I LIBRARY
iseum of Modern Art
Scanned from the collection of
The Museum of Modern Art Library
Coordinated by the
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
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"10 Days in Jail"
Do not miss Bebe Daniels' J^l This own story of her trial.
It's a scream ! lSSUe
Served Perfectly ! How it is done with America's Favorite Beverage
With a deft, sure hand he adds the tee-cold, sparkling water. It looks for an instant as though the glass would overflow, but it doesn't. The amount is five ounces — exactly the right proportion.
You may take up a bit of the proportion of water with ice, as a small cube or crushed. Stir with
a spoon.
4*
You meet few men with skill like that of the soda fountain expert. He takes a six-ounce glass and draws just one ounce of Coca-Cola syrup — the pre- cise base for the best drink — service that eliminates waste.
Take a six-ounce glass, not a larger or a smaller one.
<*"
One press on the syrup syphon, with the soda man's sense of touch for exact measurements, gives one ounce of Coca-Cola syrup — you know just where it should come to in the glass to be precisely the right amount.
Pull the silver faucet for five ounces of pure, ice-cold carbonated water — with the one ounce of syrup, this quantity fills the glass.
Drink
Done quickly? You bet. The rising bubbles just have time to come to a bead that all but o'er- tops the brim as the glass is passed over the marble fountain for the first delicious and refresh-
ing sip.
A*
That's the soda fountain recipe for the perfect drink, perfectly served. Coca-Cola is easily served perfectly because Coca- Cola syrup is prepared with the finished art that comes from the practice of a lifetime. Good things of nine sunny climes, nine different countries, are properly combined in every ounce.
It has all been done in flashes. The glass is before you before there is time for con- sciouswaiting. Thirst is answered by the expert with Coca-Cola in its highest degree of deliciousness and refreshingness.
Guard against the natural mis- takes of too much syrup and too large a glass. Any variation from the ratio of one ounce of syrup to five ounces of water, and some- thing of the rare quality of Coca- Cola is lost; you don't get Coca- Cola at the top of its flavor and at its highest appeal.
Coca-Cola is sold everywhere with universal popularity, be- cause perfect service and not variations is a soda fountain rule.
DELICIOUS and REFRESHING
THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, ATLANTA, GA.
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
£^T
J
r
0M
J^ CIGARETTES
"S7noke Omar for Jroma
^L
n
X
The same thing you look for in a cup of fine coffee — AROMA— is what made OMAR such a bio success. OMAR is as enjoyable as a cup of fine coffee.
$12,000,000 of OMAR AROAAA en- joyed last year (and still growing)
Aroma makes a cigarette — they Ve told you that for years
When you write to advertisers please mention PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE.
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
hen there's nobody home but the cat
There's a Paramount Pic- ture at the theatre, and puss is welcome to the most comfort- able chair.
A cat may be content with dream pictures in the firelight, but humans know where there's something better.
What a wonderful spell Para- mount Picture's exercise over people's imaginations, to empty so many thousands of homes in every State every day for two hours !
And to empty them for a beneficial purpose! Tonic for spirit and body!
For you get the best in Para- mount Pictures
— the best in story, because the greatest dramatists of Europe and America are writ- ing for Paramount.
The best in direction, because the finest directing talent is attracted by Paramount's un- equalled equipment to enable it to carry out its audacious plans.
The best in acting talent, be- cause Paramount gives histri- onic genius a chance to reach millions instead of thousands.
The modern motion picture industry is the shrewdest blend- ing of romance with business that the world has ever seen. At least five million people in U. S. A. every day rely on Paramount Pictures to satisfy their urgent need of entertain- ment.
Figure this, over a whole year, in terms of either finance or entertain- ment, and you begin to see what a striking achievement it is to lead this industry.
Two- thirds of all the theatres show Paramount Pictures as the main part of their programs, and that's why those theatres are the best, each in its locality.
For a great theatre is nothing but a triumph of architecture until the latest Paramount Picture arrives,
— and then,
— why, then, there's nobody home but the cat! Because that theatre is the home of the best show in town.
Thomas Meighan in
"The City of Silent Men"
From John A. Moroso's story
"The Quarry.".
Cosmopolitan production
"Proxies"
From the story by Frank R.
Dorothy Dalton in
"The Idol of the North"
by J. Clarkson Miller.
Paramount Super
Special Production
"Deception." Sydney Chaplin in "King, Queen, Joker" Written and directed by the famous comedian. Lois Weber's production "Too Wise Wives" An intimate study of a universal problem. Elsie Ferguson in "Sacred and Profane Love" William D. Taylor's Production of Arnold Bennett's play in which Miss Ferguson ap- peared on the stage. Sir James M. Barrie's "Sentimental Tommy" Directed by John S. Robertson. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in "The Traveling Salesman" A screamingly funny presentation of James Forbes' popular farce. Cosmopolitan production "The Wild Goose" By Gouverneur Morris. Thomas Meighan in "White and Unmarried" A whimsical, romantic comedy by John D. Swain. "Appearances," by Edward Knoblock
A Donald Crisp production.
Made in England. With David Powell.
Thomas H. Ince Special
"The Bronze Bell"
By Louis Joseph Vance
A thrilling melodrama on a gigantic
scale.
Douglas MacLean in "One a Minute"
Thos. H. Ince production of
Fred Jackson's famous stage farce.
Ethel Clayton in "Sham"
By Elmer Harris andGeraldine Bonner.
George Melford's production
"A Wise Fool"
By Sir Gilbert Parker
A drama of the northwest, by the author
and director of "Behold My Wife!"
Cosmopolitan Production
"The Woman God Changed"
By Donn Byrne.
Wallace Reid in "Too Much Speed"
The ever popular star in another
comedy novelty by Byron Morgan.
"The Mystery Road"
A British production with
David Powell
From E. Phillips Oppenheim's novel.
William A. Brady's production "Life"
By Thompson Buchanan From the melodrama which ran a year
at the Manhattan Opera House.
Dorothy Dalton in "Behind Masks"
An adaptation of the famous novel by
E. Phillips Oppenheim
"Jeanne of the Marshes."
Gloria Swanson in Elinor Glyn's
"The Great Moment"
Specially written for the star by the
author of "Three Weeks." WilliamdeMilleVThe Lost Romance ' By Edward Knoblock.
(paramount ^pictures
Every advertisement in PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE is guaranteed.
MUI^^n
The World's Leading Motion Picture Publication
PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE
JAMES R. QUIRK, Editor
Vol. XX
No. 2
Contents
July, 1 92 1
Cover Design Gloria Swanson
From a Pastel Portrait by Rolf Armstrong. Rotogravure: 11
Mary Thurman May Collins
Claire Windsor Blanche Sweet
Bebe Daniels Florence Vidor
Lionel Barrymore
The Land of Might-Have-Been Editorial 19
Elinor— The Tiger Drawing by Ralph Barton 20
A Specimen of Reincarnation, Featuring Miss Glyn.
Is Marriage a Bunco Game? Hot Shots from a Famous Author.
A Hoot for Haughty Landlords
Elsie Ferguson and Her Portable Chateau.
Messrs. Chaney
An Interview with a Great Character Actor.
She Laughed 'Til She Cried
Marie Prevost Has Smiled Out of Comedies.
Page Mr. Volstead!
A Little Dry Humor from Cellars of Filmland.
Rupert Hughes 21
May Stanley
Joan Jordan
(Photographs)
24
25
26
28
(Contents continued on next page)
Editorial Offices, 25 W. 45th St., New York City
Published monthly by the Photoplay Publishing Co., 350 N. Clark St., Chicago, 111.
Edwin M. Colvtn, Pres. James R. Quirk, Vice-Pres. R. M. Eastman, Sec.-Treas.
Yearly Subscription: $2.50 in the United States, its dependencies, Mexico and Cuba; $3.00 Canada; $3.50 to foreign countries. Remittances should be made by check, or postal or express money order. Caution — Do not subscribe through persons unknown to you. Entered as second-class matter April 24, 1912, at the Postofnce at Chlcaec 111., under the Act ol March 3. 1879.
Photoplays Reviewed
in the Shadow Stage
This Issue
Save this magazine — refer to the criticisms before you pick out your evening's entertainment. Make this your reference list.
Page 57
Bob Hampton of Placer Neilan
Deception Paramount-Artcraft
Page 58
Dream Street United Artists
Sacred and Profane Love
Paramount-Artcraft
Sentimental Tommy
Paramount-Artcraft
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. . . .
Goldwyn
Page 59
Peck's Bad Boy First National
Made in Heaven Goldwyn
Hush Equity
Page 60
The Sky Pilot First National
Chickens. . Thos. H. Ince-Paramount The Queen of Sheba Fox
Page 68
The Passion Flower . .First National The Charming Deceiver . .Yitagraph What Happened to Rosa. . Goldwyn The Perfect Crime .Associated Prod. The Travelling Salesman Paramount
His Greatest Sacrifice Fox
Mother Eternal Abramson
Hands Off Fox
The Whistle Paramount
Roads of Destiny Goldwyn
The Lamp Lighter. Fox
The Dangerous Moment . .Universal
The Tom Boy Fox
The Freeze-Out Universal
Ducks and Drakes Realart
The Heart of Maryland. . Yitagraph Desperate Youth Universal
Page 102
What's Your Reputation Worth?
Vitagraph
The Plaything of Broadway. Realart
Copyrizht. 1921. by the PHOTOPLAY PUBLISHING COMPANY, Chicago.
Contents — Continued
Photoplay Magazine's Gold Medal
Announcement and Second Voting Coupon.
The Photograph (Fiction)
A Contest Story with Strong Dramatic Interest.
Illustrated by T. D. Skidmore
Cornered! (Photograph)
Madge Kennedy, Now Visiting Behind the Footlights.
Mary Got Her Hair Wet Adela Rogers St. Johns
How Mary Thurman Discovered Her New Coiffure
Decorations by Ralph Barton
The House That Jokes Built Will Rogers
Will and the Architect Didn't Get Along.
The Lost Romance — (Fiction) Gene Sheridan
Told from the Photoplay.
Fashions Carolyn Van Wyck
Up-to-the-Minute Information.
Canterbury, Prussia
The Past and Future as Filmed in Germany.
Mother o' Mine
Charlie Chaplin's Reunion with His Mother.
29
W. Townend 30
33
34
36
38
42
(Photographs)
Joan Jordan
(Photographs)
"On Your Left, the Home of May Allison!'
A Star's Home, Inside and Out.
The Proper Abandon (Fiction) Barker Shelton
Romance on the City Streets. Illustrated by May Wilson Preston
West is East Delight Evans
Meeting Douglas McLean and Colleen Moore.
563^ Miles an Hour Bebe Daniels
When an Actress Was Jailed for Speeding
Close-Ups Editorial Comment
The Shadow Stage Burns Mantle
Reviews of the New Pictures.
"Jam Tomorrow — No Jam Today!" John G. Holme
Summary of a Fight Against Spurious Film Promoters.
Filming Lady Godiva's Ride
Drawing.
Questions and Answers
A "Peach" Column
Discovered on the Map of the U. S.
Oh, Yes, I Do Remember!
Verse
Plays and Players
News and Comment from the Studios.
Why Do They Do It?
Comment by the Movie-Goers.
Miss Van Wyck Says:
Answers to Fashion Correspondents.
Showing Them to the Indians Movies on Wheels.
The Answer Man J. R. O'Neill
Jordan Robinson
Cal. York
44
45
46
48
51
52
55 57
61
Norman Anthony 62
71
71
72 74 85 86 86
Addresses of the leading motion picture studios will be found on Page 8.
Paying Off
Tour Debt
of Gratitude
FIVE minutes' time and your obliga- tion to the producer of the best photoplay of 1920 is cleared.
Perhaps you have wished for some ade- quate method of ex- pressing your thanks to the maker of that photoplay which most pleased you.
Here is that way. On page 29 is an announcement of the details of
Photoplay
Magazines
Medal of
Honor
to be awarded to the pro- ducer whose vision, faith and organization made the Best Photoplay possible. You are to be judge.
Read Page 29 — Then Send in Your Vote !
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
111*4
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6-Day Free Trial — Easy Terms
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NEW Own Make Mandolin Banjo Designed for Jazz Instantly a favorite with Orchestra Players because of its Great Volume, Sape- riorTone, Perfect Scale and Easy Action.
rnardo De Pace, the World's Famous Man- dolin Virtuoso, says: "The scientific methods of the Master Violin Builder, as evidenced by the gradu- ated Top and Back, Com- pensating Bridge and Tail- piece, render your Own MakeMandolin acoustically perfect. Its wonderful tone and flawless scale make it The Supreme Mandolin.'*
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Name
When you write to advertisers please mention PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE.
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
GNfiRMA TALMADGE
"who is now -working on her next picture,
ct
^generation Isle
>>
w
HEN you see a First National trademark on the screen, you know that it stands not only for fascinating entertainment, but the highest quality in production.
This is because First National pictures are made by independent artists in their own studios — stars and producers who have no other aim in view than to present pictures of the highest artistry and entertainment value. Unhampered by outside influences, they are free to carry out their highest ideals.
Associated First National Pictures, Inc., is a nation wide organization of independent theatre owners who are banded together to foster the production of more artistic pictures and who are striving for the constant betterment of screen entertainment.
First National accepts for exhibition purposes the work of independent artists strictly on its merit as the best in screen entertainment.
cAssociated First ^Ngtional Pictures, Inc.
FIRST NATIONAL PICTURES
oAsk Your Theatre Owner If He Has a First National Franchise
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Studio Directory
For the convenience of our readers who may desire the addresses of film companies we give the principal active ones below. The first is the business office; (s) indicates a studio; in some cases both are at one address.
ASSOCIATED PRODUCERS, INC..
729 Seventh Ave., N. Y.
(s) Maurice Tourneur, Culver City, Cal. (s) Thos. H. Incc, Culver City, Cal.
J. Parker Read, Jr., Ince Studios, Cul- ver City, Cal. (s) Mack Sennett, Edendaje, Cal. (s) Marshall Neilan, Hollywood Studios, 6642 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Cal. (s) Allan Dwan, Hollywood Studios, 6642 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Cal. (s) Geo. Loane Tucker, Brunton Studios,
Hollywood, Cal. King Vidor Productions, 7200 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Cal. BLACKTON PRODUCTIONS, INC., Bush
House, Aldwych, Strand, London, England. ROBERT BRUNTON STUDIOS, 5300 Melrose
Ave., Hollywood, Cal. CHRISTIE FILM CORP., 6101 Sunset Blvd.,
Hollywood, Cal. EDUCATIONAL FILMS CORP., of America.
370 Seventh Ave., N. Y. C. FIRST NATIONAL EXHIBITORS' CIRCUIT, INC., 6 West 48th St., New York; R. A. Walsh Prod.,
5341 Melrose Ave., Hollywood, Cal. Mr. and Mrs. Carter De Haven. Prod.,
Louis B. Mayer Studios, L. A. Anita Stewart Co., 3800 Mission Road,
Los Angeles, Cal. Louis B. Mayer Productions, 3800 Mission
Road, Los Angeles Cal. Norma and Constance Talmadge Studio,
318 East 48th St., New York. Katherine MacDonald Productions, Georgia and Girard Sts., Los Angeles, Cal. David M. Hartford, Prod.,
3274 West 6th St., Los Angeles, Cal. Hope Hampton, Prod., Peerless Studios, Fort Lee, N. J. (s) Chas. Ray, 1428 Fleming St., Los Angeles. FOX FILM CORP., (s) 10th Ave. and 55th St., New York; (s) 1401 Western Ave., Hollywood, Cal. GARSON STUDIOS, INC., 1845 Alessandro St.,
Edendale, Cal. GOLDWYN FILM CORP., 469 Fifth Ave., New
York; (s) Culver City, Cal. HAMPTON, JESSE B., STUDIOS, 1425 Flem- ing St., Hollywood, Cal. (s) HART, WM. S. PRODUCTIONS, 1215
Bates St.. Hollywood, Cal. HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS, 6642 Santa Monica
Blvd., Hollywood, Cal. INTERNATIONAL FILMS, INC., 729 Seventh Ave., N. Y. C. (s) Second Ave. and 127th St., N. Y. METRO PICTURES CORP., 1476 Broadway, New York; (s) 3 West 61st St., New York, and 1025 Lillian Way, Hollywood, Cal. PARAMOUNT ARTCRAFT CORPORATION, 485 Fifth Ave., New York.
Famous Plavers Studio, Pierce Ave. and
6th St., Long Island City, N. Y. Lasky Studio, Hollywood, Cal. PATHE EXCHANGE, Pathe Bldg., 35 W. 45th
St., New York. REALART PICTURES CORPORATION. 469 Fifth Ave., New York; (s) 211 Nortli Occi- dental Blvd., Los Angeles, Cal. ROBERTSON-COLE PRODUCTIONS. 723 Seventh Ave., New York; Currier Bldg., Los Angeles; (s) corner Gower and Melrose Sts., Hollywood, Cal. ROTHACKER FILM MFG. CO., 1339 Diversey
Parkway, Chicago, 111. SELZNICK PICTURES CORP., 729 Seventh Ave., New York; (s) 807 East 175th St., New York, and West Fort Lee, N. J. UNITED ARTISTS CORPORATION, 729 Seventh Ave., New York.
Mary Pickford Co.. Brunton Studios, Hollywood, Cal.; Douglas Fairbanks Studios, Hollywood, Cal.; Charles Chaplin Studios, 1416 LaBrea Ave.; Hollywood,
Cal. D. W. Griffith Studios, Orienta Point, Mamaroneck, N. Y. UNIVERSAL FILM MFG. CO., 1600 Broad- way, New York; (s) Universal City, Cal. VITAGRAPH COMPANY OF AMERICA, 1600 Broadway, New York; (s) East 15th St. and Locust Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y., and 1708 Talmadge St., Hollywood, Cal.
Every advertisement in PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE is guaranteed.
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
HELENE CHADWKX - CLARA WILLIAMS - LOUISE FA2ENDA - RUTH ROLAND - RUTH STONEHOUSE • MAY ALLISON
In "The Wonder Book for Writers," which we will send to you ABSOLUTELY FREE, these famous Movie Stars point out the easiest way to turn your ideas into stories and photoplays and become a successful writer.
Millions of People Can Write Stories and Photoplays and
Dorit Know It/
THIS is the startling assertion re- cently made by one of the highest paid writers in the world. Is his astonishing statement true? Can it be possible there are countless thou- sands of people yearning to write, who really can and simply haven't found it out? Well, come to think of it, most anybody can tell a story. Why can't most anybody write a story? Why is writing supposed to be a rare gift that few possess? Isn't this only another of the Mistaken Ideas the past has handed down to us? Yesterday nobody dreamed man could fly. To-day he dives like a swallow ten thousand feet above the earth and laughs down at the tiny mortal atoms of his fellow-men below! So Yester- day's "impossibil- ity" is a reality to- day.
