Variety (January 1914)

VARIETY 15 SCENARIO BUCCANEERS AVAUNT! OR THE A UTHORS 'LL GIT YER Regular Literary Lights Are Together to Protect Them- selves and Product, London, Beach, Reynolds and Hughes are Members. Scenario buccaneers, avauntl or the newly formed Author's Assurance Association will get you. Jack Lon- don, Rex Beach, Steve Reynolds, Rupert Hughes and a half hundred regular "littery" lions are in the new combine. They want the salaried em- ployes of him companies to stop resur- recting copyrighted authors' material, from magazines, manhandling it, giving it new names and twists, and dodging pay to the original writers or publish- ers. The authors claim the practice be- gan about eight years ago, and has been an economic factor of the scenario departments of most of the big him producers ever since. The association doesn't include the Mutual in its com- plaint. It thinks the Mutual is point- ing the right way to other him con- cerns in signing up a regular staff of well known writers, and in buying out- right the copyrights from publishers and writers to stories already published for translation to hlms. The writers' league speaks wun moderated favor of the Vuagraph com- pany, for its purchase recently of more than a hundred 'back copyrights of magazine stories for him use, but wishes the Vi would sign up a big bunch of authors direct. It offers no record of purchase of any considerable copyrighted material by the Universal, but specifies in be- half of the Mutual that besides sign- ing up a list of authors for future work, that „ that company last week through Frank Woods, scenario editor, purchased outright, paying liberally for same, the complete Action output of the Smart Set, Everybody's, Adventure, Pearson's and Lippincott's for the past several years. The amalgamated authors propose to keep a close eye on all future re- leases of all companies via hlms and advance stories and titles, and wherever their rights are infringed to proceed legally for the operation of the copy- right law defining fine and imprison- ment as punishment for purloiners. Fiction writers' contracts with maga- zine publishers before 1910 gave the publishers sole ownership of the ma- terial, to be disposed of after publica- tion in any manner the publishers might elect. This form of contract forbids suits by authors of work pub- lished before 1910. Since 1910 a new form of contract gives the magazine fiction authors all stage, film and other rights to their stories and confines magazine publishers strictly to the privilege of publishing the fiction. MAYM KHLSO, FILM l>IHF( TOIt. The Mutual is out with the claim of the first woman film director in Maym Kelso, slated by David (iriflith for promotion from him acting ranks to directing for the Mutual. Miss Kelso will be given an assign- ment on her own account within sev- eral weeks. At first it is the Griffith plan to confine his feminine aid's di- rection to solely feminine subjects. Miss Kelso has been three years a filmer. A1ULO JOYCE DISCOVERED. Rialtoites of Broadway, New York, arid Randolph street, Chicago, inter- ested in the whereabouts of Milo Joyce, thespian, who discovered George W. Lederer, will find him on the "preferred" lists of the Mutual Film Co.'s mummers. AKTHUIt SAW YEH LEAVES KIN. Fifteen East 26th street, New York, ic the present address of Arthur H. Sawyer, for the past several years business manager of the Kinemacolor Company. After carefully matured plans for the establishment of a general him busi- ness on his own account, Mr. Sawyer left Kin Jan. 1, following several days' notice of his intention to branch out individually. The Kin board of directors, failing in overtures to have Sawyer reconsider his resignation, elected William H. Hickey (vice-president of the com- pany) general manager of all the Kin interests in this country and abroad, with Albert E. Lowe, his associate. A. P. Bernard, president of Kin, \ romises a bulletin of Kin's expansion plans within the week. "DAMAGED GOODS" FEATURE. A "Damaged Goods' film will be placed on exhibition at Hammerstein's for a run of four weeks. The picture reel is said to have belonged to ex- Comptroller Metz, and was placed for Hammerstein's, according to report, by Walter J. Kingsley. After the Hammerstein showing the film goes to the Bijou, under control of Walter and Jerome Rosenberg. MOVIE MANAGER WEDS. Spokane, Dec. 31. Otto R. Henkel, Pacific coast man- ager for George Klcine, and Harriet McDonald, of Chicago, were married here Chistmas day. Mayor Hindley per- formed the ceremony. The couple will make their home in Seattle. VITAGRAI'H THEATRE. When the Rock-Blackton-Smith near-Brighton faction takes possession of the Criterion theatre in pursuit of the plan to have a house in the thick of New York's show alley for the dis- play of Vi. outputs, the Criterion moiia- kcr will give way to the caption topping this paragraph. BIO. RUNAWAYS CONTINUE. The exodus of big and small film players from the Biograph Co.'s studio in the Bronx to the Union Square film shop of the Mutual Company, follow- ing the lead of David W. Griffith, is assuming the proportions of an evacu- ation. Owen Moore, who left the Biograph for the Griffith forces