Universal Weekly (1914-1915)

16 THE UNIVERSAL WEEKLY FORD MAKING THE LUCKNOW FILM. • Battle scenes, cavalry charges, handto-hand fights between native Sepoys and British grenadiers, massacres, wholesale arson, the siege of a fort, the death falls of natives from great heights — all will play a part in the massive production, "The Campbells Are Coming", a multiple reel feature, which Director Francis Ford is now staging at Universal City, near Los Angeles. "The Campbells Are Coming" is quite the most expensive and extensive photodrama yet staged at Universal City. Every known conceivable sort of thrill has been staged in it. Wild animals roam and kill in the Indian jungle, while crafty natives burn the homes of British soldiers and their wives in an attempt t drive their conquerors into the Indian Ocean. "The Campbells Are Coming" will tell again the Victorian epic of the relief of Lucknow and the massacre at Cawnpore. It contains enough battle scenes to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty junker or war-mad jingo. All day long the roar of field pieces, .75-millimeter guns and the heavier bored cannon of more ancient date resounds in the hills of Universal City. All day long cavalry and infantry defile along the crests of the hills, capturing an intrenchment filled with whiteturbaned natives in this valley, and destroying a native village over the crest of the next hill. Settlers' cabins, officers' bungalows and native villages are built only to be burned a few hours later. Sepoys are shot as they snipe from tree tops and come tumbling a hundred fePt to the ground, while on the same field cavalrymen and their mounts leap over the red-hot mouths of cannon and pinion the gunners to earth beneath their mounts. "The Campbells Are Coming" will be an astounding revelation of moving picture possibilities. Moreover it is timely and undoubtedly will arouse the greatest enthusiasm in Canada, England, Australia and the States. LESSING'S GHETTO TALES FOR THE U With characteristic enterprise the Universal Film Manufacturing Company has secured the rights to produce in photoplay form Bruno Lessing's stories of New York's Ghetto life. Murdock MacQuarrie will play leading roles in the forthcoming productions, the first of which will be "An Interruption", adapted from the magazine form by Bess Meredyth of the Universal West Coast scenario department. As soon as he has completed his present production, "In His Mind's Eye", Charles Giblyn and his company of Nestor players will start work on the Lessing stories. Each of the tales is to be complete in itself : the same character, however, will figure prominently in the entire series. COME BEHIND By CARL If you have never been behinc pictures are made on a huge scale life coming to you when you visit Universa a few minutes out of Los Angeles on a great big ranch. It is a real city, set right down in the heart of a wonderful ranch which in turn is in the heart of an exquisitely beautiful valley. A city on a ranch! And yet so perfectly is this city adapted to the making of moving pictures that any kind of a scene can be made here. We can show a street scene that you would swear was photographed in New York itself. Or a desert scene that looks as though it could not have been made anywhere except in the Sahara. Or a jungle scene that mi^ht have been snapped in the wildest wilds of Africa. Or a ballroom scene that surely seems aa though it must have been photographed in the home of a Vanderbilt. Or a restaurant scene that duplicates Rector's famous restaurant on Broadway. It is the craziest, strangest, oddest city in all creation. Its entire population is made up of men, women and children engaged solely in the business of making the best moving pictures that can be made. When you see the vastness of our equipment; the perfection of our organization ; the enormous staff of experts engaged in making part of that Universal program, you will know why it is physically impossible for any one to keep up with the quality standard established by Universal moving pictures. The World's Fair at Chicago was dry and stale by comparison. The Panama Exposition at Frisco and the exposition at San Diego will be great expositions, but for real, hearty, genuine, humaninterest they simply will not hold a candle to Universal City, where the movies are made! When you see the various things we have to manufacture in order to set our stages properly your very eyes will pop. When you see what a vast detail of work is involved in the production of the simplest Universal picture you will be amuei. When you see how money has to be poured out in a great steady stream in order that eTery theatre man who shows Universal pictures will have something! to be proud of yov will be appalled at the wonders of it. SEE JUST HOW TH1