''The time will come," writes the same authority, "when mil- lions of people will be writers — there will be countless thousands of playwrights, novelists, scenario, magazine and newspaper writers — they are coming, com- ing— a whole new world of them!" And do you know what these writ- ers-to-be are doing now? Why, they are the men — armies of them — young and old. now doing mere clerical work in offices, keep- ing books, selling mer- chandise, or even driv- ing trucks, running ele- vators, street cars, waiting on tables, work- ing at barber chairs. following the plow, or teaching schools in the rural districts; and women, young and old. by scores, now pound- ing typewriters, or standing behind coun- ters, or running spin- dles in factories, bend- ing over sewing ma-
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"I can only say that I am amazed that it is possible to set forth the principles of short story and photo- play writing in such a clear, concise manner" — GORDON MATHEWS, Momiiui., Cam.
"I received your Irving System some time ago. ft is the most re- markable thing I have ever seen Mr. Irving certainly lias made story and plav writing amaiingly simple and easv."— ALFRED HORTO, Niagara FaLLS, N . Y.
"Of all the compositions I have read on this subject, I find yours the most helpful to aspiring au- thors."—HAZEL SIMPSON NAY- LOR. Litebabv EorToE, Motion Pictube Magazine.
"With fhis volume before him, the veriest novice should be able to build stories or photoplavs that will find a ready market. The best treatise of its kind I have encoun- tered in 24 years of newspaper and literary work." — H . PIERCE WELLER, Managing Eoitob, The Blnguaufton Pblss.
"When I first saw your ad I was working in a shop for S30 a week. Always having worked with mv hands. I doubted my ability to make money with my brain So it was with much skepticism that I aent for your Easv Method of Writ- ing. When the System arrived. I carefully studied it evenings after work. Within a month I had com- pleted two plays, one of which sold for $500, the other for (450. I un- hesitatingly say that I owe it all to the Irvine System." — HELEN KINDON. Atlantic Cm. N J.
chines, or doing housework. Yes — you may laugh — but these are The Writers of Tomorrow.
For writing isn't only for geniuses as most people think. Don' I you believe the Creator gave you a story- ivriting faculty just as He did the greatest writer' Only maybe you are simply "bluffed" by the thought that you "haven't the gift." Many people are simply afraid to try. Or if they do try. and their first efforts don't satisfy, they simply give up in despair, and that ends it. They're through. They never try again. Yet if, by some lucky chance, they had first learned the simple rules of writing, and then given the imagination free rein, they might have astonished the world!
BUT two things are essential in order to become a writer. First, to learn the ordinary principles of writing. Second, to learn to exercise your faculty of Thinking. By exercising a thing you develop it. Your Imagination is something like your right arm. The more you use it the stronger it gets. The principles of writing are no more complex than the principles of spelling, arithmetic, or any other simple thing that anybody knows. Writers learn to piece together a story as easily as a child sets up a miniature house with his toy blocks. It is amaz- ingly easy after the mind grasps the simple "know how." A little study, a little patience, a little con- fidence, and the thing that looks hard often turns out to be just as easy as it seemed difficult.
Thousands of people imagine they need a fine education in order to write. Nothing is farther from the truth. Many of the greatest writers were the poorest scholars. People rarely learn to write at schools. They may get the principles there, but they really learn to write from the great, wide, open, bound- less Book of Humanity! Yes, seething all around you. every day, every hour, every minute, in the whirling vortex — the flotsam and jetsam of Life — even in your own home, at work or play, are endless incidents for stories and plays — a wealth of material, a world of things happening. Every one of these has the seed of a story or play in it. Think! If you went to a fire, or saw an accident, you could come home and tell the folks all about it. Unconsciously ymi would describe it all very realistically. And if somebody stood by and wrote down exactly what you said, you might be amazed to find your story would sound just as interesting as many you've read in magazines or seen on the screen. Now. you will naturally say, "Well, if Writing is as simple as you say it is, why can't / learn to write?" Who says you can't?
LISTEN! A wonderful FREE book has recently j been written on this very subject — a book that tells all about the Irving System — a Startling New Easy Method of Writing Stories and Photo- plays. This amazing book, called "The Wonder Book for Writers," shows how easily stories and plays are conceived, written, perfected, sold. How many who don't dream they can write, suddenly find it out. How the Scenario Kings and the Story Queens live and work. How bright men and women, without any special experience, learn to their own amazement that their simplest Ideas may furnish brilliant plots for Plays and Stories. How one's own Imagination
may provide an endless gold-mine of Ideas that bring Happy Success and Handsome Cash Royalties. How new writers get their names into print. How to tell if you ARE a writer. How to develop your "story fancy," weave clever word-pictures and unique, thrilling, realistic plots. How your friends may be your worst judges. How to avoid discouragement and the pitfalls of Failure. How to II7.Y.'
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IO
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
"She had longed to be suc- cessful, gay, triumphant'''
ARE you having the good times other ■ girls have? Or when you come home from the party where you longed to be successful, gay, triumphant — do you suffer from a feeling of disappoint- ment— defeat?
Many a girl is made awkward and self-conscious merely through the knowl- edge that she has an unattractive com- plexion— that her skin is spoiled by blackheads or ugly little blemishes — is dull and colorless, or coarse in texture.
Yet with the right care you can change any of these conditions. As a matter of fact, your skin changes in spite of you — each day old skin dies and new takes its place- By using the right treatment you can give this new skin the clear smoothness and lovely fresh color you have always longed for.
What is the matter with your skin?
Perhaps your skin is spoiled by that most distressing trouble — the continual breaking out of ugly little blemishes.
To free your skin from blemishes, begin, tonight, to use this treatment:
Just before you go to bed, wash in the usual way with Woodbury's Facial Soap and warm water, finishing vJith a dash of cold water. Then dip the tips of your fingers in warm water and rub them on thecake of Woodbury's until they are covered with a heavy cream- like lather. Cover each blemish with
When failure
hurts the most
a thick coat of this and leave it on for ten minutes. Then rinse very care- fully, first with clear hot water, then with cold.
Supplement this treatment with the regular use of Woodbury's Facial Soap in your daily toilet. This will help to keep the neiv skin that is constantly form- ing free from blemishes.
How you can tell that your skin is responding
The very first time you use this treat- ment it will leave your skin with a slightly drawn, tight feeling. Do not regard this as a disadvantage — it is an indication that the treatment is doing you good, for it means that your skin is responding in the right ivay to a more thorough and stimulating kind of cleans- ing. After one or two treatments this drawn feeling will disappear, and your skin will gain a new clearness and loveliness.
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Get a cake of Woodbury's today, at any drugstore or toilet goods counter — begin tonight the treatment your skin needs. Within a week or ten days you
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Send 25 cents for a dainty miniature set of the Woodbury skin preparations, containing the treatment booklet, "A Skin You Love to Touch;" atrial size cake of Woodbury's Facial Soap; and samples of the new Woodbury Facial Cream, Woodbury's Cold Cream, and Facial Powder. Address The Andrew Jergens Co., 507 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. If you live in Canada, address The Andrew Jergens Co., Limited, 507 Sherbrooke Street, Perth, Ontario.
Copyright, 1921, by The Andrew Jergeni Co.
Every advertisement in PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE Ls guaranteed.
Alfred Cheney Johnston
XJERE in the glitt 'ring panoply of war — at least, that's what we take the costume ■■■ A for — comes Mary Thurman, fair as any flow'r, princess of many a gilded glorious hour. (Tis plain to see that Mary's nose is moulded for a profile pose.)
Alfred Cheney Johnston
A NOTHER blonde we introduce to fame, with eyes as blue as yon cerulean sky. •*"*• Claire Windsor is the maiden's name; you'll hear more of her, bye-and-bye. (And we're informed just on the quiet, the hair is true; she doesn't dye it.)
Alfred Cheney Johnston
^ANST hear the strumming of the sweet guitar? Canst gaze into her limpid ^* eyes? Canst measure all the swains' sad sighs? Ah, Bebe, what a minx you are! (But though her ways are proper, from making eyes, no one can stop her.)
Alfred Cheney Johnston
"QARRYMORE! A name to conjure with as well. This one of the family's Lionel. Sturdy and stern as he appears, he's skilled for laughter as for tears. (The picture's good; but for the verse, it scarcely could be any worse.)
Alfred Cheney Johnston
A YE, Prince, Youth must be served as well. So look upon the portrait, this young ■**■ face. May Collins, cast this way the spell of thy fresh beauty and thy grace. (They make us think of rare red roses, these shy and wide-eyed girlish poses.)
Alfred Cheney Johnston
wg&sBHStffiSEHS?*5
Alfred Cheney Johnston
r\R, FLORENCE VIDOR, tell me, pray, why do you look so stern today? Why ^^ don't you fetch your charming laugh when you sit for your photograph? (Oh, Florence Vidor, do be good, and smile the way you know you should!)
rAJt
rfJSXIJ
tllllT WTIJI7J -wiijijm yjjj/jj *W1
This dainty little dress had been worn and washed 52 times before this picture was taken!
IF you saw this dress you probably would say that it couldn't be washed — its French organdy is so sheer and its wool embroidery is in such delicate shades of rose, lavender, green, blue and yellow.
But the mother who bought it for her little girl has washed it fifty-two times with Ivory Flakes, and everybody thinks it is brand new. Its lovely green is as bright as ever — not a bit of color has run from the dainty wool flowers or from the black yarn button-holing that trims sleeves and neck — not a thread is broken.
Such records are the usual — not the unusual — thing with Ivory Flakes. It is so remarkably and uniformly safe because it is simply the flaked form of genuine Ivory Soap, the same soap that has been proving for forty-two years that it does not harm any fabric that water alone does not harm.
A package of Ivory Flakes and your bathroom washbowl are all you need to keep your pretty clothes and your children's garments fresh and lovely. Try it and see how it prolongs their beauty.
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Makes pretty clothes last longer
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IF "\.W\\YW IWWlf 1UIUT \Y\AY\W 'WJTTJJ-* ,. ,*?T7T7rwTi^JZJt~Yl
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cUhe World's Leading, Moving, (Pidlure Q^lagazine
PHOTOPLAY
Vol. xx July, 1921 No. 2
The Land of Might -Have -Been
EVERY boy and girl believes implicitly in a splendid destiny. He is sure of vast accomplishment, of power, of fame. She is sure of changeless admiration, of luxury, of perfect love.
As the spring of youth ripens into adult summer these dreams are blurred, one by one; each day, somehow, the end of the rainbow seems farther away.
But it is the nature of hope to endure through changing its form. Success lies always in the magic palm of tomorrow; tonight may be silent, but the trumpet of triumph will ring in the morning; sudden fortune will vanquish the infirmity of advancing years. And at the last we look to our children to perform the tasks and reap the rewards in the performing and reaping of which we, somehow, have failed.
The historians of art, strangely enough, have seldom seen it as the vicarious triumphs of personal failure. The chroniclers tell us that the caveman celebrated his huntings and his conquests in those vaunting pictures drawn in chalk upon the walls of his rocky den. But is it not as likely that those great kills are the kills he wished to make — and, somehow, didn't; that the victories are victories of which he dreamed — but which were only partially turned into conquering fact?
The sculptors of Greece left in their marble women a perfect beauty which was probably a collection of attributes, and not the glory of any single female. The painters of the Renaissance embalmed the splendors of their kindling age, but not its ignorance, its uucleanness. The Romance was born to perpetuate the loves and prowesses of Knights as they should have been — and weren't.
To increasing millions the Photoplay is the Youthful Vision, glorified. The witch-doctors in the state-houses talk of it as adolescent philandering — it is no such thing! It is the clearing of bright love for the woman who has some- how lost her way in a forest of work and graying hair and worrying children. It is that fine triumph for the father, who, somehow, missed his millions in trying to pay off the thousand-dollar mortgage. It is the thrill of action for the old man whose muscles atrophied at a desk. It is peace for the lonely wanderer who has lost his own in too stem search for it.
The Photoplay is pre-eminently the Land of Might* Have-Been.
I
ELINOR — the Tiger
BELIEVE," affirms Mrs. Glyn, architect of "Three Weeks,' "that in some previous incarnation each of our souls dwelt in the body of an animal." Mr. Barton, a-sketching along pepper-shaded Hollywood Bou- levard, accordingly ranged into prehistoric time and caught this flaming Titian spirit when she was a little Royal Bengal. Mr. Barton, by the way, is now art-director for Rex Ingram, who recently and with great success tamed not only four wild horses, but an apocalypse. In the smaller picture Mr. Ingram— standing— and Mr. Barton are designing a new production. The hand on Mr. Barton s left arm belongs to Alice Terry.
Is Marriage a Bunco Game?
Do you agree with Mr. Hughes that
Courtship is a boomerang? Wedding is an illusion? Life long devotion a joke?
and that If a man has a wife he doesn' like, he should get rid of her as soon as possible?
As explained by
Rupert Hughes,
to Adela Rogers St. Johns
Illustrated by stills from Mr Hughes' original
photoplay, "Dangerous Curves Ahead, ' to
he released by Goldwyn in the fail.
M
ARRIAGE is the greatest bunco game in the world."
There are very few people who have the courage to tell the truth — or what they be- lieve to be the truth — about anything, much less mar- riage.
Rupert Hughes is one of them.
The fact that his keen sense of humor usually leads him to be light, witty, face- tious about it, doesn't pre- vent him from voicing strange, fundamental ideas without fear or favor.
It is the generally ac- cepted theory that the less said seriously about the in- stitution of modern, mo- nogamous marriage, the better.
Nevertheless, "Mar- riage," says Rupert Hughes, 'is the greatest bunco game in the world."
And he says it, dog-on him. in black and white.
It is a sub-title in his new picture "Dangerous Curves
Ahead." just completed on the Goldwyn lot, where Mr. Hughes is now a member of the group of E. A's (Eminent Authors). The picture deals with married life "as is," and since it comes from the pen of the man who wrote "The 13th Commandment" and "We Can't Have Everything" it is bound to receive at least respectful consideration from the public. And it is there that the above dynamic phrase appears.
We lunched together in the Goldwyn cafeteria — you always have to lunch with these people if you're ever to see them off a set — and I asked him to explain to me just what he meant. I agreed with him, but I wondered if he meant what I meant.
He is a fascinating man to listen to — this famous novelist. I think I have never met a man who so thoroughly enjoyed talk- ing and it's so refreshing nowadays to meet anyone who has any enthusiasm about anything. If he were less interesting, if he had less vital and thrilling things to say, he would be over- powering, eventually tiresome, because human beings, even interviewers, have only a certain capacity for listening. As it is, he holds you alert every moment, afraid that he will stop, hoping each time he touches a new theme that he will elaborate it fully. What he says is always so unusual, so brilliant, so mirth-provoking, and very often so deep that you have to put on your mental diving clothes to follow.
Rupert Hughes is a novelist, photoplaywright, musician and
composer. A camera-man caught him as he was improvising
piano on a Goldwyn stage during the filming of
gerous Curves Ahead.
at tt
He is the only person I have ever interviewed where my part in the ordeal con- sisted of "How-do-you-do" and "Thank you— good-by." He needs no promptings, no coaxings, no guiding hand. He is a thinker — a man ac- customed to thoroughly digesting a subject. He speaks from his thoughts, never from his emotions, and a remarkable, intense study of history and life gives him a background filled with incident, color, and experience.
A small man, rather in- clined to plumpness, but of distinguished appearance, nevertheless. Around, gen- ial, sympathetic face, with black, snapping eyes indica- tive of his stupendous men- tal activity, a strong, dogged jaw, almost obstinate, and a kindly, humorous, human mouth.
"There isn't anything in the world, " began Rupert H u ghes, i n a clear voice that clips each word very de- cisively, "about which so much is thought, said, and written as marriage. Everybody is married, has been married, or is in danger of getting married. Besides, it is far from being a sex problem alone. It is social, economic, political. It is so important that Bernard Shaw once said of it, 'There is no shirking it; if marriage cannot 1 c made to produce something better than we are. marriage will have to go, or else the nation will have to go.' (Of course hi was talking about England.)
"Now in the first place, let us discuss facts, not opinions, nr emotions, nor philosophies. I know of nothing which the average man or woman meets so seldom as a fact.
"For instance, one of the logical facts of marriage is that il a man has a wife he doesn't like, he should get rid of her as soon as he possibly can.
"If a man gets a cinder in his eye, he takes it out, or gets somebody to take it out for him, because it annoys and pains him and interferes with his business in life. He doesn't go about holding on to it and saying, 'God put this cinder in my eye, therefore I must let it remain there.' Or. if he asks a friend to take it out, the friend doesn't throw up his hands in horror and say 'This cinder and this eye which God hath joined let no man put asunder,' or words to that effect.
"Yet that's the kind of bunco that marriage is full of.
Dan-
22
Photoplay Magazine
"It's a bunco game from its very beginning — the courtship.
"Sanely considered, do you know of any other one thing that contains so much pure bunk as courtship? I don't.
"Two human beings, who are about to enter into a contract to spend all the rest of their earthly lives together, to eat, sleep, work, play, suffer, enjoy, as one — go through days, weeks, months, years of systematic and elaborate deception, with the prime object of fooling each other. Like a couple of crooked horse traders, they deliberately set about to display only their best gaits and coats, chuckling gleefully A
over every defect they 'put over' on each other.
"Courtship might be described as a sowing of boomerangs — with marriage as the harvest.
"The girl wears her best dresses and her best smiles. She displays her best in charm and disposition. Her main object is to keep her busband- to-be from knowing that she has a temper like Cleopatra and a 34-inch waist. Small brother is the only one who ever inadvertently breaks up the family conspiracy of bun- co. And of course all this goes the other way round, too.
"The old vaudeville jokes about the bride who celebrated her bridal night by removing her hair and some of her teeth, is founded upon deep psy- chology.
"It was once my ambition to write a play, in which several en- gaged, or about-to-be engaged, cou- ples on a house party, were suddenly involved in a combination of circum- stances which automatically displayed their worst sides in everything physical and mental — and then what happened.
"But m y wife wouldn't let me.
"Yet after you're married, it's an even money bet that the most adoring couple in the world will have moments, hours, of matrimonial existence when they are con- scious only of their partner's faults, and all virtue flies out the window. Then they exclaim, 'This is the original shell game.'
"Now some horses, for example, break easily in double har- ness. Some never work well any other way. Some, on the other hand, have to be tied, whipped and beaten into it, after which they may make the best team horses in the world. Others never will travel dou- ble, no matter what you do.
"And no good horsemanis obsessed with the idea that merely putting them in double harness is going to make them work well together.
"Nevertheless, it is the generally-accepted theory that the magic spell of marriage, in the case of human beings, imme- diately overcomes all such difficulties. A bit of hocus-pocus with a ring, a few words that if you study them carefully will
(Above) "Quarrels are the gymnas- tics of matrimony Its an
even bet that the most adoring cou- ple will have moments, hours, when they are conscious only of their partner s faults.
appall you with their absurdities, a lot of illusions about veils, orange blossoms — and human nature is altered, all is rosy, life-long devotion and happiness have been arranged. "Now what is the use of all that? "It isn't true. It never has been true.
"Then these two, deluded mortals, whom Society and that strange emotion called love have combined to blindfold to every essential fact and every atom of necessary education, are put on a train marked Paradise. And even their mothers and fathers, who have been wrecked on that same line, smile moistly and say 'Isn't it beautiful?' If by any chance that train is side-tracked, runs up a spur into a gravel bank, or goes oft the track completely, they mustn't get out and walk, they mustn't above all things call for help, or ask to be hauled out. No, there they are and there they must stay.
"That is the sort of obvious idiocy that it seems to me we should outgrow.
