Alfred Swenson Joins Kriterion (1915) 🇺🇸

The Alhambra Brand on the Kriterion program is going to show a brand new face in its coming releases.

Alfred Swenson, who has had a wide theatrical experience in both stock and road work, is now busy posing before the camera for his first release under the Kriterion banner.

Mr. Swenson, before going to Los Angeles, appeared in stock in New York City for B. F. Keith, at the Gotham Theater. One hundred and forty consecutive weeks was Mr. Swenson’s record when he boarded the train for the West.

It appears as though he has a still longer record ahead of him. The motion picture business is famous for long runs. The photoplayers of the screen no longer keep track of their runs with the picture companies by the weeks. The shortest period taken into consideration is one year.

Many of the best-known plays of the past decade have claimed Mr. Swenson as their star. Among others he appeared in The Wolf when that production was having such a splendid success throughout the country. He also appeared in stock for several years in Salt Lake City. In fact, every city in this country of ours of any size has seen Mr. Swenson’s work some time or other.

This is not his first appearance before the camera. He asserts that he is thoroughly camera broke. With his wide following throughout the country his ability to just exactly portray the character that is required of him, coupled with his pleasing personality, which someway or other creeps into his picture work, Mr. Swenson seems assured of the great popularity that comes to all good motion picture actors.

—

“Hearts and Planets”

One-reel Keystone farce of original conception and amusing treatment.

Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison.

Cast:
Visible Star — Chester Conklin
Invisible Star — Mack Sennett
Three Astronomers and a girl.

An astronomical farce, Hearts and Planets, is amusing enough to please the average audience, and it has the merit of departing from the stereotyped in its development. It does not, however, give Chester Conklin the exact opportunity suited to his peculiarities. He excites laughter by sheer stupidity. The inanity of his portrayals, their weak-mindedness, the inferiority of which his characters are not conscious, which are, however, obvious to the audience in his amusing self-revelations, constitute his art. The ludicrous side of his acting would be more pronounced if he essayed the role of an important man, a self-important one, trying to make a profound impression, in sublime ignorance of his own condition and of what others think of him. Mack Sennett might try his star in such a part to advantage.

Chester Conklin in Hearts and Planets courts the daughter of an astronomer. He manages an elopement, but the girl’s father chances to see him through a powerful telescope. For this Conklin attempts novel retaliation. He carries a formidable array of fireworks to the observatory and sets them off as the astronomer is engaged in star-gazing. The astronomer telephones to some fellow-scientists and they gather at his observatory to witness some remarkable phenomena in the heavens. There are rockets, roman-candles and pin-wheels in the sky, as if the entire universe was in a state of eruption instead of a few nations on earth. The ingenious suitor and the girl are enjoying themselves so well that they become careless, and a human hand and slow match are injected into the field of observation.

Discovery that they have been fooled sends the three astronomers to the roof in vengeful mood, but they are immediately and very accurately bombarded with rockets and stars. The girl finally effects a rescue with a stream of water from a fire hose, and reconciliation follows. It is mere farce — it is simply to laugh and that is all there is to it — but it is refreshing in the presentation of new effects, and it will brighten the variety of any exhibitor’s program.

—

Scene from Hearts and Planets (Keystone)

—

Exhibition to Religious Editors

A private exhibition was given to the religious editors of New York publications on Thursday afternoon, February 18, by the Church & School Social Service Bureau at its offices, 80 Fifth avenue, New York. The visitors were shown a number of reels of religious, educational and sociological subjects that indicated the scope of the work of the Bureau, of which Rev. William Carter, D. D., is the head.

Dr. Carter announced that the Bureau would give an exhibition before the Presbyterian Social Union at the Savoy Hotel on Monday, March 1. He also said that arrangements had been made with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company by which the Bureau would have control of all educational subjects made by that company.

—

“Polly of the Circus” Injunction

In granting the petition of Margaret Mayo Selwyn for an injunction restraining the Feature Film Association from producing and marketing a feature picture under the title Polly of the Circus, Justice Cohalan, in a special term of the Supreme Court for New York county, issued an order forbidding the defendants during the pendancy of the action from “exhibiting, performing or representing or advertising in any manner or form, the performance or intended performance, representation or production of any motion picture photoplay under the title Polly of the Circus, or any simulated or colorable imitation of the said title, and from using or advertising or announcing the use of the said title Polly of the Circus or any colorable imitation thereof, as the title of any motion picture photoplay”; also that they withdraw all advertising matter and turn the same over to the plaintiff.

[Transcriber’s Note: see also Polly of the Circus (1917)]

—

Atsco in Bankrupt Proceedings

The Atsco corporation, which manufactures and sells curtains and screens for the projection of moving picture films, with offices at 218 West Forty-second street, is bankrupt, with liabilities estimated at $21,000, and assets valued at about $5,000.

The petition was filed by the law firm of Olcott, Gruber, Bonynge & McManus, representing the following creditors: Rose C. Keegan, $202; Paul T. Kammerer, Jr., $182, and Harry M. Spence, $160. It is alleged the corporation is solvent and preferred certain creditors. Judge Mayer appointed Milton M. Sittenfield receiver under a bond of $2,500.

The company has a factory at East Orange and manufactures radio gold fibre screen by a secret process which gives high reflecting power and is believed to be very valuable. Additional capital is needed to develop the process, but the officials of the corporation are confident they will be able to interest financiers in the project.

Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1915