When the movies were young (1925)

Mack Sennett Gets Started 79 they'd get! "Oh, dear," they'd howl, "do I have to work with Sennett?" Now 'tis said he is worth five millions ! In "Father Gets in the Game," an early release, Sennett is seen as the gay Parisian papa, the Linder influence plainly in evidence. Mr. Griffith was more than willing, if he could find a good story with a leading comedy part suitable to Mr. Sennett, to let him have his fling. Finally, one such came along — quite legitimate, with plenty of action, called "The Curtain Pole" — venturesome for a comedy, for it was apparent it would exceed the five-hundred-foot limit. It took seven hundred and sixty-five feet of film to put the story over. Released in February, 1909, it created quite a sensation. The natives of Fort Lee, where "The Curtain Pole" was taken, were all worked up over it. Carpenters had been sent over a few days in advance, to erect, in a clearing in the wooded part of Fort Lee, stalls for fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs. The wreckage of these booths by M. Sennett in the guise of M. Dupont was to be the big climax of the picture. The "set" when finished was of such ambitious proportions — and for a comedy, mind you — that we were all terribly excited, and we concluded that while it had taken Mr. Sennett a long time and much coaxing to get himself "starred," it was no slouch of a part he had eventually obtained for himself. I know I was all stirred up, for I was a market woman giving the green cabbages the thrifty stare, when the cab with the curtain pole sticking out four or five feet either side, entered the market-place. M. Dupont, fortified with a couple of absinthe frappes, was trying to manipulate the pole with sufficient abandon to effect the general destruction