"You can't tell much about marriage — I grant you that. 'Some like it hot and some like it cold' as we said in the nursery rhyme. There are women who worry themselves to death if a man doesn't save his money, and there are women who despise him if he does. There are women who loathe a man if he ever looks in a mirror, and there are others who will drag him all over town and dress him up in pink shirts and lavender neckties. There are women who die at the mere thought that their husbands are aware of a female sex still existing outside themselves — and there are others who can stand infi- delity better than the myriad forms of pet- ty sins, such as mis- chief-making, lying, idleness, discourtesy. In other words, some women would rather be married to Bill Sykes than Uriah Heap.
"So, as I say, you can't tell anything about marriage. But at least you can take every precaution, and every advantage pos- sible. Let courtship become a period not of rosy deceit but of honest trial acquaint- ance. For obvious moral reasons, I do not advocate trial marriage. But I don't see why the period of courtship should not serve many of its practical aims, and become an open.decentendeavor tobecomeacquainted. "Of course there are thousands of husbands and wives who never get acquainted. Perhaps it's just as well.
"Another tradition of the bunco game of marriage is that certain professions — especially certain arts — cause matrimonial grief1 — that temperament is confined to a select number of occu- pations; that it is safer to marry a blacksmith than a sculptor.
(Below) Courtship is a sort of
boomerang. . . . The girl wears her best dresses ana smiles. She displays her best in charm and dis- position . . . It is a conspiracy of bunco.
Photoplay Magazine
23
"As a matter of fact, street car conductors have just as many chances for infidelity as actors, and the most temper- amental man I ever knew was a mechanic.
"I once wrote a book about the love affairs of great musicians. Musicians are supposedly the last word in temperament, are supposed to be given to strange and unusual love vagaries, and to wild and untamed ideas con- cerning the tender passion. '
"Vet in my investigation, I discovered that Bach had two wives — at different times — and twenty children, to whom he was completely devoted and that he was an exemplary hus- band and father; that Handel, who at one time ran an opera company, had absolutely no use for women ; when one prima donna annoyed him he held her out of the second story win- dow and threatened to drop her if she didn't behave; that Bee- thoven had thirty-six passion- ate love affairs and never mar- ried at all, while Mozart was married, adored his wife with a deep tenderness, was very hap- py with her, but was sweetly and more or less casually un- faithful to her all his life, in spite of which she spent the years after his death writing a beautiful and inspired history of his life, in collaboration with her second husband !
"Could there be four more widely different histories?
"Nor are men and women so different. That is one of the oldest bunco game rules in the world. Of course, there are women who prefer any kind of matrimonial hell to single blessedness and there are men who are as much domestic ani- mals as cows. There are also women who regard the mar- riage tie with the same degree of reverence as the celebrated Don Juan.
"Naturalists say that the only true love affairs are among the birds. I never saw any great evidences of marital fidel- ity around my chicken yard.
"The greatest joke about the ■whole thing is the theory of permanency being a moral necessity in marriage, re- gardless of what price is paid by man, woman, or by common decency. The only philosophy I have about marriage is divorce.
"Divorce should be as simple, inexpensive and private as marriage.
"You don't ask people why they want to get mar- ried.
"You shouldn't ask them why they want to get divorced.
"In any game that's straight you can always get up and cash in when- ever you want to. It ought to be that way with marriage.
"If you leave the door open, even a cell doesn't seem like a prison. If the door of divorce is left open on marriage, a lot of people would quit trying so hard to get out. And a lot of them wouldn't have to be sneaking out at the windows.
"The idea that moral and civic decency can be elevated or
(Above) "Every wife enjoys remembering her courtship . . . when her main object was in trying to keep her hus- band from knowing that she had a temper like Cleopatra."
upheld by a law that encourages and necessitates hidden evils of every kind and class is as foolish as supposing a board is sound because its surface upturned to the sun is sound. Turn it over and if it has been on wet ground you will find it covered with filth and vermin of every kind.
"At one time there was a period of 150 years in Rome when
all a man had to do to divorce his wife was to give back the money her father had bestowed on them, and then send her a notice that she was divorced. It worked admirably. There were practically no divorces in tli at period.
"If such a law were passed today — operative both ways — a lot of selfish, lazy wives would buckle on their armour and a lot of unkind, unfaithful husbands would begin to take notice. When you know you're in danger of losing something, you always try to keep it, even if it's only a husband.
"There should of course be a time between the filing of notice for divorce and its accomplishment. I am not ad- vocating that if a husband doesn't like the way his chops are cooked he should divorce his wife in the forenoon, or that if a wife is displeased with the way her husband says 'Good-morning' to Mrs. Jones across the street she should be freed before nightfall.
"But I do say that when dis- like has been born between two people, when either of them desires to be free, and that de- sire stands the test of a certain period of time, divorce should be simple and unquestioned. "In South Carolina, where they have the silliest divorce laws (or lack of them) in the world outside of England, you cannot get a divorce on any ground whatever. Does any- one pretend that South Car- olina is any more moral than any other state? Ask North Carolina.
"Marriage, says religion, is a sacrament. I am aware of that. But it was not till the Christian church was 1400 years old that it was made a sacrament. But grant- ing it is one, then divorce becomes a duty when the spiritual qualities which made it sacramental have vanished. Otherwise the sacrament is pro- faned— as is any other sacrament when it is re- ceived with defiled hands and without the inward grace to support the outward symbol. "It would be un-American, it would be tyranny of the worst kind, to force two people to marry who did not want to — or to force two people to marry when only one wanted to. Then it is worse to force them to live together. "I have been married a good many years myself — I am ex- ceedingly happy and contented in my married life. Outside of quarreling violently, which I consider merely the gymnastics of matrimony, we have evolved a (Continued on page 92)
(Below) "There are thou- sands of husbands and wives who never get acquainted. . . . The courtship should be an open, decent endeavor to become acquainted.
A Hoot
For
Haughty
Landlords!
NOT that Elsie Ferguson would ever let such a patois pass her lips. Still, her smile seems to say it as she stands in the door of her portable dressing room.
Why should she care, if the very rich gentleman who owns the apartment house in which she lives in Manhattan decides to buy four or five new washing ma- chines for his wife? She fears not eviction, raised rents or poor plumbing. For she can always pack her things and take perma- nent possession of the little -house on wheels, in Paramount's Long Island City studio.
LET the California film stars nave their toy bungalows — Miss Fer- guson is satisfied. Her house can be pushed from one part of the huge stage to another with little effort. When her presence is required in a new set she simply asks Peter Props to push her dressing-room after her. I his system, of course, does away with the necessity of having to con- struct a miniature dressing-room every time the setting is changed dur- ing the production of a picture. Ob- serve, above. Miss Ferguson in the bizarre East Indian costume she wears in her new characterization of a Russian actress, about to enter the trick dressing-room.
And here — an interior view. Just as snug and satisfying as a real boudoir, isn't it?
24
A certain comedy queen,
turning to greater things,
reveals the kinship between
smiles and tears.
By JOAN JORDAN
SHE is the product of ultra-sophis- tication. She is the embodiment of the 20th Century — the incarnation of Paris after the war.
Her simplicity is the simplicity of the "petit Trianon."
Her worldly wisdom has been absorbed through the tips of her fingers, in the air she breathed, the very thoughts the world is thinking.
She is as soft as a summer cloud and as hard as a diamond.
"She is Laughter, she is Torment, she is Town."
Little Marie Prevost — with the eyes of a wood nymph and the ankles of a Follies queen.
She might be fourteen — eighteen — twenty. Her extreme youth holds all the intriguing promises of immaturity. Her appeal is suggestion. Yet neither the freshness of her cheek nor the firmness of her flesh hide the open secret that her youth is the youth of city pavements and white lights.
Her soft, gray crepe de chine sport frock s pelled girlish modesty, conceived in the rue de la Paix. The little flesh-colored veil drawn over the tip of her saucy nose stood as. a badge of debutante allure.
Curled beneath a counterpane of fine white linen, she could spend an evening reading "Little Women" or "Limehouse Nights" with equal understanding and enjoyment-
Marie Prevost is a living testimony of all that youth means today — of all that it may achieve, accomplish, stand for in an industry .and art that is itself stilkin its youth.
A slim slip of a thing, possessing just the average of education — she is a wage earner, a big tax payer, a power and factor in an enormous business.
In the two weeks since she terminated
her contract with Sennett — by mutual
consent, but at her plea — she has had two
splendid offers for long-term contracts.
(Continued on page 101)
She lias managed the difficult feat of being funny without looking funny. (Allegory posed by a famous photographer, entitled, "Diogenes Quest Resumed. ' Honest men will please form in line.)
27
Wally's sartorial perfection does not match his expression. When gentlemen drinking wine look like that, their evening clothes never look like that !
Isn t he the old scounder-ell ? He has
told her that this is a bottle of Pommery
Sec (hush — be more respectful!) when,
really, it is mere cider.
Tush! How obvious! One would fancy this to be a pathetic
scene between husband and wife, or at least, brother and sister.
Nothing of the kind. The lady is simply the agent of the Society
for the Prevention of Death by Wood Alcohol.
PAGE MR. VOLSTEAD!
We admit we're stumped. What is Elliott Dexter trying to put across? Why the admonitory finger of the hypotenuse in this mysterious scene? But then they drink the Cursed Stuff in any old manner nowadays.
28
That's the way it is, these days. One hurries into a law office or the stockbrokers' and expects to hear bad news. Then there is a sly wink and — presto! — appears a tall black bottle— according to the movies.
Announcing
THE PHOTOPLAY
MAGAZINE MEDAL OF HONOR
Why it is needed — What it will mean — How YOU will award it.
WAR has its crosses, the exhibition its ribbons, the athlete his palm, and literature its Nobel prize. So far, there has been no distinctive commemoration of singular excellence in the field of the photoplay. After long consideration Photo- play Magazine has determined to permanently establish an award of merit, a figurative winning-post, comparable to the dignified and greatly coveted prizes of war and art.
The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor will be. awarded for the best photoplay of the year.
It will be awarded to the producer — not to the director, not to the distributor — but to the producer whose vision, faith and organization made the Best Photoplay a possibility.
It will be of solid gold, and will be executed by Tiffany and Company, of New York. With the pass- ing years — for it is to be an annual affair — it will become an institution, a lasting tribute of significance and artistic value.
Perhaps the most important feature of this announce- ment is the identification of the jury which will make the selection. Like Abraham Lincoln's ideal govern-
ment, the photoplay is by, of, and for the people; and any decision as to its greatest achievement can come only from the people. The million readers of Photo- play Magazine are to choose the winner — they and no critics, editors, or other professional observers. These million readers are the flower of fandom — the screen's most intelligent public — yourselves. In case of a tie, decision shall be made by three disinterested people.
Fill out this coupon and mail it, naming the picture which, after comparison and reflection, you consider the finest photoplay released during the year 1920. These coupons will appear in four successive issues, of which this is the second. All votes must be received in Photoplay's New York office not later than Octo- ber 1st. Below is a list of fifty carefully selected photoplays of last year. You do not necessarily have to choose one of these, but if your choice is outside this list, be sure it is a 1920 picture.
Choose your picture because of merits of theme, direction, action, continuity, setting and photography, for these are the qualities which, in combined excel- lence, make great photoplays.
Suggested List of Best Pictures of 1920
Behind the Door
Branding Iron
Copperhead
Cumberland Romance
Dancin' Fool
Devil's Pass Key
Dinty
Dollars and the Woman
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Earthbound
Eyes of Youth
Garage
Gay Old Dog
Great Redeemer
Heart of the Hills
Huckleberry Finn
Humoresque
Idol Dancer
In Search of a Sinner
Something to Think About
Jes1 Call Me Jim
Jubilo
Love Flower
Luck of the Irish
Madame X.
Man Who Lost Himself
Mollycoddle
On With the Dance
Overland Red
Over the Hill
Passion
Pollyanna
Prince Chap
Remodelling a Husband
Right of Way
River's End
Romance . .
Scoffer
Scratch My Back
Trumpet Island
Suds
Thirteenth Commandment
Thirty-nine East
Toll Gate
Treasure Island
Virgin of Stamboul Way Down East Why Change Your Wife? Wonder Man World and His Wife
Photoplay Medal of Honor Ballot
Editor Photoplay Magazine, 25 W. 45th St., N. Y. City In my opinion the picture named below is the best motion picture production released in 1920.
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Name |
N'AM'd OF PICTURE |
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Adrlrps's |
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Use this coupon or other blank paper filled out in similar form.
29
A Dramatic Tale, Entered in PHOTOPLAY'S Fiction Contest —
The PHOTOGRAPH
Wherein an old man's memory almost wrecks a perfect honeymoon.
By W. TOWNEND
Illustrated by T. D. Skidmore
SOL GRITTING, the proprietor of the hotel at White Gap, leant forward in his chair and knocked the ashes from his corn cob pipe out on to the stone hearth in front of him.
"Gosh-ormighty!" he said. "Listen to that. Lucy! Seems like winter has set in right early this year, hey!"
Lucy, his daughter, who had kept house for him ever since the death of Abe Drackett, her husband, ten years before, sat on the other side of the big open fire-place, piled high with glowing red-hot pine logs. She did not answer when he spoke to her, but went on with her knitting, almost as though nothing he could say were important enough to cause her to raise her eyes, even for a fraction of a second, from her work.
To Sol's way of thinking, his daughter's one fault was her lack of interest in His conversation. That he had told her all he had to tell her hundreds of times before seemed but a poor excuse. No right-minded man or woman, let alone his own daughter, should have grown tired of hearing his stories of the real California, the California of his younger days, when men were brave and true and proud of their honor, and the women were all beautiful and pure, and tongues were guarded and justice was swift, as swift sometimes as the pressing of a trigger, and money was plentiful, and the air was like crystal and the sun had not yet lost its warmth nor the skies their blueness.
Sol gave a little sigh and listened to the steady beat of the rain on the windows of the dining room and the swishing sound of the wind in the branches of the pine trees.
"Bad night, ain't it? Whew! Gittin' old, I guess, ain't I?" He groaned as he leant forward once more to place another log on the fire. "I mind me jest such another October in . . . now, let me see ..." He frowned and stared thoughtfully into the blaze and then he must have dozed, for all at once he was roused by his head falling forward. He straightened up quickly and pretended that he had been thinking. "Yeh, Lucy, I forget now which October it was when we got the rain ... I clean forget ." . . " He broke off, then, feeling that he had touched on a dangerous topic. He was seventy, it was true, and when the weather was damp, he found it difficult to get around as easily as in the past; but seventy was not really old ! He would be old when he was eighty, perhaps, or eighty- five, but at seventy . . . seventy was almost the prime of life. He was still in possession of all his faculties and his memory was as good as ever . . .
He grunted and stuffed more tobacco into his pipe.
His daughter roused herself.
"Dad, ain't you smokin' too much to-night? It's gittin' late, it's twenty minutes of nine already. Before you know where you are it 'ull be time fer bed." She paused, her plump, pink face suddenly alert. "Listen a minute . . . ain't that an auto comin'?"
Sol frowned. His hearing was excellent, and always had been ; surely if Lucy could hear, he could hear, too ! He watched his daughter's expression anxiously. And so, although he had heard nothing but the wind and the rain and the crackling of the fire, when Lucy nodded her head sharply and raised her eyebrows with a look of astonishment, he too nodded and looked astonished.
He even judged that it was safeto offer a remark.
"Say, what the hell they doin' this time uh night, hey?"
He was relieved when he heard at that moment the unmis- takable sound of the hooting of a motor horn.
30
Lucy was on her feet.
" Dad, " she said, "here's folks comin'. I got to git busy. "
Sol groaned. The pain in his back made him slow in his movements.
"Gosh! Say, I'd better see who it is."
Lucy turned and made her way to the door. " In yer stockin' feet! You won't do nothin' of the kind. First thing you'll know you'll be down with pneumony. " She stopped. " Better go into the kitchen an' see what them kids uh mine are up to. Tell Billy to git the lantern ready. Them folks 'ull want to put the auto up in the barn. An' hurry up! ..."
"Whew!" Sol stood up. "Now, where in thunder did I put them blame' shoes uh mine?"
* * * *
""THE two guests, a Mr. and Mrs. Wainton, from San Fran- *■ cisco, so they had written in the register, came down- stairs at last and entered the dining room, hand in hand.
Sol chuckled. At a glance he had seen that this quiet, pleasant-looking young man with the friendly smile and the tall, slender girl, who wore a big gray coat over a cream silk waist and a gray tweed skirt, were on their honeymoon. He greeted them warmly.
"Mrs. Wainton, Air. Wainton, I hope you're satisfied with your room. I'd be obliged if you'd let me know if you ain't. Will you take the rocker, ma'm, in front of the fire ... a terr'ble rough night, ain't it!"
The girl, a pretty girl with dark brown hair and eyes as blue as the Californian skies had been in the far-off past and cheeks flushed the color of the pink roses that grew on the porch in summer, smiled at him.
"Thank you, Mr. Gritting, very much."
Sol, encouraged by their friendliness, felt that later, when they had eaten their supper, he would tell them some of his stories. He squared his shoulders and beamed.
"I don't remember such a night as this, early in October, since ... let me see now ..." He frowned in the effort to remember the date that had slipped his memory. "Oh! I got it now . . . not fer fifteen years. No, sir, not fer fifteen years. We had winter mighty early that year, same as it looks we'll have it thissen."
The girl wriggled her arms free from her big coat.
"It's nice and warm, isn't it?" She held out her hands to the blaze.
"Are you cold, Peggy?" asked the husband.
"No, but I was just about frozen coming up the hill ..."
"Were you lost, Mr. Wainton?" asked Sol.
"Lost! No. We got stalled on the road, that's all. We were hoping to make Santa Teresa by dark, but there was too much mud." And then the young man laughed and apolo- gized. "Not that I'm sorry, Mr. Gritting. I'm very glad that we've had the opportunity of seeing your hotel ... very glad, indeed. Isn't that so, Peggy?"
"Why, yes," said the girl slowly. "Why, of course."
"Once upon a time," said Sol, plunging into the past, "we used to have guests a-plenty . . . the year round. But now . . . shucks! Californy ain't what it used to be . . we ain't troubled much between the end of September an' May. You'd be surprised. I guess it's them motor-cars .. . . folks won't come anywheres 'less the roads is like boulevards . . . that's a fact, now, ain't it? My day, Mr. Wainton, we used to do all our trav'llin' by buckboard or horseback, but times is changed . . . yes, Mr. Wainton, times is changed."
"His eyes is like snakes and he's looking at the girl like he hates her."
31
32
Photoplay Magazine
All of a sudden the girl shivered as though cold and turned in her chair and glanced quickly over her shoulder with such a curious expression in her eyes that Sol was startled.
"Hello, Peggy!" said her husband. "You said you were warm!"
" I am warm, " she said.
For a moment she sat, gazing into the fire, with her hands folded in her lap, and then before Sol could remember what he was saying, she turned and looked over her shoulder once more, just as though she had heard someone approaching her chair.
"Is anything the matter, Mrs. Wainton?" Sol asked.
Beyond the range of the lamp that hung over the table, laid for supper, with a white cloth and silver and china cups and saucers and plates, the room was in deep shadow, nevertheless he could see clearly that there was no one in that part of the room toward which she was looking.
"Why," she said lightly, "how funny!"
