Dark Cloud Rides Like the Wind (1915) 🇺🇸
Here is Dark Cloud, an Indian actor who made his debut this week in the first class New York picture program at the Knickerbocker theatre, appearing as the Indian Chief in the Triangle-Fine Arts play of “The Penitentes.”
His debut in the $2 pictures is rather late in life, for Dark Cloud is 76 years old. But he is as strong and sturdy as a boy of twenty, stands 6 ft. high, weighs 180 lbs. and is a man of wealth in the bargain, his bank account, it is said, totaling $100,000.
He rides like the wind and in the battle and master scenes has the fury of the Sioux. Really he is a Penobscot Maine Indian, almost the last pure blood of his race, and has been in theatrical work of various kinds for the last 20 or 30 years.
Dark Cloud is a considerable philosopher. He attributes the decay and coming extinction of the American Indian to interbreeding with the whites. He says: “My people understood nature and lived close to her throbbing heart. Your people do not know the shelter of the trees and the whispered secrets of the forest. They wear themselves out upon unspeakable realities, and they are never renewed. Modern science has come to realize that America is the oldest land in the world and that the Indian was the first man, Adam.”
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Ellis Directs “Ventures”
Producer of Many Kalem Features to Stage “Ventures of Marguerite.”
Robert Ellis, well known as a player in Kalem productions for years, and who recently showed his worth as a producer of Kalem three and four reel features, has been given the reins for the Ventures of Marguerite company, and will produce the future episodes in the Kalem series featuring the dainty Marguerite Courtot.
Ellis is considered by Kalem one of the most valued members of the directing staff, and his transference to the single reel stories is in line with that organization’s announced policy of putting its best resources in the short productions.
Screen fans will not miss Robert Ellis as an actor, however, for it is probable that he will play the “heavy” roles in the forthcoming Ventures.
The Ventures of Marguerite have proven fully up to the standard of popularity of past Kalem series, and it is expected that with this change they will become even stronger.
Miss Courtot will continue to wear Russek creations throughout the series as the fashion element has had no small part in the success of the series.
Collection: Moving Picture World, December 1915