FILM MAGAZINE

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 11

FILM MAGAZINE

EARLY FARE FOR THE FANS The ‘ Illustrated Films Monthly ’ was first published in September, 1913 — almost the first English “fan” magazine; only the short-lived ‘Pictures and, by six months, the ‘ Picturegoer ’ (still with , us) forestalled it, says a writer in the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ It became the ‘ Picture Stories Magazine ’ before it: died, a lesser casualty of the Great \Var, in February, 1915. Its three volumes, which some enthusiast had bound solidly and tastelessly in half-calf, gilt and maroon and green, were a whimsical ten shillings’ worth at a Manchester bookseller’s a few months ago. When the magazine’s first number reached the book stalls, announcing to “the film-loving public ” thatit would give “ the stories of the principal films due to be released during the coming month," and that it was “ promoted with the idea of increasing and cementing public interest in moving pictures,” the story film was 10 years old, the movie itself nearer 20. Sarah Bernhardt had already taken part in a long and lavish French film of Queen Elizabeth, the Italian Ambrosio had made ‘Theodora’ and ‘The Fall of Troy,’ and if the magazine just failed to live long enough to see ‘ The Birth of a Nation ’ and ‘ Intolerance,’ its first number was in time to record Italian and American versions of ‘ Quo Vadis ’ and the Johnston Forbes-Robertson ‘ Hamlet.’ Yet “Bunny,” of Dulwich, had addressed a letter to the editor which was answered in the second number by “ Without the slightest shadow of doubt moving pictures are now firmly established.” The editor had some reason for this belief; in the few pages of his periodical not devoted_ to . stories of the films he was mentioning scenarios by Marie Corelli and productions by Sir Hubert : Herkomer, Thomas Hardy’s “entire approval” of the film version of ‘Tess,’ and thundering abuse against the cinema’s “conventional morality.” The cinema had become respectable. With respectability came the invasion from the stage. Miss Gertrude Elliott appeared with her husband in ‘ Hamlet ’; Miss Cissie Loftus, Mr Matheson Lang. Mr Charles Hawtrey, Sir Charles Wyndham, Sir Herbert Tree, and Mr Cyril Maude are all mentioned as having parts in new British films. But the cinema was breeding its own stars, too. The 20-years-old Mary Pickford was already “ Little Mary, the queen of the movies and the idol of two continents.” She is pictured half a dpzen times in the magazine’s 18 issues, that of November, 1914, mentioning that she was the wife of Owen Moore and estimating her sal--1

ary, as £2OO a week. Alma Taylor, Ghrissie White, and Ivy Close Were amongst the most popular English stars, and Lillian Gish was a promising newcomer of 17. f . John Bunny (Flora Finch was Laurel to his Hardy) was being newly challenged in size and popularity of Mr Roscoe Arbuckle, whilst the greatest comedian of them all was making his modest entrance. “ Mil CHARLES CHAPLIN.” “ I am told,” writes the gossip writer in the-issue of May, 1914, “ that Mr Charles Chaplin, the popular comedian from Mr Fred Kamo’s company, who appeared with such conspicuous success in ‘ Mumming Birds,’ has now been added to the already lengthy list of Keystone laughter-makers. . . . Those who have seen Mr Chaplin as a picture player have formed a high opinion of his work, and he bids fair to become one of the most popular of film comedians.” Twenty-five years ago Mr G. M. Anderson was “ Broncho Billy,” the Tom Mix of his day, Miss Marie Dressier was “ showing her talents in pathetic and sentimental episodes,” and Raoul Walsh, who was later to direct ‘ The Thief of Bagdad,’ ‘ Rain,’ and ‘ What Price Glory ?’ was playing heavy leads in melodrama and exercising a tenor voice in musical comedy; Eugene Pallette, the tubby American millionaire of ‘ The Ghost Goes West,’ was the i?ood-looking leading man of Reliance Films, and Dolores Costello was already, at eight, following the starry footsteps of her father, Maurice, Child stars were not the only hints of things to come. In 1913 there were German cameramen with the Greek army at the front, Americans with Pancho Villa in Mexico; the Japanese were concerned with educational films, the French with a film library. An enthusiastic minister was including films in his services at tabernacles in Bromley and Poplar. Somewhere on the Continent a railway company had shown films in its long-distance trains, and one of the two colour processes then current was being used to show off the fashionable tango dresses—the “rage of London society.”- ‘Sixty, Fears a Queen ’ —a life of Queen Vic-' toria—was, in 1913, “ a veritable triumph of British filmcraft,” and at £12,000 “ one of the most costly things yet attempted in this country.” The fan magazine of a quarter of a century ago had not yet evolved its own prose- style, nor the films their jargon. The ‘ Illustrated Films Monthly ’ used, on occasion, the plural noun “ scenarii,” and found it necessary to explain to English filmgoers what “ rustling a broncho ” meant. “ Hold-up,” “ quitter,” “ shack,” “ tough,” “ hobo,” “ dead-beat,” and “ dive ” were all nouns that were carefully translated in an erudite paragraph. The story-film’s new literary pretensions, too, w;ere bringing strange names to the notice of an unlettered public. One of the magazine’s answers to correspondents was “ Edgar Allan Poe, of ‘ Pit and Pendulum ’ fame, was a handsome man, and though erratic at times Was very hard-work-ing.” Another on the same page—to prove how far we have travelled—was to an inquisitive “Alice J.”: “We cannot answer marriage questions.”