"How do you mean, funny?" asked her hus- band. "Why do you keep turning round, Peggy . . . what's up?"
She laughed.
" I don't know. I guess, Mr. Gritting, you'll think I'm most strange . . . but I felt just now as clearly as anything that there was someone in the room with us ..."
The husband broke into a shout of laughter.
"Lord, Peggv! what next?"
BUT Sol saw that the girl was, for some reason or other, worried. Her color had faded. She looked strangely tired.
"It's gone now," she said doubtfully. "But I tell you, Tony, I felt there was someone trying to speak to me . . . some- one who was unhappy and in need of help! Queer, isn't it! I've never been so silly before, have I? Me, of all people!"
The kitchen door opened and Lucy appeared to say that supper was ready.
"Here, Dad," she said, "you'd better take this tray
Sol hurried toward her.
It s a wise author w
ho kr
I'll bring along the other one."
"It ain't much, Mrs. Wainton," she said when all the dishes were on the table, "but it's the best we can do at such short notice."
Sol was amused. "She'd say that, Mr. Wainton, uh course. Guess I shouldn't be praisin' up what I'm pervidin' myself, but there's a bit of undercut steak thar an' creamed chicken an' French fried potatoes an' a savory omelette . . . an' hot biscuits . . . gosh! them biscuits 'ull melt in yer mouth! . . . an' a jug uh coffee . . . say, I don't believe you'd git a more tasty supper than this not even in one uh them swell joints in Market Street, San Francisco ... no, sir!"
Half an hour later Mr. Wainton leant back in his chair and laughed.
"Peggy, Mr. Gritting was right about the supper. I never tasted a finer apple pie in my life, did you?"
"I never did," said the girl. "Mrs. Drackett's a wonderful cook. I'm almost ashamed of myself, I've eaten so much!"
"Why, Mrs. Wainton," said Sol, "most folks eat a-plenty up in this air: they can't help it! Mr. Wainton, you'll have some more pie . . . my darter will be hurt if you don't . . . there's another in the kitchen!"
"Mr. Gritting, if my future happiness depended on my eating more pie right now, why, I'd have to be miserable for the rest of my life. I passed my limit about two pieces back." He looked at his wife. "Now, Peggy, if you've finished, what about your going to bed? You're dead tired . . ."
But the girl shook her head. "No, Tony, not yet." She rose to her feet. " I think I'll sit by the fire." Then as she moved across to the big rocking chair she stopped suddenly and seemed to be listening. And again Sol was startled.
"Was there anything you wanted, Mrs. Wainton?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Gritting . . . nothing, thank you." '
"Guess, then, I'll clear the table, if you've no objection, so that Lucy can git straight before bedtime."
"Certainly," said the girl. She smiled at her husband who was stand- ing by her side, staring down at her very seriously. "Mr. Gritting," she went on, "this is a very old house, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mrs. Wainton," said Sol, "it is. An' if it wasn't too late fer you, I could tell you some things about it that would sur- prise you."
He waited, wondering if these very pleasant guests of his would be sufficiently interested to ask him the question he hoped to hear. They were interested, obviously.
"It's not too late for my husband and myself, Mr. Gritting," said the girl quicklv. "Is it too late for you?"
Too late! When he had listeners at last?, Sol smiled. Only those, who did not know Sol Gritting would have said that. He felt that he had never be- fore met a couple whom he liked so much at such short acquaintance.
As soon as he had finished his work he said that he was ready to talk; that was, if they still thought that they would like to listen. "Sit down, Mr. Gritting," said the girl. "Tony, offer Mr. Gritting a cigar. That's better, isn't it? And now, tell me . . ." She leant toward him, her elbow on the arm of her chair, her chin resting in the palm of her hand, her cheeks flushed, her eyes very bright and watchful. A pretty girl, Sol decided . . . wonderfully pretty ... as pretty a girl as he had ever seen. "Mr. Gritting," she said, "tell me . . . did anything ever happen here ... at White Gap?"
Sol inspected his cigar and smiled the smile of a man who knows that he has a story to relate that is as good a story as one could want.
"Well, we ain't exactly off the map at White Gap," he said. "Didn't something happen once upon a time in this very room?" said the girl. "Something terribly tragic!"
Sol opened his eyes very wide and gazed at her in amazement. "How did vuh know that, Mrs. Wainton?" "I didn't know ... I felt it!"
Oh! so that was it, was it? Sol puffed at his cigar and rubbed his thin knees and nodded his head. She had felt that something tragic had happened in the room! That was queer, wasn't it? Darn queer! Women was queer, anyways, doggone it! All women, even a girl as pretty and as nice looking and intelligent as this girl! It (Continued on page 96)
h.
s own scenarios.
Edward Tbayer Monroe
CORNERED
— and cornered so effectually, by the new play of that name, that she is temporarily cut off
rem all roads to the studio. Once more Madge Kennedy is a genuine "New York Success "
little or much as that may mean. But it's no hazard to guess that she's only visiting behind
the curtain; no place is home where they haven't cameras and cooper-hewitts.
33
An Impression of Mary Thurman, by Ralph Barton
Photography by Alfred Cheney Johnston
The way the hairdresser fixed it.
Mary Got Her Hair
Wet
By
ADELA ROGERS
ST. JOHNS
She did this herself.
WE were sitting about a corner table at Sunset Inn. It was Photoplayers' night, and it was getting late. Suddenly there was a commotion near the door. People were craning their necks to see.
We decided the place was pinched and began to think up phoney names.
But we discovered that Mary Thurman had just come in.
They were looking at her hair.
One afternoon we were in the dressing room at the Alexandria.
A crowd had gathered in one corner. Everybody was talking at once to some girl.
We wondered if she had been drinking wood alcohol.
She hadn't.
It was .Mary Thurman. All the nice tea-drinking ladies were looking at — and talking about — her hair.
On a Saturday afternoon a few days later we walked into the Ambassador for tea — Mary Thurman and I.
Everybody turned around to stare.
I wondered frantically if I had forgotten my petticoat.
"It's only my hair," said Mary Thurman patiently.
While the waiter disappeared on the quest of the orange pekoe, I examined this interesting hair. Some people are fa- mous for one thing and some are famous for another. Mary Thurman is famous for a number of things including the way she used to look in a bathing suit. But it is chiefly her hair that makes you feel like you were riding in a circus parade, the way people act.
It is very wonderful — that .hair. Xo wonder even Cecil deMille turned around to stare at it. (He did once. Mary told me so.)
It is Paris. It is Egypt. It is Hollywood. It is the Ital- ian Lakes.
Whether or not it is beautiful, I do not know.
To me it suggests Cleopatra barbered on Hollywood Boule- vard.
It is the last word in chic, in fashion. It is so startling it annoys, so gorgeous it allures.
I don't like it a bit and I adore it.
It is an Irishism.
Maxfield Parrish designed the set and Lawrence Hope wrote the scenario for it.
I looked at the other women near us — a debutante with fluffy golden curls, a Xew Yorker witli elaborate black coiffure under a drooping hat — marcels, bobs, puffs, rolls, curls, slicks, there were all types.
Then I looked back at Mary Thurman's. (She had taken off
her big white hat and flung it on a chair. It was very warm in the tea room.)
It looked as simple, as natural, as restful as a wheat field. It is a rich deep red, with a sheen of pansy purple velvet. It has an alive-ness that makes you wonder if you would get an electric shock by touching it.
Cut straight across at the nape of the neck, just below the ears, straight across in a long heavy bang on the forehead, it looked as smooth as whipped cream. Straight as an Indian boy's, it was as exhilarating as a rare perfume.
And, oh, what a comfort. To run a comb and brush through your hair and have it done!
It was a great idea, Mary Thurman's hair.
And like most great ideas, it was born of a trifle and an acci- dent: i. e. — Mary got her hair wet!
She told me about it, touching each syllable in her funny, careful way, precisely and delicately. Her speech has a peda- gogic flavor.
" I went to the beach to swim one clay and I got my hair wet. It was just bobbed then and I kept it curled all over. I was terribly worried when I found I couldn't get it curled and had to go out that way, with it hanging straight.
"When I came out, everybody piped up and said, 'Why, Mary Thurman, why don't you always wear your hair that way? It's so becoming and perfectly stunning.'
"I decided to try it. When I got home, I just took the scissors and cut these bangs, trimmed it straight all around and — here I am.
"Some people say it's great and some say it's terrible. But it's a great comfort. And it is unusual, isn't it?"
I agreed. Whether it is too unusual to become a fashion, I don't know. I looked about and saw only one other woman in the crowd to whom I thought it would be becoming — a tall, dark girl in sport clothes, with very fine eyes.
She is a strangely passive little person, Mary Thurman. But as you look at her you think of the old adage "Still water runs deep. "
Fate has played some strange tricks on Miss Thurman, of Salt Lake City, — little Mary, the school teacher.
Yes, she was a school teacher. I beg your pardon? Oh, but she was, a regular, honest to goodness school teacher. She is a graduate of the University of Utah.
She married a college professor, too, when she was sixteen. But — they had, as Mary shyly confided, about as much in common as a rabbit and a boa constrictor. So they parted. {Continued on page 93)
35
"First off. this house o mine wan t nothin out a bungalow settin on a hill.
"But by trie time my wife got through re-writ- in' the thing, it was an eight- reel feature."
The House That Jokes Built
As described by WILL ROGERS
Will Rogers is one of the few comic men who have really succeeded in transferring a personal appeal from ears to eyes. Half a dozen, even more famous, tried it and failed. Their mirth disappeared with their voices. Yet Rogers not only found his humor again on the screen, hut added a quality the footlights never saw- pathos.
s
PEAKIX' about houses," said Will Rogers — (We weren't.)
" I got a pretty nice place now myself, out in Beverly Hills, where all the prize winners live."
"The House that Bill built," I murmured.
" Xope. I call it the House that Jokes Built, 'cause I done it with money I made off the gags I used to pull at the Ziegfeld shows."
"Did you build the house yourself?" I asked, as Bill paused apparently remember- ing his red tights for the first time with some embarrassment, "or did you buy it?"
"Well," said Bill, ducking his head with that famous grin. " 'bout 50-50. Some- body else had the idea, but my wife tore up the script and wrote a whole doggone new scenario."
He was perched on the end of a wooden horse. He had no rope to twirl, but he managed fairly well with the cord of his silken doublet as a sub- stitute. His red tights, worn with the Romeo costume which he had donned to make the " Romeo and Juliet " dream scenes in his new production, distressed him a bit.
But his conversation had the same slow, unemphasized, biting drawl that used to come over the footlights of the Follies.
He looked down at the tights a moment — then at me.
"Elinor Glyn ought t' see me now." he said soberly, with a twinkle far back in his blue eyes. "I heah she's lookin' for the perfect man. If she got a real good look at me in this harness, she wouldn't have to waste no more time, I reckon."
He paused to enjoy this thought, rambled en genially —
"We were speakin' about that house of mine. It was this-a way. First off, 'twas nothin' but a bungalow settin' on a hill. Not meanin' much one way or 'tother. But by the time my wife
36
then
■wCt
got through re-writin' that thing, it was an eight-reel feature production.
"What I told her was, the house oughta been made of rubber in the first place. The way she went 'round there, pushin' out this wall and then pushing out another wall, 'til some nights I'd just as leave slept in a good corral, was something scandalous to behold.
"My gracious, just yesterday when I thought the whole thing was cut and titled, I come home to find she's shoved the whole end plum]) out of one end. No- body but Alice in Wonderland could have thought up so many funny things to do to that house.
"It's been expensive, but gee I've got a swell lot of laughs out of it.
"First of all, Mrs. Rogers 'ud take and
push a coupla walls out of the way, just
like a kid playin' with blocks. Then when
she'd got it down all right, she gets one of
these plush architects and he looks it over
and says, 'That's very nice indeed, Mrs.
Rogers, but the trouble is when you did
that you uncinched the girt round that
staircase, and now you've got to move the
staircase or it won't he no more good to
you than the White Sox Ball Club.' Or he'd
say, ' It was a wonderful idea to pull that wall
in, Mrs. Rogers, but I reckon now you'll have
to move the first line trenches out about fifteen
or twenty feet.'
"Architects an' diplomats must a ben cut out of
the same piece. They can get you into more trouble
than the army an' the carpenters can get you out of.
"Put a woman and an architect together and the
Big War'll look like an Iowa
State picnic.
"But I didn't mind. I says to myself, let 'em go ahead with the house. Houses is women's business, anyway. A man don't have much to do with a house but eat and sleep and pay for it. I ain't really interested in anything hut the
"Elinor Glyn ought to see me in my Romeo costume — I heah she s look- in' for the per- fect man !
,1'
Photoplay Magazine
37
"I took the gold fish out of the pool in my front yard and sent 'em back to Tiffany s: gave the men S400 to remove a little expectoratin statue, and built me a tan-bark ring — over to the right, there — with a seven-foot brick wall around it. Every Sunday we collect a right smart crowd o contest hands, an I 11 bet you couldn t get em to work like they do down there for a hundred bucks a day!
barns. Bungalows is all right, but barns is the important things after all.
"But one mornin' I was standin' looking over the landscape in the rear where I was figurin' on puttin! the horses and barns. An' I see this little architect standin' there, too, pullin' his six chin whiskers.
"Right there I rared up on my hind laigs.
"I says, 'Young fella, look here. I have been quite a peaceable cuss for the past few months. I have stood for considerable from you without any undue demonstrations. But, my Gawd, you ain't goin' to tell me how to build a BARN are you?' I says. 'You go an' play round with your Louise Quince and your velvet saddle blankets. I don't mind a lot of foolin' in the troop if folks can laugh at it.
" But I sure got ideas of my own on how these barns are goin' to be built. You can make yourself right famous as far as I'm concerned if you'll look and listen a lot.
"Well, then we was visited by another species that interested me a heap. It was called a landscape artist. He was goin' to fix my front yard up for me right swell, so the neighbors in Beverly Hills would be pleased with it.
"I told him I hadn't give the neighbors any great amount of thought, besides which I was goin' to put a seven foot brick wall 'round it so the boys could come up Sunday mornings and have a little Sabbathical fun ropin' goats and bulldoggin' steers.
"He had a regular phonograph record he turned on me 'bout 'groupings' and 'spacings' and things of that calibre, so I finally thought I'd see how he generally earned that salary he mentioned so casual. There are times when I am not so incensed against the Income Tax as others.
"So I come home from the studio one afternoon and on the front lawn I see six or eight little bushes 'bout as big as a respectable cabbage, settin' together in one corner. There was
Will Rogers as he looked during his pre-movie career with Ziegfeld.
another deligation settin' in another and some scattered about careless in the middle.
" 'Is them your groupings?' I asked him.
"He admitted it without reachin' for his gun.
"'Mister.' says I, 'will you get them insignificant lookin' little onions out of my sight before I forget we are now at peace — and get me some trees — some trees a regular man don't need to be ashamed of.'
"It upset him some. He says, 'Mr. Rogers, you can't do that. They won't grow, maybe, and in two years these beautiful shrubs I've planted will be large and sightly.'
" 'The life of a motion picture star ain't two years,' I says right back. 'You get some trees I can enjoy now — never mind them scrubs you got. I want some cottonwoods and some eucalyptus and things I'm acquainted with personally.'
"I went right down to the place with him, and I bought all the biggest trees they had. You could conduct a real nice hangin' in my front yard now.
"Then, too, he'd put a little fountain in the middle, one of them statues that expectorates continuously. I ben in the Follies and I am no Anthony Comstock, but I felt right sorry for that little thing out there without even a bandana, playing September Morn in December.
"It cost me S350 to get that fountain in and S400 to get it out.
"I didn't grudge the four hundred a bit.
" I wouldn't a dared to ask any of my old friends into my house with that thing settin' in the {Continued on page 94)
" We must tell Allen." ..." Tomorrow? " she whisper "No! Now!" said Mark, as her husband entered the
ELIZABETH ERSKIXE dealt bravely and sweetly with the years that followed her girlhood love disappointment and far from embittering her life it had endowed her with the added perfection of beauty that is made doubly exquisite by its tinge of sadness. And her home, La Acacia, nestled in a slope of the Californian mountains with its mel- lowed walls of Spanish mission, rose arbored and perfumed of the kindness of sunny days, seemed pervaded with the same rare spirit as the mistress of that enchanted spot.
The home of Elizabeth came to have something of the sympathetic mellowed gentleness and romance of the potpourri in her rose jar, a token of the love that was and its immortality.
It chanced that into this magic setting came two men and a girl. Most anything might have happened and many things did. There came the high flush of love, a rivalry made keen by its friendships and loyalty, hope, glamour, joy, tragedy and despair.
"Aunt Betty" was the name by which they came to know Elizabeth, who moved in beauty and soft gentleness among the people of her world. And as "Aunt Betty" she was especially endeared to the children whom she gladdened with her hour of story reading at the town library. Many a hand-
38
The
LOST
ROMANCE
Copyright 1921 Famous Players-
Lasky Corporation, All
Rights Reserved.
A tale that is told
of what the moon
saw in a love -lit
garden.
By
GENE
SHERIDAN
some spinster of like uncertain age might have resented the appellation, but Elizabeth was tender in wisdom. Just when Sylvia Hayes, the assist- ant librarian, starved of romance in years of plain shirtwaists and in- stitutional service, was sighing over the emptiness of the vacation time ahead, Aunt Betty came along with an invitation to La Acacia.
So it came that there was a joyous little house party at Aunt Betty's home with Sylvia there for her fate- •d. ful meeting with Allen Erskine, young
•oom! student surgeon, and nephew of their
hostess, and Mark Sheridan, sports- man adventurer, a clean-lived friend of Elizabeth's and filled with a platonic devotion.
In the beginning it is to be suspected there was just a bit of resentment concealed under the polite consideration of the two men when they found that a girl had been brought into their easy chair pipe-smoking vacation at Aunt Betty's. But even a concealed resentment is as good a beginning as any and as futile as any against the simple charms of such as Sylvia. More especially under the capable hands of Aunt Betty.
Allen and Mark began to take interest from the time when Sylvia first came down to dinner in a rare Spanish shawl from the treasures of Aunt Betty's keepsake chests. Perhaps, too, there was not a little of the coquetry of old Granada in the folds of that rich old fabric. Anyway there was a toast to the beauty of Castile, which even simple Sylvia knew was a toast to her.
That was the first of it. There came moonlit nights in the garden by the mirroring pool and there were times when Aunt Betty effaced herself with a smiling grace to let Romance have its way.
But the real beginning was the night when Sylvia, retiring early, came in fairest negligee to throw her window open for the night and to look over the moonlit loveliness of the garden.
/^T"\OMANCE will be so (_ tyf* long as the world
± \ shall last. The first ^ morning of Creation wrote the first romance of Man and Maid and it shall he the world's greatest story for the last dawn of Reckon- ing to read. Romance is the poetry of existence — it is even existence itself. Life without Romance would be but the purposeless auto- matism of body without soul. And this supreme wealth of Romance belongs to all who will claim it. Romance knows no caste or class, no race or creed. It is the great universal legacy. It is a gold that grows by spending. It is the end of the rainbow at your feet. Romance visits alike the hum- ble farmhouse on the hill and the splendid villa by the sea, city slum and mansion of marble. Without it they are one in nothing. It is given to Woman to be the special custodian of Romance, the chalice of Man's ambition. For Woman and for love of Woman the World has been conquered and its wealth laid at her feet. Woman is the mother of all men and the world. The World lives for Romance and Romance lives
to keep the World alive.