last Wednesday, was the last reported of a list of run- aways that already includes Blanche Sweet, Lilian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, James Kirkwood (direc- tor), Henry Waltholl, Spottswood Aitken, Christy Cabanne, D. Crisp, Thos. H. Weissman, Earl Fox, Ed- ward Morrisey (director), Edward Dillon (director), Antonio Moreno, and the Bio's Indian standbys, Eagle Eye and Dark Cloud, as well as the Bio's champion rope twirlers, Robt. and Fred Burns. Among film debuts of the week at the Mutual was that of Charles Abbe. POLI BREAKS LINE. Springfield, Dec. 31. On the opening bill of Poli's New Palace here, there was shown a Key- stone feature film, a brand allied with the Mutual coterie. This is the first time Poli has broken into his straight General Film Co. service. G. F. TRADE ORGAN. Chicago, Dec. 31. The long rumored project of the General Film Co. falling in line with a trade organ after the manner of rival syndicates is assuming concrete form. Chester Beecroft, general press agent for the G. F., has been in Chi- cago since Xmas rounding up the western companies. The plan proposes a 60-page weekly, with the costs di- vided among the companies of the combination. TRAIN MOVIES. Daytona, Fla., Dec. 31. Conrad Stubenbord has sold out his moving picture house here and re- turned to Coney Island. Before leav- ing Mr. Stubenboard said he had pro- posals before the Pennsylvania and N. Y. C. R. R. companies for the in- stallation on trains of feature films. SOOTHING THE DEMENTED. Cincinnati, Dec. 31. Moving pictures are to be used as a part of the cure at the Longview In- sane Asylum. There have been sev- eral murders of inmates by their fel- lows, recently. It is thought the mov- ies will tend to quiet the demented in- mates. INNER VESUVIUS FILMED. Professor Mercali, of Naples, reports the filming of the crater of Vesuvius 1,200 feet below the surface, by Fred'k Purlingham, an American newspaper man. If you don't iKlvrrtlHe don't advertise at all. in VAKIKTY. GHETTO VIGILANTES. 25 lower East Side juveniles have I'cen assigned to spy on Ghetto movie houses for violations of the ordinance against admitting unaccompanied minors. The Mother's East Side Pro- tective Association is prosecuting the espial. RUMORS ARE GROUNDLESS. The chatterboxes of Film street, whirring like Dutch windmills since the recent postponement of the start of the Klaw & Erlanger and Biograph combined service to Jan. IS, next, fol- lowing previous delays, got fresh im- petus for sensational speculation last week in the pointed elimination from the General Film's multiple family slate of the Biograph Company. The persistent policy of secrecy maintained by the big affiliation, abetted by a publicity carelessness of the G. F. as informing as the Sphinx helped fan the windmills to a state where eruptive changes in the film game, over night, were freely prophesied. The G. F.'s combination was "bust- ing" up, the Pathe and Vitagraph com- panies, confirming old rumors, would follow the Bio out of the G. F. fold, K. & E. and the Bio were halted in their plans by inability to put across the things they had set out to do, the time had arrived when all the big cir- culating syndicates like the Mutual, the G. F. and the Universal would have to give way to single-handed fights by the individual units of their clusters for survival of the fittest in a market that was at last on the very edge of being really wide open. These and other vapors blew thick along the screen alleys, and were each and severally credited and discredited by film mummers—the least informed of all film elements in their employers' plans—manufacturers, directors and hangers on. The omission of the Bio from the G. F. feature slate merely meant the Bio is storing up its multiple output for the big push off.' The company with K. & E. has been piling up fea- tures in its vaults since the combina- tion went into effect last summer. The coalition has already about 35 big fea- tures, costing from $10,000 or more each to produce, and that the original plan of supplying about 1,000 theatres with a feature multiple and comple- mentary reels for programs, working on a 16-wheel process is to be carried out. CAUGHT WITH THE GOODS. William A. Howell, best known in the Harlem neighborhood through his stock connections there, and who of late has been working for a photoplay company, was arrested Christmas Eve on a charge of shoplifting in one of the 125th street department stores. Howell was sent to jail unable to furnish $500 bail. When arrested he had about $13 worth of articles on his person and was unable to give a satis- factory explanation why they were there. A woman store detective caused the arrest. A JESTER'S SOLILOQUY. By DARL MaoBOYl/K. "Each to his talk!" 'Twaa winoly snlil. A fool by trade am J. To paint a irnlle upon each face, A twinkle In each eye la tho goal for which I aim That an>t nothing more. I boast not of an Inner self. Nor prato of migely lor.', liut tlx-ro llvn Borrm-that do. And I. If they count mirth worth while. Am will repaid. If th«y, to me, Ar<- debtor for a xmlle. I <l'»n my cap and h. II* and daro To look them In the eye. A conscience clear Ih all ] have. A fool hy trade am T