Universal Weekly (1920, 1923-27)

40 Universal Weekly October 15, 1927 UNCLE CARL SELLS UNCLE TOM DOWN THE MOVIE RIVER ( Continued from page 15) training camp there before, during and after the World War, was the site selected for the thrilling episode. Thousands of dollars were spent in equipment for the lighting and wind machines. The scenes were shot, but Pollard developed an infected tooth. A bungling dentist broke his jaw trying to fix the aching molar and the director found himself in the hospital for five months. Finally he resigned his job and Lois Weber, one of the few women directors in the business, was brought in to carry on the work. It was no go, however, and she soon resigned. Back on his feet after these months of idleness, Harry Pollard again took up the megaphone and reassembled his cast. Incidentally, several drownings by members of the cast were narrowly averted at Plattsburg, so that when the troupe left that place they all breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief. But that was merely one of the hardluck tales. Before they had arrived at Saranac River, Pollard and the location man had dashed all over the country to find the proper setting for the ice-crossing sequence, only to find that the ice had just melted or some other handicap had appeared to make that particular location impossible. That was just prophetic of difficulties to come. The Silvery Lining Appears AFTER Pollard’s recovery from his fractured jaw, things changed for the better. Four Chambers of Commerce in the South welcomed him and his troupe when they entrained for Southern scenes. There had been a feeling that possibly open hostilities might ensue, or at least a sullen resentment at the taking of any pictures in the Southland, which had been slandered all these years by the plays bom from the novel. The reverse was true; everywhere the finest kind of hospitality greeted them. The luck had really changed at last. They took levee shots and a Mississippi River boat scene at Memphis. Pollard completed his pictures on the Kate Adams, a side-wheeler, and on his return to Hollywood learned the boat had burned down to the water’s edge. He knew then his luck had really changed. From that time on, weather and every other factor favored the completion of the classic. But it was coming to him and Universal after what they had gone through; an excellent illustration of the ever-working law of compensation. Los Angeles is accustomed to the unusual, naturally, because of the moving picture studios located there. Anything that in another city would have the populace craning their necks out of the window is wise-cracked with “Oh, just another movie stunt.” But for the Negro population of the city “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” will always be remembered, because the entire Senegambian colony was engaged in certain sequences. Hundreds of Negro families were hired to work for weeks in many scenes. Thousands and thousands of black extras were used in this way. Figure out their salaries even at the minimum extra wages, add the months of idleness because of Pollard’s illness, $350,000, at a minimum, the countrywide search for locations for such sequences as Eliza crossing the ice, the trip of a company of seventy-five players and other technicians to the Mississippi and elsewhere to take levee and other Southern scenes, forty thousand dollars for the Shelby mansion erected at Universal City, and it is not so difficult even for one lacking an accountant or bookkeeping mind to realize that two million dollars for the total cost of production of this “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” picture is probably a conservative estimate and not a press agent’s cipher-intoxicated brain. While nominally only eight months were spent on technical research for the picture, actually twelve years were taken up with the idea for the picture. Dating back to Pollard’s last appearance as Uncle Tom, and his debut as a director, he has spent his entire directorial life looking toward the picturization on a magnificent scale of the Stowe novel. He gathered data and information until he had acquired twenty-seven huge scrapbooks of material. How successful the years of preparation have proved to be is illustrated by the fact that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has already requested that a print be supplied them for historical reference purposes. If the picture goes over, all the trouble and expense will be forgotten, because the monetary return will be so great that the production cost will be wiped out and a Monte Cristo dividend declared that will have Carl Laemmle declaring like Dumas’s immortal hero, “The World Is Mine.” CARL LAEMMLE BUYS “BROADWAY” ( Continued from page 32) to say the same thing about next year, too. ‘Broadway,’ well done in celluloid, is sufficient in itself to make a big year for the organization producing it.” Of the hundreds of stories in the daily papers we are reprinting Eileen Creelman’s in the New York Sun. “With a positive whoop of glee Universal announces that ‘Broadway’ has been bought,” she reports,. “After months of dickering with everyone in the movie world, Jed Harris at last made up his mind. He has sold ‘Broadway’ to the films, but it took UNIVERSAL OPENS BEAUTIFUL KENOSHA HOUSE ( Continued from page 19) personally selected by Nathan J. Blumberg, general manager of the Milwaukee Theatre Circuit, Inc., of which the Kenosha is a unit. J. W. Houck, widely known among showmen, manages the theatre. An orchestra under the direction of Karl von Hoppe, popular violinist, provides synco-symphonic entertainment with the picture while Ted Stanford, organist, presides at the $40,000 Wurlitzer. This latest home of Universal pictures will feature, beside the Universal product, the cream of all other motion picture productions in addition to five acts of big time vaudeville on Sunday and three acts on weekdays. The bill changes three times weekly, Sunday, Monday and Thursday. The prices are sufficiently low to attract. Weekday matinee prices are 25 cents for adults and 10 cents for children. In the evenings the prices are 40 cents for grownups and 15 cents for children. Saturday nights, Sundays and holidays the prices are 50 cents for adults and 15 cents for children. The house is meeting with the most enthusiastic patronage and approval of Kenosha citizens and broke all records on the opening day. the radiophone to make him do it. “Time and again ‘Broadway’ has been reported sold. Since the play of night-club life in the bootleg era first thrilled New York, Hollywood has been after it. Mr. Harris, content amid his S. R. O. signs, refused to sell. Not yet. Perhaps in 1929. Certainly not until 1929. Perhaps not even in 1929. Hat in hand, money in pockets, the producers stood about. “United Artists almost got it. So did a number of other companies. Mr. Harris, backed by the playwrights, Philip H. Dunning and George Abbott, held fast to his original price, $250,000. “Mr. Laemmle happened to be in Europe at the time, at a banquet of the European Motion Picture Company, held in the Savoy Hotel, London. His home office learned that two other companies had climbed up perilously near Mr. Harris’ price. R. H. Cochrane, vice-president of Universal, gathered about him Jed Harris, Philip Dunning, George Abbott, Crosby Gaige and some lawyers. Then he telephoned across the ocean to Mr. Laemmle for approval. This done, the contracts were drawn here and transmitted to London by radio. These were signed by Mr. Laemmle, Carl Laemmle, Jr., and Sam Harris, and retransmitted by photoradio to Mr. Cochrane. “ ‘Broadway’ will be made for release as a special in 1929.”