Allen, pacing moodily in the gar- den, turned at the sound to see her silhouetted in the latticed window. Almost unconsciously he stepped for- ward and called her name.
"Sylvia!" It was a half-hushed exclamation. It was as magic. She had been filling his thoughts for hours. Here suddenly she appeared before him more lovely than all his poetic fancies.
The girl drew back, half frightened and thrilled.
"Come out, Sylvia."
Peering from the protection of the casement curtains Sylvia shook her head.
"Oh, I can't." Her whisper was breathless with sentiment and excitement at the glamour of it.
But she lingered and Allen stood fingering the lattice work and murmuring nothings about the night.
Mark, smoking his evening pipe, stepped out under the rose festooned archway and saw them there. Slowly he took a farewell puff and knocked out his pipe, unconsciously. He strolled with a leisurely tenseness toward the window.
"And I had always thought that Romeo was a fool." Allen commented to Sylvia, looking up at her in the window.
"I never really knew what romance was until I came here." Sylvia sighed. " I don't know how I will ever go back into the world again."
Allen was as bashfully awkward as a boy. He thumbed at the lattice and looked into Sylvia's eyes.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful," he said, "if we could live in this romance forever?"
Sylvia started as she saw Mark nearing them, turned and saw him too. Mark approached with a manner of parental solicitude.
"It's high time for little boys and girls to go to bed." Mark's voice was filled with a pretense of severity.
It isn t giving up th it s knowing tne
; trip for your work I mind, sobbed Sylvia, romance is dead — you stopped caring!
Allen mock
Allen pretended an air of vast displeasure and turned his back with as much as to say "Go 'way." Hut Mark defied him by taking an easy posture against the wall by the window too.
"If this is romance, I'm in it, too."
Sylvia blushed and thrilled.
In the shadows across the patio Aunt Betty passed, book in hand, on her way to her room. She smiled wisely and sadly to herself as she saw the trio at the window, two men and a girl. She knew better than they the meaning of it.
"I must go now." Sylvia smiled down at them both and extended a hand to each of them through the window.
Then she drew back within and the curtains fell before her. She ?tood there alone again, quivering with happiness. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the roses on her dressing table. Impulsively she seized them out of the vase, two roses on a single stem. Going back to the window she parted the curtains and tossed the flowers to her admirers.
Both Mark and Allen reached for the roses, neither willing to relinquish them. The\ stood holding the roses between them and their faces growing serious. Then Mark snuared about sharply and spoke to Allen.
"Say, old chap, is this really important with you?"
39
I could not have gone through th
Allen nodded a confession.
Mark let go his holdon the roses and turned a halt step away. Allen followed him. "And you, Mark:"' "Yes, old man."
! " said Sylv:a.
So it came that the two men understood each other They stood together in silence for several minutes. At last Mark nut- his hand on Allen's arm. - „
P "We aren't going to let anything come between us— are we?
"No "Allen spoke impulsively. Then he broke the spray
Photoplay Magazine
4i
of roses in two in token of his words and handed a flower to Mark.
"A fair field and no favor!"
And so it was agreed between them.
The days passed with much fair rivalry of wooing and trembling happinesses for Sylvia. Here she had found romance and joy enough in it to make amends for the dull, lonely years that had gone before.
THEN came that evening which they will all long remember. Sylvia was playing the piano softly to herself. Mark. Allen and Aunt Betty were gathered before the little friendship blaze in the great fireplace of La Acacia. Mark and Allen tried to engage their in- terest in a game of chess. But Aunt Betty saw them looking, first one and then the other, across the room at Sylvia. Their minds and hearts were not in the game before them.
None of this escaped the observant eyes of Aunt Betty. She too looked over at Sylvia, the cause of the new air of something tense that had settled down into La Acacia.
John, faithful old butler and caretaker of the place for Aunt Betty, entered with an envelope. This was a welcome interruption for the situation.
"Here, boys, the pic- tures." Aunt Betty tore open the envelope and to- gether they stood at a table looking at the prints, laugh- ing at the amateurish snap- shots of each other. Then they came to the picture of Sylvia.
Mark and Allen reached for it simultaneously. Then each drew back his hand guiltily as though to yield to the other. Both straight- ened and stiffened up just a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ shade.
Aunt Betty looked from one to the other. She stepped between them.
"Boys, I have noticed a change in both of you recently. Something has happened between you. Tell me?"
Mark and Allen looked at each other and smiled sheepishly; then looking away the eyes of both of them turned to Sylvia, still playing at the piano and unconscious of the little tableau at the table.
Aunt Betty, with a tiny nod of her head, whispered to them.
"Ah — I see — it is Sylvia."
Allen, the younger, the more impulsive, turned to Aunt Betty swiftly.
"We're both in love with her — we've known this for days — but we've played fair with each other — only which one of us is to propose first.-"'
Mark colored with a meaning that was confession of his share, too.
Aunt Betty stood perplexed and unhappy in her indecision. Here was a situation in which even her tact and wisdom and gentleness were taxed to the extremity. At last the solution came to her.
"Why not let Sylvia decide? Let it be the one she addresses first — after I call her."
"Yes." the boys agreed in unison, both eager and tense with an excitement they could not conceal.
Aunt Betty stood with the pictures in her hand, waiting until Sylvia had come to the end of the music she was playing. The boys turned away, pretending occupation, as Aunt Betty- called.
"Oh, Sylvia — here are the pictures!"
Sylvia arose from the piano and came quickly, eager with interest in the snapshots.
The Lost Romance
NARRATED with permis- sion from the scenario by Olga Printzlau from the story by Edward Knoblock. Photo- play directed by William do Mille, with this cast :
Rapidly she ran through the prints, laughing and comment- ing in turn upon them, until she came to the picture of herself. She threw back her head aiu\ lauglu-d with amusement, then turned toward the boys, who were nervously watching her.
"Oh, Mark- isn't this one funny?" She held up the picture of herself.
Mark gasped and tried to control himself into saying a pleasant "Yes." He cast a helpless but triumphant look at Allen. Sylvia fortunately was busy looking through the pictures. Fate had decided.
Aunt Betty quietly beckoned to the downcast Allen and presently Sylvia and Mark found themselves alone.
Sylvia stood dreamy -eyed and abstracted when Mark pro- posed, pouring out the hungry earnestness ol his soul. Her silence bade him hope. He reached to take her hand. At the instant his touch awoke her to the meaning of the words he had been saying and awoke her too to the fact that she did not love him.
"No— Mark — I can't." Mark's countenance fell into a blankness of pain and disappointment.
"I am sorry, Mark." She
reached to touch his hand.
"Oh, it's all right Sylvia."
He answered as bravely as
he could.
They stood awkwardly silent. At last Sylvia s] >< ike, nodding her head to in- dicate Aunt Betty and Allen who had gone outside.
"I am going to tell them good night."
Mark bowed an I stood back as she passed him and stepped out. There was hopeless yearning in his eyes.
Aunt Betty and Allen were together under the rose arches when Sy Ivia ap- peared. Sylvia was visibly ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ disturbed, lookirg appre- hensively back at the door- way of the room she had left. Aunt Betty read the situation as clearly as though she had seen it all. Discreetly and ingenuously she withdrew, leaving Allen and Sylvia alone in the moonlight.
They were silent together long and at last Allen sensed the answer that had been given in the scene within. His heart bounded. He took a new courage. Moving over close to Sylvia he clutched her hand.
"Sylvia, I love you." His voice was a-tremble and he choked with emotion. An instant later they were close in embrace. Sylvia had found the fulfillment of her quest of romance.
Within Aunt Betty came upon the disconsolate Mark, who stood with the snapshot picture of Sylvia in his hand. He turned to face her, unconscious of the picture and his telltale expression.
The heart of Elizabeth Erskine went out to Mark and she made a movement toward him, then drew back in self-restraint. "Friend — love isn't always returned."
"Perhaps it's all for the best — someway." Mark nodded sadly. "I have decided." he went on. "to undertake that Amazon expedition after all."
Aunt Betty stilled a gasp. She must not let Mark sec that his decision hurt her.
"May I take this with me?" Mark held up the picture of Sylvia.
"No — Mark — don't do that — don't take the memory of her with you into the wilderness to rob time of its power to heal the pain."
"That is a danger I am willing to face." Mark'- jaw set squarely.
{Continued on page 104)
Elizabeth Er shine
Fontaine La Rue Mark Sheridan . . . .Jack Holt Allen Erskine. . Conrad Nagel Sylvia Hayes. . .Lois Wilson
Allen Erskine, Jr
Mickey Moore
FASHIONS THAT COME WITH THE FLOWERS,
THE little jacket of former years has come back once more — but this season it is made of white pique. Here is one of the graceful developments of this garment that is simple enough to be made at home. The unusual sleeve is made by bringing the material forward from the back and folding it about the arm. Wool decorations, in tones of red, green and dull blue, give an addi- tional note of charm.
The Observations
of
Carolyn
Van Wyck
HERE is a suit that is dressy enough for formal afternoon wear and still practical enough for the street or for traveling. It is fashioned of dark blue taffeta, but would be equally good in linen or ratine. The grace of the long line — an outstanding feature of this season — is emphasized in the unusual manner in which the jacket fastens.
YOU may "go near the water" as much as you like when you wear a suit like this. It is a "two-in-one" affair called Yvette, fashioned of knitted jersey. Don't you like the satin pockets — which, of course, are not really pockets at all? The colors? Green and black. Incidentally, Mary Garden says that swimming is the best sort of exercise for keeping the figure trim — and Mary Garden knows.
Model from cAsbury SMills
42
THE SUNSHINE, AND THE CALL OF THE SURF
WITH the wider silhouette appearing in frocks it is natural that lingerie should turn to pleats. Chemises, gowns and camisoles show this trimming in many forms. Em- broidery, drawn work and fagotting are also important features in summer lingerie. White silk undergarments embroidered in black are replacing the black silk lingerie of last season. There is a wide range of coloring now, as in addition to the pastel tones the higher shades are being widely featured. Coral, gray and the -Mrs. Harding blue are among the novelty colors in lingerie, although flesh and white main- tain their popularity. Here's a fascinating pajama suit of shell pink crepe de chine. It's a French model, but the summer girl with clever fingers may duplicate it for a tenth ol the original cost.
Models from
Grande Maison
de Blanc.
IT is a tradition that each summer the lingerie frocks grow lovelier, and there is ample reason for the saying. One of the outstanding features of the summer collection that Lucile Ltd. showed recently at the beautiful new- establishment on Fifty-fourth Street was the lingerie frocks — designed for wear at the dance, for morning use, or to make vivid splashes of color on shady porches. This gown, designed by Lucile for Louise Du Pre, shows the lavish use of lace, in this instance lace medallions and insertion being used to decorate sheer white batiste. The distended hip line, transparent hem and sleeve cut in one with the bodice of the gown are all prominent features of the summer frock. The tunic is of embroidered net, and the satin sash in tones of orchid and shell-pink.
' IE
?
Miss Van Wyck's answers to questions appear on page 86
THE lure of lovely shoes must not tempt you to buy unsuitable ones. For example, the woman whose ankles are not so slender as she could wish would be wise to wear the pretty Colonial pumps shown here — the irreg- ular line is the one least trying to the ankle. On the other hand, the oxford is the prettiest shoe for her whose ankles are all that they should be. Two-tone shoes are lovely if worn with a gown of solid color, but they must not accompany a gown of foulard or printed material. The "sphere" of these lovely embroidered slippers is limited to eve- ning wear; please do not wear them on the street.
43
CANTER- BURY PRUSSIA
And below, a scene from "The Cabinet of Dr. Cali- gari," the first futurist photoplay. Both these con- gealments of celluloid mo- tion are excerpts from recent German films, just released in the United States. The splendid reproduction of the his- toric English cathedral at the left is one of the architectural triumphs in "Anne Boleyn," who, if you're four hundred year? old, you'll remember very well as the second wife of Henry VIII — handy with the axe, but a great favorite with the ladies. "Anne Boleyn," a Famous Players property, is released in America under the title, "Deception."
The scenery in "Dr. Caligari" reels and totters like the tumbling minds whose mad processes built its ugly but fascinating plot.
44
Mother o' Mine
The story of Charlie Chaplin's reunion with his mother
By JOAN JORDAN
IN the wide, bay window of a charming house on a hill in Hollywood, sits a little, gray-haired woman, with delicate old hands folded upon the open pages of her Bible.
Every day, just as the sun is setting behind the waving line of hills, a big. expensive motor draws up before the door.
A slender young man. in blue, jumps out and runs lightly up the broad, white steps.
A white-capped maid opens the heavy door.
Often the little gray-haired woman rises from her seat in the window and takes a few faltering steps to meet the man in the doorway of her drawing-room. Almost always, now ....
On the evenings when she does not, he slips quietly in and sits down beside her in the window, holding her hand in his
Because then he knows that her gentle mind has strangely slipped back to the horrors of a Zeppelin raid, to the shock of bursting shells and crashing build- ings, death screams and imminent destruction.
And she does not even know he is there!
But either way — Charlie Chaplin and his mot he- are together again.
Together alter nine years of separation — years ot war and heart- ache for the mother, of triumph not unmixed with tragedy for the son. Years that have been filled with unimagined, unequaled suc- cess and unforseen, stupendous catastrophe for them both, but that have altered not one jot the great love they bear each other.
"It's wonderful to have my mother again," is all Charlie Chap- lin says.
Just the simple story of most mothers and sons, only a bit more dramatic, the story of Charlie Chaplin and his mother, a story as commonplace as life and death, and joy and pain.
Xine years ago ait unknown young vaudeville performer named Charlie Chaplin, kissed his erect, smiling little mother an excited good-by in a London railway station. He was going to America to seek his fortune.
A few weeks ago, Charlie Chaplin, the world's greatest comedian, the most famous male genius the screen has yet produced, stood on a station platform in Los Angeles, and with tears running down his cheeks, took into his arms a little gray figure, bent, and puzzled, and oh, so changed.
That is the heart of the story.
IT was seven years ago that Charlie Chaplin, just beginning the movie career that led him to what I personally con- sider the screen's greatest performance ("The Kid") began the long struggle to bring his mother to America.
But England was at war. And war, among other horrors, produced yards of regulations and red tape. Even Americans had difficulty in returning to their own country. Mrs. Chaplin, a British subject, would not be permitted to leave England for America.
So she stayed on in London, until one frightful night when a London air raid crumpled the world about her frightened head. A shell, bursting within a few feet of her, rendered her un- conscious.
Again Chaplin actively renewed his efforts to bring her to him.
Again he failed. His mother's health, as well as some new rules concerning war stricken patients, would not permit it.
Months then, for her, in a sanitarium where large monthly checks with the scrawling signature "Charlie Chaplin" brought her every care and comfort; months of red tape and prepara- tion; at last the long journey across the Atlantic with her famous son's secretary and a trained nurse sent over by the screen star to bring her to him.
Long weeks of weary waiting while Mr. Chaplin made arrangements with the immigration authorities, who, because of the shell shock Mrs. Chaplin had suffered, could not admit her to the United States without certain precautions and assurances.
All those things are but steps leading to the accomplishment of the dearest wish of Charlie Chaplin's heart.
Charlie Chaplin has brought so much sunshine into other lives. He has made so many of us laugh and forget our heartaches. He has showered upon us the priceless gifts of smiles and laughter. In darkened theaters all over the earth, he has filled hearts with a song, smoothed away grief and cares and pain.
And I think the world, that has known the story of that tin}- grave out in Hollywood — the world that has whispered and laughed and frowned over the wreck of his mar- riage— I think the world when next it sees him on the screen will rejoice because he has his mother again. I think we will be just a little more grateful, just a little more appreci- ative of his gifts.
B'
l"T why, for this man. must the laughter always hold a tear? Why is there always .1 bitter drop in his cup.J
For above the joy of his reunion with his mother hovers the white, faintly menacing cloud of her affliction. He has his mother again — and yet she is not wholly his.
But he is very hopeful. California is a wonderful place. It is very far from London and the things that happened to her there.
Already in her beautiful home in the foothills, with her competent staff of servants to relieve her of every step and every worry, with her luxurious limousine and its chauffeur to take her on long, exquisite drives through the mountains and beside the sea, she is losing the actuality of the war. It is a bad dream only.
Already the lapses of memory and of mind are growing less frequent.
With tears in his eyes, her son told me that the second night she was here she went to the piano and sang, in her sweet, faint voice, several songs from "Patience."
Because you see, little Mrs. Hannah Chaplin — she is just fifty-five now — whom we can think of only as the mother of Charlie, was once a personage herself.
Many years ago, London knew her as Florence Harley, a prima donna of the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, in the days of its greatest popularity. Florence Harley, a slender girl with a lovely voice and a winning (Continued on page 95)
45
Allisonia gets the cool sweep of the Pacific winds through the cloudless California summer, and in the Octoberish California winter it seems to nestle under warm and protecting hills. Its designer, owner, mistress, queen and chief ornament, may be seen in the center of the view, casting the only shadow that darkens her fair green lawn.
The drawing-room may be Bostonese as; a bean, but this dazzleden is as typical of Cal- ifornia as a cactus. Wicker, enamelled gray, and bright old English chintzes keep a little of the sun locked up for cloudy days.
Superficially it appears that Miss Allison is writ- ing a letter. In reality there s no ink in the pen, and that chunk of hand- somely monogrammea stationery hasn t been hurt a bit.
Everything in the Chinese room — porcelain, jade, bronze or teak — repre- sents the actress' personal additions to a collection she has been making through half a dozen years.
46
"On Your Left, the
Home of
May Allison !"
THAT is a new cry from the conning towers of the observation 'buses as they speed through the Beverly Hills district of Los Angeles, a hill-and-vale paradise already gemmed with more palaces than may be found in any area of similar dimensions on earth. It required three centuries to give acting the dignity of a profes- sion, but it needed less than a decade, in pictorial Southern California, to make a race of home- building as well as home-loving players who in the sumptuousness and comfort of their dwellings lead the world.
The rectangular object before the davenport at the left, outlined and tasseled in gold, pretends that it is a foot-cushion, but a good way to be sure of never getting another invitation to Casa Allison would be to put just one foot on it tor two seconds.
Lift your eyes, and they 11 rest on the principal scene in any Al Woods play. As you can see, it s a solo couch ; as you can t see, the tone of the wood is old ivory, and the hang- ings are of delicate blue taffeta, festooned with clusters of pink and gold ribbon-roses.
At the left, something of the East — no, we don't mean tom-toms and tea, cymbals and sirens — we mean Boston, Mass.. with a severe gray velvet car- pet; heavy unngured satin hangings and satin- covered furniture classic- ally setting off the bro- caded walls.
47
A Contest Fiction Story
The PROPER ABANDON
What Happened to a Big Little Boy
in a Park Jungle,
Ruled Over by a Tyrant in White Muslin
By BARKER SHELTON
Illustrated by SMay Wilson Preston
IT is six hundred and fifty-odd miles, as the crow flies, from the Chintacooset River to a certain tall office building on the edge of the financial district which houses more legal talent to the square foot than any other office building in the world. Therefore, any man who stands before the office building in question when he should be listening to the babble of the Chintacooset is at least six hundred and fifty-odd miles off his course.
