THE PICTURE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 11

THE PICTURE WORLD

Salaries of stars at Inceville, where Ince feature films are made, exceed £16,000 a week. According to Mack Sennett, the famous Keystone comedy producer, operators should project comedies at a uniform rate of 14 minutes per reel. Including the Mabel Normand-Roscoe Arbuekle combination, no less than eleven different Keystone companies are at work, principally upon Triangle comedies.

The well-known hymn, "Abide With Me," has been used as the base of a film story 'recently produced in England, and Battle Abbey, Hastings (England), was largely used for both interior and exterior scenes.

For his Triangle picture, "The Beckoning Flame," T. H. Ince had a travelling menagerie embracing elephants, camels, zebras, Arab horses, etc., transported 200 miles to the. Mojave desert, to figure in an Oriental wedding pageant.

The Fox actors now include Charles Waldron and Katherine Grey, both known in legitimate drama in Australasia. Waldron played in "The Squaw Man" opposite Ola Jane Humphreys, who, strangely enough, experimented with the colour line herself shortly ' afterwards, when she wed1 an Egyptian prince now said to be fighting with the Turks. In the intervals between his cinema acting in California, Sir Herbert Tree is writing a series of stories called—like Lamb books—"Tales from Shakespeare." He makes an opening with "Macbeth." On Shakespeare Day Sir Herbert is to give a "great international performance" in New York City to synchronise with the London celebrations. The proceeds are to go to one or other of the war relief funds.

Seeing the blithesome Billie Burke frolicking abont the screen as Peggy reminds one of the momentous sum of money Billie received for doing that same frolicking (says a Chicago film critic). Of course, she is lovely and as young and joyous as a morning in spring, but £8000 is a lot of money just to look pretty. It is not given to "Miss Burke to do much else, for Peggy consists mostly of a series of attractive Burke poses, with an infinitesimal portion of dramatic acting."

"Screen" in the Bulletin : Bourke-street will have ten picture houses when the almost-finished Empire Theatre and 'the threatened Union Company's place are ready to swallow audiences. With the three Melbourne palaces that are ,out of ■the consecrated Bourke-street, the city will shortly have the choice of thirteen. In the suburbs there are at least two dozen in the first-class, and the total muster is about sixty. They must be making their own public, as the theatres are not suffering.

The Bluebird Company put out a new mermaid picture, "Undine," last month, and we may expect it here later on. It was taken in the waters of the Catalina Islands off California with the aid of. a bevy of naiads, chief among whom is one Ida: Schnall, said to be a great girl swimmer and diver. The picture is claimed to be equal to "Neptune's Daughter." "Movie" realism was well, illustrated at a Melbourne suburban picture theatre recently. In "A Woman With a Past" there is a scene in which »the hero is chained to a wall in the "crooks' " den. To his wrist a metal plate has been 'affixed, and when the plate touches an iron rod in the wall the electric current will be completed, causing a bomb to explode. But the villains' plans are foiled, and the hero is rescued. Feeling sure the plotters against his life will return in order to ascertain why the bomb has not exploded, the hero arranges a device with pieces of metal in such a manner that the opening of the door will cause the bomb to explode, with disastrous effect on the enemy. In tense silence the result was awaited, but when one of the returning crooks placed his hand on the padlock which secured the door the situation proved too much for a spectator, who roared in stentorian voice, "Look out, there!" Probably he felt hurt at the laughter that followed. The Ideal film version of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" should be named "The Two Mrs. Tanquerays," inasmuch as the first, wife of Aubrey Tanqueray, "all marble arms and black velvet," appears in the picture, and incidents connected with the first marriage are depicted. The career of Paula, prior to meeting Aubrey at Covent Garden, is also dealt wit.li, including her connection,; first with Hugh Ardale, and then with Peter Jarman. All this by way of bringing the story up to the point at which the play commences. A fine cast has been got together for the screen presentation of Sir Arthur Pinero's domestic v tragedy, including Sir George Alexander and Miss Hilda Moore, as Aubrey Tanqueray and Paula respectively. The scene showing the meeting of the chief characters at the opera was filmed at the studios in the presence of a number of representative people, among whom were Sir Arthur Pinero, Sir John Hare, and Rutland Barrirgton. "One of the reasons why I danced for the moving pictures," said Pavlova, the famous Russian dancer, to an interviewer, "is that, although the actor or singer must appear on the screen without his voice, the whole of my work can be portrayed. Of course, I realise that comparatively only a few ■ people will ever see me in the flesh, but then the moving pictures will last after I am dead, and will enable great crowds of people—millions of people—who are unable to reach the big cities or to pay high prices for seats, to see my photographs in movement. That is what it is. Moving pictures'are to art what a photograph is to a living person.. Another reason why I am willing to appear on the screen is that I believe with all my heart in the educational value of moving pictures. There is no better way in which a taste, for things artistic can be sown and cultivated among the people. I am quite sure that moving pictures have a great civilising influence which far off-sets any injury they may do _to the technique of dramatic and lyric artists who act for them."

As all playgoers know, 'Sir Herbert Tree is at present on the "other side," devoting his gifts and energies to film work. Mr. Henry Dana, his London business manager, has received a cheery letter from Sir Herbert, in which he spoke enthusiastically of the kindness and courtesy he was meeting "with from everybody, with whom his new enterprise had brought him into association in Los Angeles, and saying, in so many words, that he was having the "time of his life." One hopes (says London Telegraph) that Sir Herbert's enthusiasm for his present' sunny surroundings will not induce him to reconsider his determination to return in due course to his own country. Meanwhile, however, his days are pretty fully occupied. Thus the film production of "Macbeth," which is now engaging the actor's attention, will take some two months in development, being, in fact, a most elaborate and costly undertaking. Sir Herbert mentioned in the letter to which reference has just been made that he has decided to call the series of pictures of which "Macbeth" is to be the first "Tales from Shakespeare." An'English picture fiend with a taste for limericks has perpetrated the fol lowing, which, of course, refers to Mnrgarita Fischer, the well-known screen player :— Miss Fischer, well-known as a fisher,

Was fishing tor fish in a fissure, When a cod, with a, grin, Pulled the fishermaid in; . Now they're fishing ths fissure for Fischer. •