of everything in Dr. Joss' medical chest. Judging from events as they fell about it would seem that there was small foundation for the feeling of relief that was felt by the company after their successful termination of the thirteenth installment of the series. For the fourteenth chapter was attended by more misfortune than any of those preceding. The reason for this will appear ample to those followers of the serial who see the installment and watch (1) Cleo Madison and George Larkin ride over the edge of a ninety-foot embankment on a motor-cycle, then pitch forward off it and roll head over heels from top to bottom ; (2) as they see Miss Madison cut the rope between herself and Mr. Larkin as they are climbing up the side of a mountain to keep from pulling him down its precipitous side, while she plunges headlong down the slippery, crumbling shale for more than a hundred feet (3) the driving of a motor-car, bearing Ray Hanford and Jimmy O'Shea down the same precipice over which the two leads had plunged on their motor-cycle In all the twenty-eight reels the production has not once been held up because of illness or injury. Regardless of pains or bruises, broken or dislocated bones, each member of the company has shown up every morning, including Sundays, ready to work and prepared to bend his every effort to outshine his previous performance.