It is perfectly logical for anyone who is off his course by such a marked variance to be nervous, bewildered, ill at ease. Peter Judkins, disembarking from a taxi before the building men- tioned and lifting out a black bag with a leather case of fishing- rods strapped on top of it, was all these things. And for good measure he was chagrined and somewhat crestfallen.
At the moment Peter Judkins stepped to the curb he was aware the impression prevailed strongly in certain quarters that he was casting flies on the Chintacooset and was very happy in such occupation. It wasn't going to be exactly pleasant showing up that prevailing impression as erroneous.
He watched the taxi begin its dodging recessional. For a moment he found himself wishing he was in it. Better, per- haps, to beat a panicky retreat than to enter that building and face what he knew awaited him upstairs if he showed his face there. The taxi lurched around a corner and out of the range of his troubled vision. He picked up the black bag with rod- case strapped to it. The taxi was gone. Besides, it might be well just now to stick to any decision he was able to make, even if it were the wrong decision. He entered the building and squeezed himself and the bag into a corner of a crowded express elevator that was about to start its upward shoot for floors above the sixteenth.
At the eighteenth floor stop he squeezed his way out. He went down a short corridor to his right and a longer corridor to his left. His objective was a most excellent example of the doormaker's art, numbered 1827. But, when he reached it, a great irresolution seemed to engulf him. Instead of opening the door and walking in briskly, firmly, cheerfully, as he had fully intended to do, he stood staring at it and rubbing his cheek doubtfully with the hand that was not burdened with the black bag.
Below the number on the ground-glass panel of that door was the simple information for such as it might interest:
BROXSON & JUDKINS
ATTORNEYS- AT-LAW
And beneath this brief legend, slightly to the left, was a list of names in the neatest of small, black letters. Heading this imposing column was the name of Gilman S. Bronson; the second was that of Peter F. Judkins. Trailing these were ten other names, any one of which carried much weight in the world of jurisprudence.
48
"I am wondering if you happen to have room
The sound of clicking typewriters, busy with briefs and appeals and summonses and correspondence and what-not, drifted out to the most brilliant member of the firm, standing there in the hall and having a beautiful debate with himself as to whether or not he should turn the knob and walk in.
It struck him as mighty peculiar that a man should expe- rience any such reluctance about entering his own office. If he couldn't go in there without all this mental disturbance about it, where in the name of all that was reasonable could he go? He was not casting flies on the waters of that troubled little brook that had the nerve to call itself the Chintacooset River. He was here; at the offices of the firm of which he was a neces- sarv member. And that was all there was to it. Wherefore, he
in your class for another member," said Peter.
would go in; just as he had planned during all the journey back here to go in; boldly and breezily, with a great show of deter- mination upon his face, even if such determination was not in his heart.
He put his hand on the knob, and as promptly took it off again. For it occurred to him suddenly that he simply could not enter by that particular door; could not stalk into the main office in front of the whole surprised, head-shaking, disapprov- ing bunch. That required a trifle more nonchalance than he felt capable of summoning up at the moment.
So he moved down the corridor to another door. It bore the numerals 1831, and nothing else. There was nothing upon it to announce to the public that it opened into his own private
office. He was hoping, as he fumbled for his key-, dial the other door of that room he was about to enter — the door into the main office — would be shut. .It would be most satisfying to have a few moments alone in which to get a better grip on himself before he made known his presence there.
But that other door — worse luck to it! — was wide open, and consequently young Mr. Kendall, who looked after wills whether they were the kind to be drawn up. or the sort dis- gruntled relatives were trying to break, saw him. Also middle- aged Mr. Hartridge, whose forte was deeds and titles and mortgages and leaseholds, saw him. And both young Mr. Kendall and middle-aged Mr. Hartridge promptly got up from their respective desks and came into the private office and
49
So
Photoplay Magazine
wrung his hand; and hoped he had found the fishing at Chinta- cooset all he had expected; and inquired if he wasn't back rather earlier than he had planned. Then several others came in and went through the same distressing performance; and finally a sudden hush fell upon the chatter, for there in the door- way stood Oilman Bronson, favoring Peter Judkins with one of those cold, accusing glares, which only a combination of Gil Bronson's now-tell-me-the-truth eyes and a pair of oversize shell spectacles in front of them could accomplish.
The appearance of the head of the firm upon the threshold seemed to sound a no-uncertain signal for a general retreat. The others withdrew. Bronson closed the door that led into the main office. He closed it in the way he always closed doors when there was anything in the wind that besought his approval and besought it vainly.
"What in the devil are you doing back here, any- way, Peter?" he inquired. It was very much as if another door had slammed.
"Oh, I just came back," said Peter. The farthest thing from his intention was to say anything so inane. Indeed, he had rehearsed this little interview with the senior member of the firm. He had meant to be very firm with Gil Bronson duringit. Instead, hefound his attitude one of weak and maundering conciliation.
"What are you back here for?" Bronson snapped.
"Work," said Peter in the same flat tone, which was about as much like Peter Judkins' normal tone as the apologetic figure slumped on one corner of the desk was like the normal, de- cided, sure-of-himself Peter Judkins.
Bronson merely scruti- nized the other man's face. Those shell spectacles seemed to Peter to be grow- ing larger.
"I feel I want to get to work again," Peter tried to defend his unwelcome ap- pearance on the scene. "Nothing else will satisfy me. I'm really eager for work. Hungry for it. And I'm quite fit and readv to work."
"No you aren't. Not by a darned sight," his partner took issue with him. "If anything, you look worse than you did when you were here early last week. Two months away from here; eight solid weeks of play for you ! Those were the orders, weren't they?"
Peter nodded, but seemed on the point of offering excellent reasons why the orders could not be carried out. But he didn't get the chance to speak. Bronson shook a forefinger at him in the same way that made that shaken forefinger so effective with twelve good men and true in a jury-box.
"Three weeks only of those eight have gone, yet how many times have I already shooed you away from here?" he said be- tween set teeth.
"Why, two that I remember. Maybe it was three." -aid Peter.
"Four already," Bronson corrected the statement. "This makes the fifth. Just what was the matter with the Chinta- cooset country and the fishing up there?"
"I didn't care for the country, and fishing doesn't appeal to me," Peter explained, as if he were afraid the explanation was the wrong one.
Judging from Bronson's general disgust, it was.
"Are you human?" he asked Peter.
"I don't know," Peter brightened perceptibly. He leaned farther forward on his perch on the desk corner. "That thought
How one feels on going into a movie theater from trie bright sunlight.
has occurred to me, too. Gil. And perhaps it's the answer. Possibly, you know. I've become a machine that must turn out so much work per given interval to be happy. Maybe there's a big mistake at the bottom of all this. Maybe my work is my play, after all."
"There's a big mistake, all right," said Bronson grimly. "The mistake lies in allowing yourself to consider any such fool thought for even the fraction of a minute."
He stepped forward with a certain air of well-here's-where- I-have-to-do-it-once-again about him. He opened the door into the corridor. He picked up the black bag. Then he turned to the desk; his arm slid beneath Peter's; he hauled the younger man off the desk-corner. The line of march was along the two corridors Peter had just traversed, in the general direc- tion of the elevators, Bronson grunting a running fire of com- ment during their progress thither.
"You go, and you see to it that you stay gone this time until your eight weeks are up. Everything is go- ing smoothly. Not an ex- cuse for you to be hanging around. You show up here just about once more before the time's up, and I believe I'll seriously consider assas- sinating you."
"Look here, Gil, hold on a minute!" Peter protested. "Give me credit for doing my best. Everybody yowls at me to drop work and go away and play. I listen to 'em and take their advice and do my durnedest. But it doesn't work out. The trouble is I don't seem to know how to play."
"Learn then," Bronson exploded. "You've tried four or five things only, and none of them happened to hit your fancy. Don't be a silly quitter, Peter. Keep at it. Presently you'll bump into something that does suit you. There are plenty of other things left that you haven't tried."
"But what in time and thunder is the sense of rack- ing your brain so hard to try to find something you
I won't like when you do have
a fling at it — "
"Down !" bawled Bronson at an elevator that was shooting past the eighteenth floor as they turned into the shorter corridor.
The car brought up jerkily and came creeping back. Peter, striving to voice further protests, was bundled in unceremo- niously. With as little ceremony the black bag with its top- freight of fishing-rod case was chucked in after him.
"And don't let me clap eyes on you again for at least five weeks, mind," Bronson stipulated as the car resumed its down- ward journey.
A few minutes later Peter Judkins found himself trudging dejectedly along the sunny side of a very hot and very noisy street. He knew where he wasn't going, and that was back to the Chintacooset country. Neither would he try golf again, nor a cruise along the coast in a motor-boat that either tried to stand on end or roll oxer like a playful kitten every time the sea got a little restless. As for wallowing across slimy marsh lands and blazing away at the few diminutive birds the law- allowed him to shoot at that season of the year, he'd had quite enough of that, thank you. But if he did not propose to have another crack at any of these diversions and yet felt it advis- able to play at something for the remainder of those stipulated eight weeks, he must needs dig up something new, and digging up something new required mental effort, and mental effort tired him altogether too much for a man no older than was he. It seemed to be growing hotter every {Continued on page 64)
WEST is EAST
A Few Impressions By DELIGHT EVANS
"He wenf to meet the Pres- ident— one might call it the chance of a lifetime!
1HAD My Opinion Of Douglas McLean. He Broke an Appointment With Me.
Mr. Douglas McLean's Press-agent and Mr. Douglas McLean's Wife
Both Said that he Would be Very Glad To Meet Me; in Fact, that he
Had been Looking Forward to It. I Took their Word for It. You Can Imagine How I Felt — wearing A Xew Hat and All. And Instead — He Sent his Wife. I Really
Shouldn't Complain. She is Awfully Pretty, and Sweet, and
She isn't in pictures or Anything; but She Said, " I Know That Douglas Was Sorry To Break
His Appointment with You." 'Well,'' I Wondered, "Why did he, then?" "But, " continued Mrs. McLean, "he Had to Go. You
Can Imagine How it was. And
Really, it Doesn't Happen Very Often — one Might Almost Call it The Chance of a Lifetime.
That's Why He Went." "Would you Mind," I Asked her, "Telling Me Just what you Are Talking About? What
Has Happened To Your Husband? Is it
Anything Serious?" "Why, " laughed Mrs. McLean, "I Thought They Told You ! He
Went to Meet The President ! When
We Came East, Douglas Said: 'There's Just One Thing I Want to Do More than Anything. I Want To Meet The President.' And so — Of Course he Voted for Mr. Harding and All —
Someone who Knew Someone Made an
Appointment; and Douglas Went to i
Washington and Waited" — "Ah!"
"And Waited. And then The Appointment Was Put Off Until Tomorrow." I Always Said The President Was a Darn Good Film Star.
"Douglas Will Just Have Time To Catch the Train For California. I'm So Sorry, too, because Doris May
Is Coming to Xew York and We Would Like To Stay Longer. " Those Stories that The McLean-Max- Film Divorce Was Caused by Actual Incompatibility Weren't True at all. The McLeans and Miss May
Are Yerv Good Friends. Well— ' The President Met him, anyway!
She didn't wear a red hat — it was green. (She s Irish!)
COLLEEN MOORE said She would Wear A Red Hat. I Watched The Red Hats Go By. I Counted
At Least Twenty-six when I Saw Colleen — and She Wasn't Wearing a Red Hat at all. It was Green. She is Irish.
You Can't Help liking her. She's So Young that She Wants to Play Old Ladies, but Mr. Neilan Won't Let her. She Likes Ripe Olives, Director Mickey, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Riverside Drive, and John Barrvmore. But
She Loves California, and She Wants to Go Back. They all Do — someone Should Write a Song about It. Colleen is Playing opposite John Barrvmore Now — and Now Her Uncle is Going To Print her Picture In his Paper. He is A Newspaper Editor, but He Always Said to her, "You'll Never Get your Name In my Paper until you Really Make Good." Colleen Has.
And she'll Keep Right On— She's Just that Kind of a Kid.
56 Mil
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es
I AM writing this in jail. De profundis! If I were a futurist artist, I could paint a magnificent can- vas conception of these days in my cell.
I should call it "Thoughts on Being Incarcerated in a Damp, Dark Dungeon." It would consist of red triangles sitting sideways, green serpents standing on their tails, and bunches of purple petunias tied with orange ribbons. But crook pic- tures aren't so good just now, so maybe all is for the best.
Ten days ago — though never an ingenue even in my cradle — I was yet a young and innocent girl, untouched by the dark and seamy side of life.
Today — they have made of me a crook and a jail-bird — a member of the underworld. They have taken away my name and given me a number. They led me up the cold stone steps — the great, steel door clanged behind me. Think of it! Grand- mamma's little Bebe in the Bastile.
■To-night as I sit in my cell, the tears come to my eyes as I think of my dear family, of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. Since many of them are not equipped with the shock absorber of a sense of humor, the blow to their family pride is beyond de- scription.
This is the way Bebe looked v. hen she finally slowed down in her Stutz and they got her.
The capture, trial and imprisonment of a beautiful star.
Gee, it's quiet in this jail. Even the drug addict in the next cell has ceased raving and gone to sleep. And the matron won't let me play my phonograph at night.
You know the crime for which I am locked within these narrow walls for which I was tried. How strange that I should have been brought to trial on the day after Easter when, all my friends having sent me Easter lilies, I was rilled with sweet thoughts of purity. You know, perhaps, those details of my trial, of my sentence, my imprisonment which have been given to the world. You have read of my offense, that terrible 20th Century crime of speeding.
But now for the first time I am about to bare my soul to the world that if it must judge me it may judge me as I really
am. I am going to write down here the inner thoughts that fill my heart, as I sit on the nice white ivory chair the townspeople so kindly donat- ed to make my cell more habitable.
I feel it but justice to my- self that the world which has heard so much of this pain- ful story should hear my own version. It seems but fitting for me, following the prece- dcntset by other famous crim- inals, to tell you something of my youth, of my dear mother at whose knee I re- ceived a gentle and uplifting education. As I look back and think of my dear home, of the happy innocent days of my childhood — and then remember the voice of that judge, stern and impressive lit spite of a Santa Ana ac- cent, committing me to this jail I now inhabit, I can hard- ly realize it is I who am thus accused, accused, nay con- victed of this thing. I think it must be a masquerade, a nightmare, from which I shall soon awaken to find myself not confined within this nar- row prison walls, but safe, happy, laughing as I used to be before. . . .
Ah, how little the world recks the struggle of a wom- an's soul. How easy to say I was caught, tried by a jury of my peers, found guilty and imprisoned. Of the things
Per
Hour
Written exclusively for Photoplay Magazine by the defendant,
Bebe Daniels
(Convict 711)
that led up to this dark event, of the price I paid for my mistake, no one can ever know.
For though the Per- sian rug beneath my feet may hide the cold stones of the prison walls, though the scent of flowers may drown the prison stench, though the white iron cot be replaced by a bed of ivory and rose, nothing can melt away the bars that stand between me and freedom. I am a convict! I am not free!
And no words can give you the real picture of that wild, mad chase while this man pursued me as relentlessly as though I had been Lil- lian Gish herself — of the moment when at last by guile he trapped me and brought me to my fate.
Like the devastating effects of a bullet that does not register its havoc for several mo- ments, my brain refused to take in the horror even when he finally had me in his clutches and had told me all — all.
"Hey you," he said, speedway, lady, it's a public highway an hour, that was all."
Can you imagine with what feelings I glanced at my speedometer, now peacefully resting at zero? My poor mother, springing like a tigress in defense of her young, cried out at this, only to be silenced instantly. Pulling off his cap he showed her a bump on his head the size of a young watermelon and yelped. "Listen, lady, that's what I get chasrng birds like you. This girl ought to be in jail. I shouldn't wonder if sooner or later, she was. You're in Orange County, you know."
I did not know. Orange County — how little it meant to me then, in spite of his sinister tones. Orange County — it suggested charming vistas, delicious odors, melting morsels. How could I, then so young, so inex- perienced in the ways of the world and the twisted paths of legal procedure, know that Orange County is famous not for its oranges nor for its rural beauties, but for one Judge Cox. Judge Cox, a man who had openly de- clared for jail sentences for drivers caught going over 50 miles an hour in his county, who had indeed gone on record that he would send anybody,
be he rich or poor, young or old, male or female, to jail for ten days who broke the speed laws on his boulevards.
I was not to be left long in my blissful ignorance. I know more about Judge Cox now than his mother-in-law. On top of my victrola now is a huge bunch of American Beauties he sent me. Aren't men queer.
Dear readers, even now I cannot think of the harrowing weeks that followed my arrest. I spent the hours when I was not working, sleeping, eating or going to parties, brooding over my sorrow and dwelling in sober thought upon the strange pass to which fate has brought me.
So let us come instead to
the moment of my trial and tell briefly of the day when I walked down the aisle of a crowded courtroom — was it only ten days ago? It seems
Taking a good look at the Orange County Jail, Santa Ana, where she spent ten days. Wicked looking place, don t you think? Neither do we.
'what'd you think you're doing? This ain't a You was just hitting 56}4 miles
53
judge Cox is a good old judge. His roses are lovely !
Swear? Thank you, but I don't use the language.
"ThatDistrict Attorney's wife needn't look so anxious. He s perfectly safe !
"Look at the crowd! Well, I certainly am drawing well!
centuries. For after all, time is a matter of the emotions.
Anyway, I certainly drew well in Santa Ana.
When my limousine drew up to the curb of the courthouse and the chauffeur threw open the door, my path was barred by so many people I decided they must have declared a holiday and closed all I he stores. They had all come to look at me, and as I made my way through them I felt like Clara Hamon entering the little courthouse at Ardmore where her life hung at stake. Gosh, a lot of those farmers didn't know the difference.
It was a small, old-fashioned courtroom. As I made my way to the prisoner's dock, I had a fleeting impression of the sea of faces, men and women crushed and jammed into the smallest possible space, standing on chairs, hanging on window sills, sitting two in a seat, filling the aisles. Some friendly, some narrowly hostile.
Now I know exactly how the rhinoceros feels in the Zoo.
A joke's a joke. There have been plenty of laughs about all this experience of mine, but none who has ever been through that ordeal, sitting on a witness stand, watching each juryman take his seat in the jury box, standing to be sentenced, entering the doors that are locked not to be opened again, can imagine what I went through. I don't care whether it was speeding or shop-lifting when I heard them read that about "The People of the State of California against Bebe Daniels." I felt like Vesuvius had erupted right under my seat. I should think that people who have to get tried for things often, like pickpockets and bigamists would be nervous wrecks.
Whatever my sins, I have paid, and paid, and paid.
I am still paying. All the world lies just beyond the bars of my window and I cannot go to it. Out- side a nightingale — or maybe it's a mocking bird — is singing. But even his song is cracked by the steel that binds me within. Between the bars, I can see a bright little star that twinkles — just a star in a patch of blue. But it seems so far away. So far away.
Besides, I've eaten too many peanuts and too much candy today.
The trial alternately dragged and rushed ahead.
While they were going into the details of my shame. I took a good look at the judge — my first. A little, cocky man, with a face not unlike "Mr. Jiggs" in "Bringing Up Father." I sort of liked him, even then. His weather-beaten, belligerent old face, with its top knot of upstanding red hair, and the snappy blue eyes behind gold rimmed spectacles which he looked over, under or through impartially, made me think he might be a nice man on a party.
(He is. He comes to see me every day, in my dungeon. I think he — but perhaps a prisoner should not tell what the judge says to her in private.)
He didn't look at me once, though, during that day. I wonder why. Of course he had his honor to uphold. Still, if he had — but I am not wasting my time on vain regrets. My soul holds not one drop of revenge, not one ounce of bitterness. He's a good old judge, and his roses are lovely, but he sent me to his funny old jail for these ten days, — ten days out of the very heart of my life, ten days of usefulness, and sunshine that can never be replaced. I don't blame him — much. But I'll bet lie's going to miss me when I go away.
How I got to the witness stand to tell my story I will never know. And I worried all the time I was there for fear my lips weren't on straight.
Motorcycle Officer Myers had testified that from his position behind a windmill — what do you think of a guy that'll hide behind a windmill and lay traps for poor, unsuspecting girls? — he had seen me go through what he called "the trap" at 56^2 miles an hour. Well, {Continued on page 109)
Now that I've told my sad story, are my lips on sfraight?"
Fifty-six and one-half isn't fast. Look at de Palma!
'Ten Days !
CLOSE-UPS
odiiorial Expression and Timely Comment
" \'\7'7HITE LISTS" appear now and then, none \X/ of them are perfect, but some are better than others. An influential church body in Los Angeles has recently issued one in which the names of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin are not to be found. But somehow Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks and the inimitable creator of "The Kid" are going right along.
SPEAKING of "The Kid," of course, brings to mind that wonderful little boy, Jackie Coogan. lie nearly died of pneumonia recently at the Hotel Biltmore, in New York. The papers said that he contracted a cold while "leading the orchestra" in the little overalls in which he stamped sturdily through the Chaplin film. It is also said that his parents refused a very fair vaudeville offer on the ground that they could make more money exploiting him as an independent attraction. But if he were our little boy he would be learning his little les- sons in a quiet home, playing in the sunshine and the dirt, eating his bread-and-milk and going to bed at dark. It is quit; all right for Jackie to make his pictures — if his life is properly and rigorously regulated outside the studio. But if Jackie's wonder-talent is to grow into a greater talent bye and bye it will be because he has what should be the privilege of every little boy who comes into the world — a normal, irresponsible childhood.
PICTUREDOM is all in a lather about what some call "the German invasion." To hear the scared ones talk you'd think an unlimited fount of Ger- man masterpieces was on tap, and for little or nothing in the way of money. There are those who'll tell you that during all the years of the war interior Ger- many just seethed with picture activity, and the accumulated product now being let loose upon the Allies — heaved especially at the devoted shoulders of your Uncle Samuel — is a sort of optic poison gas with which they hope to stealthily continue the con- flict. They're the cousins and the aunts of the people who asseverate that "Passion" and "Deception" were really made to prove the innate wickedness of France and England.
HERE'S a real censor. Timothy J. Hurley of Chicago, pictured
icago, picture' bove, has always been zealous in the causes of compulsory righteous- ness, and never more so than when he proposed regulating the lake city s movies by a commission of three infallibles — at salaries or $5000 a year apiece. In spite of his clerical garb Mr. Hurley is not a preacher, but a lawyer.
LABOR generally is against heavy German importa- tions on the ground that it encourages the low wages of the continent by showing a preference for low-cosl big pictures. The Actors' Equity Association is against the Germans because in an already overcrowded market these pictures will mean, they say, still further layoffs lor American players, and still further reduction of the native output. The American Legion has been persuaded to enter the combat on the grounds of patriotism. Various "remedies" are being advised, from a boycott to a tariff wall so high that the Prus- sians and the Bavarians can't climb over it.
ADOLPH ZUKOR, just be- tore sailing for Europe, re- marked to the writer: "This 'German invasion' fright is the oldest and silliest of alarms. One would think that the Germans had some magical recipe for making great pictures. As a matter of fact, among all the German pictures there are no more great ones than there are in any given number of American films. A European might just as sensibly, after seeing 'The Birth of a Nation,' 'The Miracle Man,' and 'The Four Horsemen' fall into a panic of belief that every American film was of equal calibre."
AS a matter of fact, certain well-known American films have beaten the world in their marvellous reproduction of great days gone. The greatest his- torical work ever filmed, in point of combined story interest and archaeological accuracy, was .A I r. Griffith's "Intolerance." Even Mr. Fox, who cares little for history, did it as well as any German in his unforgettable "Tale of Two Cities."
THROTTLING competition in the arts has never been
successful, because it is funda- mentally wrong. America, thanks to its start in the war, now supplies eighty percent of the world's motion pictures. In Germany, according to William A. Brack's account, there i.- an embargo which prohibits all but about two percent of our film products. There is one sensible objection — the only barrier upon which we can make jusl conditions of exclusion. We should have free exchange and a fair field— or else a tariff high enough to keep out anything but the genuine mastervvork.
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TT is a humiliating thing to confess that we are fright- *■ ened by a film menace from any nation. The motion picture is our art, and fright oxer rivalry seems like a confession that we have been beaten on our own ground.
THE Xew York Morning Telegraph suggests that the public be allowed to choose the Peter Pan of the films. A suggestion actuated by the best of motives, and, theoretically, a good one. But it won't work out.
LISTEN, for instance, to a communication in re- sponse from G. C. Herron, of Pittsburgh. Mr. Herron says: " I believe there is only one actress who can do the role real justice, and that is — Mary Pick- ford. She and she alone shou'd play it."
MISS PICKFORD being a good bargainer, a good business woman, would probably run the cost of this picture up to a prohibitive figure, and make it, in its final analysis, a one-star affair, instead of the fine, well-rounded, really all-star production that it should be. We agree with Mr. Herron that Miss Pickford would be an ideal Peter Pan, but we certainly do not believe "Peter Pan" should be a star play.
THE proof of the photoplay's slow but sure arrival within the plane of artistic intelligence is demon- strated by the fact that it is escaping from the bonds of stardom. Former stars like Lew Cody and Bessie Love and at least a score equally well-known are appearing in supporting roles. Mildred Harris has definitely signed to appear in a Cecil deMille feature which stars no one. Even Dorothy Dalton, one of the brightest planets in the celluloid heaven, is said to have agreed — and very sensibly, too — to be "one of the cast." This way actors and actresses are made. This way great plays come into life.
MEANWHILE there's a lot of surmise as to who will really play Peter, and Betty Compson seems to have the best of the guessing just now. It is de- clared that she has already been chosen by Jesse Lasky to portray Lady Babbie in a non-star "Little Minister," with a likelihood that "Peter Pan" will follow.
WHEN R. H. Cochrane, vice-president of Universal, returned from his six months' regency at Uni- versal City, one of the first persons he met was R. A. Rowland, president of Metro, which recently turned Ibanez' greatest novel into film. Mr. Rowland im- mediately insisted upon motoring the Universal official out to Rye, a suburb of Xew York, in order to show him his newly-acquired country estate. It has, among other things, a fine new garage, and a rambling, ancient barn. "Haven't moved out, yet," explained Rowland. "so all I'm keeping in the garage is four horses." "Oh, yes," returned Cochrane, drily. "I suppose you're using the barn to keep the Apocalypse. "
KID McCOY, according to late reports, is to film his matrimonial experiences. What an oppor- tunity the late Mr. Bluebeard, and other notable husbands missed.
TF State censorship is finally saddled upon Xew York, * as seems very likely now, it will be a very serious precedent in the industry. The Xew York legislature has passed the bill; Governor Miller, before signing, merely waits courteously upon some more or less in- formal protests.
AXD yet we are not blaming the legislators as much as we are blaming the film people themselves. The exhibitors — every one of them vitally concerned — gave no proper co-operation. The blue-law group
which forced the bill through was as finely organized as any political machine which ever dictated Xew York state politics — and that's saying a great deal. It knew what it wanted, and it started out to get- it in logical, systematic fashion which thoroughly prepared every step of the way. To oppose — and if possible to defeat — this formidable organization, the film folk sent a mere skirmish array, punctuated by an occasional big gun. The outfit in general was laughingly sure of victory. They went to a merry Bull Run — and de- served it. Mr. Griffith held a battalion briefly, with his usual speech, but he was not supported. Rex Beach made a few remarks. General Brady begged for "a year to clean up" — and in that strange blunder for so wary a fighter fastened an overwhelming indict- ment on the industry he was trying quite unselfishly to protect. Where were the exhibitors? Where were the trained, logical special pleaders who should have answered slur with incontrovertible fact? They may have been anywhere — but they weren't at Albany.
TT is said that Los Angeles haberdashers turned Lack ■*■ a consignment of twenty thousand caps upon hearing that cameramen in the Angel environs were affecting a change of headgear. Ah well — other times, other helmets.
TWO or three "big" ] icturcs lately have been a veritable triumph of ignorance. Ever since D. W. the great criterion, began dipping back into history for his parables, his lesser-lighted but lofty-salaried breth- ren have been doing the same. With this variation: he took history pretty much as it stands; they write their own.
WE recall a mile or so of celluloid, recently sent forth with press-agent thunder and exhibitorial light- ning, in which the star was the director's brunette wife. Why didn't this man get at least competent help in his scenario? Where were they who furnished the hundreds of thousands of dollars that went into this scroll of in- fantile illustrations "from the past" — in which a gallop- ing bevy of females are labelled "Women Amazons"? Would we have a tariff against the continentals to pro- tect abysmal stupidities like this? If so the loud laughter wouldn't be on this side of the Atlantic.
EDITOR Herbert Kaufman recently walked into a colossal Hollywood production illuminating a cele- brated dame of King Solomon's time, and when he emerged a friend asked him, not too seriously, what he though of the director's familiarity with history. "He isn't familiar with history." gravely answered Kaufman. "He's just affable with it."
HAYE you ever noticed the curious ways in which the ancients registered emotion — according to these transparencies? We've wondered how they did it. and never knew until we watched a sorely beset maiden of 800 B. C. She put her thrill across, apparently, by swallowing her spearmint — a good trick if it doesn't bo ..her your digestion.
THERE are plenty of good nickel cigars — for a quar- ter. Likewise, there are plenty of good two-reel fea- tures— in seven spools. We don't mind so much the waste of a manufacturer's money and months, but the waste of audience time is really shocking.
VI YE la Belgique! According to "Le Xation Beige," the motion picture machine is really the invention of a Belgian, who has been experimenting upon it since 1851. "All that Edison did," gravely declares this pe- riodical, "was to aid in its development." How fortu- nate that Mr. Edison lent a helping hand. Only the Belgian realizes that the first fifty years are the hardest.
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By BURNS MANTLE
C
OXSIDER the family at the movies. And how seldom there is anything in the feature picture for every member of it. If mother and the girls are satisfied with the romance, father and the boys consider it piffle. If son likes the shooting, sister shivers. If mother raves over the gowns, father considers the diminishing pay check and grows uneasy.
But once or twice in a blue moon we have a picture the family group can gather around and applaud with a happy enthusiasm. Usually, I've found, it is an adventure picture with enough romance to justify the story and point up the love interest that makes the whole world grin with satisfaction. Marshall Xeilan is adept at pleasing the family, and his newest picture, " Bob Hampton of Placer." is one of his best. He has such a fine sense of the comradeship of men that he is the men-tolks' pal before his first reel is well started. He is so true to the best instincts of womanhood that mother approves of him from the start. He knows better than sister herself the sort of an upstanding hero she can openly worship without being called silly, and as for the boys — he keeps them teetering on the edges of their seats and tingling with the enthusiasm that makes boyhood i he finest adventure of life.
In " Hob Hampton" he also has the most thrilling of histor- ical backgrounds — that of Custer's last stand. He handles it wonderfully. It was taken, we understand, on the site of the battle itself, which gives it added pictorial value. And he has woven into it not only a good love story but an adventure for the popular Wesley Barry that will add youthful hero- worshippers by the thousand to that gifted youngster's popular following. His battle pictures are as thrilling as those that
made the Crifnth reputation in "The Birth of the Nation," with all the added value of modern lighting and artistic group- ing that the pictures of today command over those of yesterday. The cast, too, is wisely chosen, with James Kirkwood playing just the sort of individual he makes most human. Marjorie Daw is an agreeable sort of heroine, Noah Beery a gloriously vicious villain, and Pat O'Malley, Priscilla Bonner and Carrie Ward Clarke help out nicely with the minor roles.
DECEPTION— Paramount'Artcraft
Al iig, solid, impressive picture, this German-made section of English history. It bulks large, as the saying is, in crowds, actors, royal palaces and royal physiques. But it bulks large, also, in art. and sets standards in the matter of the histori- cal drama on the screen which native directors will have to con- sider if ever they become interested in pictures of this type. You would never know it from the title, but "Deception" deals exclusively with that period of Henry VlII's career in which he tired of Catherine and fancied Anne Boleyn; covers the incident of his establishing the church of England that he might control its divorce laws, proceeds to the fall from favor of the unhappy Anne and the suggested rise of the scheming Jane Seymour, and ends with Anne's march to the scaffold. It isn't a picture that is particularly creditable to English history, as you may easily imagine. You could hardly expect that of the late enemy. But neither is it easy to discover within it the subtle propaganda with which the more excitable have declared it to be filled. It is very much worth seeing.
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Photoplay Magazine
"Deception" is a German made portion of English history,
dealing with Henry VIII, his wife Catharine, and Anne
Boleyn, whose march to the scaffold forms the nnale. It
is very much worth seeing.
Jackie Coogan, of rare talent and lovable personality,
probably will never again have the chance that Chaplin
gave him in "The Kid." However, his acting in ' Peck s
Bad Boy" proves that he is a fine little actor.
"The Perfect Crime presents Monte Blue in a Jekyll and
Hyde role demanding unusual talent. An improbable but
decidedly original story.
DREAM STREET— United Artists
FATHER GRIFFITH seems to feel that he should apologize for " Dream Street." "We do not make any great promises one way or the other," he writes in the program; "we have done the best we could." There really is no call for an apology. And if apology must be made, a better basis for it would be the length rather than the quality of the picture. It is not a super-feature picture. Which is to say it is not a $2 picture. But it is an interesting and beautifully screened "regular" picture. If it were sharpened by being cut from twelve to seven reels it would retain all its stronger points and lose nothing but its padding and repetilion, and a dozen or so close-ups expressing grief, or fear, or terror, or surprise. With his Dickensian flair for over-emphasizing character D. W. slips into the habit of holding his close-ups so long the character itself fades and you hear nothing but the stentorian tones of the director himself shouting: "Hold it, Carol!" "Foi God's sake, weep a little, Charlie!" "Get the terror into it, Ralph!" Or, if you know nothing of the methods of picture- taking, you wonder just why you must be shown again and again how the heroine looks when she is in trouble and mightily upset about it.
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE— Paramount-Artcraft
ELSIE FERGUSON comes back to the screen rested and a little more eager than she was when she left it, but she comes back in a picture that gives her little opportunity to realize upon either her recovered energy or her talent as an actress. The story of "Sacred and Profane Love" is rather muddled in the telling as it has been cut for the screen. To any unfamiliar with the real adventures of Carlotta Peel it must be extremely difficult to understand her wanderings over half the earth and the part various undeveloped romances played in her life. The opening incident of her meeting with and romantic enslavement by Diaz, the pianist, is convincingly and delicately handled out of respect for the new order of censorship. But the story breaks there and the rest of it is wabbly and uncertain. Conrad Nagel gives another fine performance as Diaz, proving the possession of a fine sense of character he established in "What Every Woman Knows."
SENTIMENTAL TOMMY— Paramount- Artcraft
THE spirit with which a director approaches a picture is certain to shine through the screen, and John Robertson's love of "Sentimental Tommy" has done a lot for this picture. Sometimes, it seemed to me, it proved a bit of a handicap, in that in establishing the characters of Tommy and Grizel, the Painted Lad\' and the good Dr. McQueen, he forgets that the story, well known as to title though it is, is still a generation old and only the Barrieites remember it well enough to get full value from it. It is a refreshingly wholesome picture, how- ever, splendidly acted and beautifully set, with a Long Island Thrums fairly steeped in Scotch atmosphere. Here Tommy and Elspeth drift into the village and fly to the defense of Grizel. Here the Painted Lady lives her pathetically short life at the edge of town, where the respectables have shunted her, and from here Tommy starts on his career as a literary man in London, later to return and shatter the heart of Grizel by his mystified indifference to her shy, devoted love of him. And here, finally, Tommy discovers a true affection for the unhappy girl, providing a happy ending Barrie might not altogether approve, though we doubt if he would seriously object to it. Through the story the clear art of a fine little actress in May McAvoy flashes with a positive radiance. Gareth Hughes as perfectly visualizes Tommy as any screen actor could, and acts him much better than most of them would. George Fawcett is the Dr. McQueen and Mabel Taliaferro the Painted Lady.
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI— Goldwyn
CHANGE, say the psychologists, is rest. From which basis it might easily be argued that "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is as good as a week in the mountains for any movie fan tired of the conventional picture. Certainly it is a complete change. However relaxing it may be depends greatly upon the sus-
Photoplay Magazine
59
ceptibility of the spectator. Being a reasonably calm, ordinary sort of individual we left the theater believing strongly that the author of the picture was a little mad, the director a little madder, the actors engaged quite mad indeed. The American distributors bought the picture from its German owners. Yet we were conscious of having seen a perfect sample of that cubistic art of which we have read so much since the first nude descended the staircase looking like a patchwork quilt in eruption. "Caligari," then, is the weird story of a German scientist who carts a somnambulistic youth about the country in a coffin-like cabinet, sets him up at county fairs as an exhibit and releases him at night that he may commit a murder or two between bedtime and breakfast. It is a story told, and seen, by a disordered mind, with all the scenery jumbled in fantastic shapes and the features of the players weirdly angular and wildly staring. But it is momentarily returned to normal at its conclusion and the effect is one of having seen an Edgar Allan Poe thriller cleverly transferred to the screen. We would not, however, take the children. They will be just as well off and a lot happier if they do not meet " Dr. Caligari." The German actors are excellent, Werner Krause giving a good performance as the weird doctor and Conrad Yeidt an uncanny subject.
PECK'S BAD BOY— First National
IT is a rare acting talent and a lovable personality that Jackie Coogan brings to the screen. But his directors will be hard put to it to find stories to fit him. Probably never again will he have the chance that Charlie Chaplin gave him in "The Kid." He misses it in "Peck's Bad Boy." largely by reason of the contrast this picture offers to the master comedy in which he made his debut. But he is still a fine little actor, surprisingly unconscious of the camera and capable of holding an audience's undivided attention so long as he is in view. As the mischievous Henry he filches the grocer's prunes and dried apples, fools father out of circus money and finally fills the same unhappy parent's lumbago pad with ants, causing more or less commotion when father carries the ants to church with him. We fear for Jackie, after seeing him carried around New York and kept constantly on exhibition for the benefit of the publicity men of his organiza- tion. But we hope for the best. It would be a great pity if his little head should be hopelessly turned — turned so far, that is, that he suddenly would find himself running backward in place of forward.
MADE IN HEAVEN- Goldwyn
HERE is another happy Irish hero for Tom Moore to toy with — a lad who arrives from Ireland with his dad and his sister in the first reel and achieves the fire department in the second, invents a flame extinguisher in the third, acquires a dress suit in the fourth and the pretty heroine in the fifth. A pleasant little comedy, with laughing Tom employing his usual good taste in the selection of heroines. One good look at Helene Chadwick, even through clouds of smoke, and he promptly picks her up, throws her across his shoulder and carries her down a long ladder to safety and future closeups. He is a versatile boy, too, with a convincing way with him. You could no more doubt his being a good fireman than you could question his being a good whitewing in "Hold Your Horses," and though "Made in Heaven" lacks the body of that particularly good comedy, it is worthy of inclusion in the current Moore series. We were a little mixed as to why, and when, he changed his name. The program called him Lowry, and the subtitles spoke of him as O'Gara. But he rather favored the O'Garas in appearance, so we'll blame the printer for the Lowry. Victor Schertzinger directed the picture from a story written by William Hurlbut. Renee Adoree (the new Mrs. Moore) plays a smart part prettily.
HUSH— Equity
CELDOM have we seen a heroine so intent upon telling her **J husband an episode of her past that she knew would result in their estrangement, as the lady who is the mainspring of the action in "Hush." She simply refuses to listen to reason. Possibly because she knew if she did there would have been no picture. "Hush," therefore, never really gets under way as a reasonable stor}\ and its obvious moral — that where
Pauline Frederick is excellent in her four roles in Roads
of Destiny, a photoplay adapted from Channing Pollock s
stage play, which was based on the original story by O.
Henry.
Griffith s Dream Street is not a super-picture but an interesting and beautifully-screened regular picture. It would lose nothing but padding and repetition by being cut from twelve to seven reels.
"The Whistle, a story of the struggle between capital and labor, provides Wm. S. Hart with one of his best roles. A drab picture, painted with brilliant touch.
6o
Photoplay Magazine
The Queen of Sheba is a Baraesque Fox production. J. Gordan Edwards founded his ancient kingdom of Sheba on some absolutely new information. Betty Blythe makes a beautifully-realized queen.
"Sacred and Profane Love brings back a rested and eager
Elsie Ferguson, but the story of Carlotta Peel is re-told
in a wabbly and uncertain fashion. Conrad Nagel gives
another fine performance.
The Traveling Salesman should win over many who
have scorned Roscoe Arbuckle s custard-pie offerings of
the past. Well directed and well photographed.
ignorance is bliss it is folly to spill the beans — is so plainly established at the outset there is no kick left in its delayed statement. Clara Kimball Young graces the various scenes with her beauty, and there are detached episodes that are well handled.
THE SKY PILOT— First National
TTAYING to do with the Western gentlemen who fight at *■ *■ the drop of the sombrero or the dash of likker in the face, shoot straight and die game, Director King Yidor elected to fill Ralph Connor's "Sky Pilot" as full of thrills as six reels will stand. Therefore he has the fight in the saloon, in which a tenderfoot minister of the gospel gives the fresh cowboy the hiding of his screen life; the tumbling hero whose horse is shot under him at the crest of the ridge, plunging both animal and rider down the embankment; the busted bridge over the deep gorge, and, most thrilling of all, a stampede of cattle plunging directly at John Bowers and Colleen Moore. This last bit is, I consider, the best thrill of the year, being free of trickery so far as the layman can tell, and mightily danger- ous. They should have paid Bowers a bonus for agreeing to head off that plunging bunch of longhorns. The story drifts occasionally into conventional scenes, but these are well played and the audience likes them.
CHICKENS— Thos. H. Ince-Paramount
TT may be 1 lack a sufficiently plastic imagination fully to * appreciate a certain type of movie. I find it practically impossible, for example, to work up any great interest in a hero who admits that he does not know the difference between a hen and a' rooster, and who is so improbably irresponsible that he bets an $8,000 motor car against a second-hand Ford that the Detroit pride cannot pull his stalled machine out of a shallow creek. His adventures and romances thereafter fail to inspire even a moderate curiosity. "Chickens," which is a new Douglas McLean picture, develops this weakness in the first reel and never recovers. McLean is a wholesome, good-looking, talented boy. He can go on for some time satisfying his flapper public with this sort of comedy, but he will gradually lose his larger and more dependable suppor ers if his directors persist in making a fool of him.
By Photoplay Editors
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA— Fox
HC Wells manufactured his "Outline of History" a year too • soon. J. Gordon Edwards could have given him a lot of absolutely new information about the oh-so-ancient kingdom of Sheba, whose very legends have been lost these many cen- turies under the drifting desert sands of Southwestern Asia. Mr. Edwards has reproduced that chapter of Sheban history dealing with the visit of the well-known Queen to the better- known Solomon, and Mr. Fox is the distributing educator. Sheba was a great place, according to Mr. Edwards, though fa'r from original in manners, morals, murals or murders. They seem to have copied everybody in their architecture, the Hollywood and Grecian schools predominating. They beat Ben-Hur and the Romans neatly to it in their chariot-racing, and with a couple of girls up to handle the four-in-hands, as neat a track event as Saratoga ever saw is thundered into the panorama cameras that follow competing stables of Egypt and Arabia around the oval. Sheba is very beautifully realized in the person of Betty Blythe. Gorgeous as her costumes are, there seems to have been little need for a garb designed to call conspicuous and continual attention to certain portions of her anatomy; it would have been no treat for the Shebans, and nowadays it is downright indelicate. And how are we to realize a "moral" from a young woman who marries a king only to assassinate him, whatever his record as maladminis- trator and roue? Be that as it may, no sooner is Sheba a loving wife and murderess, than off she goes to Solomonville, to "learn wisdom." Like the Ringlings' spring trek out of Fall River, so is Mme. Sheba's summer trek into Jerusalem; she heads the parade on an elephant, preceding even the calliope. A great many things happen in Jerusalem; every- thing, in fact, except anything human. Nell Craig, quite as attractive as ever, comes back from Essanay memories to play the scowling rival jockey to Betty Sheba. Fritz Lieber is a first-rate Solomon, but his several {Continued on page 68)
Jam Tomorrow— No Jam Today
A summary of Photoplay Magazine's campaign against the Easy-Money men in motion pictures.
By JOHN G. HOLME
IX its first article exposing and denouncing the financial methods of motion picture companies which start in business without any capital or adequate experience and finance themselves wholly by sale of stock to the public, Photoplay Magazine stated that, so far as its editors knew, no company thus founded had ever paid dividends or restored to its investors any part of their investment.
This statement was made a year ago. Since then Photo- play has spared no effort in making a thorough and impartial investigation of these stock companies but it has failed to find a single one that has made good financially. It has failed to find a single one that has succeeded in making artistic pic- tures. Not a single one of these companies has paid a bona fide dividend. Not a single one has contributed anything worth while to the motion picture in- dustry of this country.
They have pointed to great achieve- ments in the past. They have prom- ised much for the future, but they have done nothing in the present. Their case is admi- rably stated by the White Queen in "Through the Look- ing Glass."
"The rule is," said the White Queen to Alice, "jam tomorrow and jam yesterday — but never jam today."
Motion picture companies made millions yesterday, and will make millions tomorrow — but never today. That is the way it is with the wild-cat motion pic- ture companies. Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but nothing today.
Everything in the past and the future, but yesterday is gone and tomorrow never comes and the in- vestor never sees a cent of his money, much less dividends.
In its investigation and survey of the motion picture indus- try, Photoplay Magazine has thoroughly analyzed the affairs of more than one hundred companies which have made the public pay their bills for producing mediocre or wholly worthless film dramas. The capitalization of these companies reaches a total of more than $300,000,000. We have conservatively esti- mated that the American public has actuallv paid out between S50,000,000 and $75,000,000 in hard cash 'for stock in these companies during the past year, every penny of which is lost. Not a cent of this money will ever be recovered. Federal authorities estimate that the American public during last year paid out about §750,000,000 for worthless stock, so about one- tenth of the sum thrown away for worthless stock in this coun- try during the last year went into the pockets of the promoters of motion picture companies.
Fake stock promoter — "What are you doing
in there ? Fake movie school proprietor — "What arc you
doing out there ?
The results of Photoplay's campaign have been flattering. There has been a sharp decline in the sale of stock by these irre- sponsible companies. The public has been warned by the articles which have appeared in Photoplay and by further pub- licity which these articles have received. Thousands of persons have written to this magazine seeking advice on motion picture stock values. They have received impartial and sound advice free o! charge. Several of the shakiest companies which tried to do the impossible have gone out of business. They have either been forced into bankruptcy or they have just died without any court formalities. The presidents of two New York companies have disap- peared. For the launching of one of these companies the people of Xew York City and Washington, D. C, paid more than half a million dollars. One gigantic motion picture enterprise in a far western city had to be abandoned by its promoters after an investigation by Photoplay had caused the Cham- ber of Commerce and the leading bank of the city in question to with- draw their support. Photoplay has rea- son to believe that it saved the citizens of this western city several hundred thousand dol- ars, although it has never published a line in its col- umns about this venture. While it offers no excuse for conditions in this country, at the same time it may be of interest to the readers of Photoplay to know that the foreign motion ] icture field has suffered no less from finan- cial adventurers than the Ameri- can. The best example of this ma}- be found in the career of M. Himmel, who flashed across the film horizon of this country" so spectacularly last summer. He had organized a $100,000,000 international motion picture syn- dicate whereby he proposed to control the world motion picture market. Half of this capital was to be raised in this country, and American business men of unquestioned reputation became actively interested with him. After his visionary scheme had been analyzed and exposed by Photoplay and other publica- tions, Himmel was eventually arrested in France where he has recently confessed that several of the documents whereby he induced people to purchase stock in his company and lend him moral and business support were forged.
The affairs of a $5,000,000 British producing company have received a good deal of space in the British press and in all film publications of late. Reports from England state that the company in question has virtually ceased producing, and it is doubtful whether the stockholders {Continued on page 103)
61
'Drawn by f^prman oAnthony
Filming Lady Godiva's Ride
Producer — "Aw, let's bring it up to date! Make her a Follies girl, an' have her sail down Broadway in a sporty car !
62
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
63
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6+
minute. The weight of the bag did not les- sen his general discomfort. He dropped into the nearest transfer place and had the bag sent to his apartments. While he was not at all sure where he was going, he did at least know it would be some place where he wouldn't want the outfit in the bag, nor the fishing-rods in the case on top of it. So, re- lieved of the bag, he resumed his wholly aimless ramble, still on the sunny side of the street, since it required too much mental effort to reason out how much more com- fortable the shady side would be.
Here was everyone telling him he simply must drop things for a time and go and play. It looked simple enough to do a little thing like that. But he had discovered it wasn't. Trying to play seemed to be more work than work itself. Maybe he was the sort of man who couldn't play; who couldn't interest himself in anything save work. But they were telling him he wouldn't be in shape to work unless he stopped to play for a space. They might be right, or again they might not. Work had been getting on his nerves these past few months but thi> try- ing to play got on them worse. There you were! He seemed to have run up against a great futility.
He came to a little square with a plot of grass in the center of it, quite a sizable plot of grass with trees shading it, and benches beneath the trees. Paths crisscrossed this young park and an iron fence that had all the ornateness of the late '60's enclosed it. The locality was one that was changing. Old residences with brownstone fronts told what it had been. The too numerous milk bottles showing on the window ledges and the little shop in every basement told what it soon would be. Here and there a flat- fronted metal-corniced tenement house be- gan the fulfillment of the prophecies of the milk bottles on the window ledges and the emporiums of fish and provisions and gro- ceries and dry-goods in every basement.
The benches beneath the trees were sparsely occupied for so hot a day. The shade of the trees looked inviting. All in all the little park in the middle of the square seemed a fairly quiet place. Peter crossed over to it. He espied a bench, fairly se- cluded and made for it. His nearest neigh- bor was three benches distant and dozing as well. It seemed feasible to sit down on this bench in the shade and think things over; whether he'd rake up something new to try in the way of amusing himself or spare him- self further disappointment by letting well enough alone.
IF he intended to thresh this thing out he must cut out the circles around which he had been chasing himself of late. He must keep his mental processes to a straight line and get somewhere. To play or not to play seemed to be the question he must settle. He perched himself on the bench and took off his hat and thrust his hands into his pockets and puckered up his forehead.
But before he could get under way with his problem the quiet of the place, which had been the main element of attraction to him, was suddenly shattered by shrill whoops and calls and chatter and a high-pitched squeal or two. Peter Judkins swung about in annoyance. For the first time he noticed a group of children beneath the trees. It was a very animated group at that moment. They were scurrying hither and yon, some fifteen of them, egged on by a young woman who was dressed in white.
There was a peculiar note in the whoops and squeals. They sounded like made-to- order affairs. Also the children trotted about with machine-like movements, like so many automatons. It struck Peter Judkins that the small faces were all of them too sober and too vacant.
There was some signal from the young woman. The voices ceased. The young-
The Proper Abandon
(Continued from page 50) sters gathered about her. She seated her- self on the grass, and they pushed closer. She was a remarkably good-looking young woman, very cool in her white dress, very efficient seeming, very patient, Peter no- ticed. She explained something at length. Peter liked her quick little gestures.
Then all the children scattered to various appointed stations beneath the trees, some of them placed by the patient and efficient- seeming young woman herself, who gave these over-backward ones yet further at- tention in the way of long-suffering ex- planation. And presently they were off again, with all the rushing about, the whoops, the chatter, the squeals, and the young woman clapping her hands and urging them to it.
PETER JUDKINS became greatly in- terested. Finally it came to him with something of a jolt that she was teaching them to play; these sorry little human misfits who must needs be taught that which should have come to them through intui- tion. She was doing it with a thoroughness and an understanding of their poor little needs that was really touching. Peter Judkins became absorbed in the progress of that game in the mottled shadows of the trees; more absorbed than he had been in anything for weeks and months.
It struck him at length that his own case was analogous to that of these backward children who must be taught to play. It struck him with such force he caught his breath and scowled and then chuckled.
"Now, maybe," mused the most brilliant member of the well-known law firm of Bronson and Judkins, "that's what I've got to do. Learn to play!"
The quaint thought amplified itself as he turned it over in his mind.
"And it's quite possible," he added to himself, "I've got to learn from the begin- ning; start in the primer class."
Forthwith, with a great deal of his old decision, Peter Judkins arose from his bench. It would have surprised him to realize he was still able to make any deci- sion in so short a time, had he stopped to think about it. But he did not stop to think about it. He marched across the grass into the middle of the game. Natu- rally it terminated rather abruptly at his appearance in the midst of it. The vacant- faced children withdrew a space and stared at him. The young woman in white beheld him and reddened with annoyance. Peter took off his hat and engineered a decidedly stiff and formal bow, refusing to recognize the fact that he was an unwarranted in- truder and that the young woman's face had grown more angrily — and becomingly — red as he accomplished that jerky bow.
"I have been watching your work with these children," said Peter. "I am tre- mendously interested in it."
Since she had taken up this work at the Elizabeth Patterson House, which was the one old brownstone front on the square whose window ledges were guiltless of milk bottles or similar decorations, Sarah Wen- dell had listened to that statement several times. She had heard it from many men who had invaded her precincts beneath the trees, in the little park and lifted their hats and bowed just as this man had bowed. Some of them were young men and some of them were men who were trying desperately to hide the fact that they were not young. All of them were more or less vapid of face and too carefully groomed. None of them had the air of distinction of this latest invader; none of his seriousness of purpose; none of his quiet force. He might be young or he might be old. His hair, the freshness of his skin, his general appearance gave weight to the former supposition; but a droop to his shoulders, something tired in the gray eyes, and deep lines at the corners
of them suggested the exuberance of youth was well behind him. Whatever his years, he was old enough to know better. He was not at all like the other men who had simpered their expressions of interest in her work, and whom she had promptly and most effectively dealt with. This man with his rather nice smile and his air of distinc- tion was much more dangerous. It made Sarah Wendell madder — both with him and with herself for admitting such things about him to herself.
There was an overlong interval before she spoke.
"Oh, are you?" she said in a voice some ten degrees below the freezing point.
The man before her refused to be con- gealed. He was apparently able to ignore sudden drops in temperature without so much as the quiver of an eyelid.
"Fearfully interested," he rattled on eagerly. " I am wondering if you happen to have room in your class for another mem- ber?"
Sarah waited for the specific designation of that prospective member, and somehow the designation did not surprise her in the least.
"I mean myself," said Peter.
The request being unusual enough to demand explanatory bolstering up, and the young woman offering not so much as a helpful question about such explanation' Peter, perforce, in simplest self-defense, launched into it:
"You see, people who ought to know all about such things have told me I must drop everything and run about and play for a time. I've been trying to do it. But I don't know how to play. I've tried — oh, lots of things these past three weeks, but they've all been worse than work. I've worked ever since I was so high. My people died when I was a little shaver, and some neighbors — that was in a little up- state town — took me in out of the goodness of their hearts or else because I was an asset in the work line. I've always tried to be fair about it; but I'm convinced the latter was the strongest motive. I worked, anyway, until I ran away from them because there was always so much work waiting for me. I never learned to play because I never had the time to play."
He paused, apparently to see how the explanation was going with her. There was nothing about her to give him an inkling in this line. She was still a block of ice, carven into the shape of a most attractive young woman. She was thinking:
" He's clever, too, as well as distinguished- looking. So much the worse."
" QO when they told me to run away and O play, "Peter hurried on, "I was all at sea because I'd never learned how to play. In my sink-or-swim life until I found my footing and got under way there wasn't anything but work. There hasn't been much else since, either. I've grown quite familiar with vork; know it inside out and upside down and over and under and through and between. But play is a differ- ent proposition. I don't know anything about it. I've really tried very hard to play; golf, and cruising along the coast in a motor-boat, and scaring marsh-birds to death with a shot-gun, and fishing, but I couldn't seem to get the hang of any of them. And they shoo me out of the office when I go back there and tell them work is my one best bet, after all. And I was getting pretty discouraged about it all when I saw you teaching these kids how to play. I really believe you could teach me the trick. You see, I've got to start in the A-B-C class. That's perfectly clear."
Sarah W'endell was saying to herself: "He is clever. It's even a plausible yarn. He needs a lesson."
{Continued on page 66)
Photoplay Magazine — Advertising Section
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66
The corners of her mouth moved ever so slightly. She looked at him with her brows lifted just the right amount.
"You expect me to teach you the rudi- ments of play?" she asked.
"Would you?" he said eagerly.
"Here, with these children?"
The question was put to him with the idea that he would hem and haw and tentatively suggest a less public place and private lessons. Either by accident or design he dodged the pitfall. If she had thrown him a challenge he had accepted it.
"Why yes. Surely. Let me learn with the children," said he.
SHE hadn't quite expected that answer. It seemed to disconcert her somewhat. Added to the other qualities in his favor, he was game. The extent of that gameness she would find out. Her eyes narrowed.
"When would you like to begin?" she asked him.
"There's no time like the present. 'Do It Now' has always been one of my favorite mottos."
There was a momentary flash of amuse- ment in her eyes. Then they were the normal, patient, understanding eyes again. The eyes Peter Judkins found it very easy to look into, even if he could not read much in them.
"Very well," said she. "Suppose you take off your coat and hat — "
Peter did so.
" — And