Earl Metcalfe (1916) 🇺🇸

When boyish, good looking Earl Metcalfe tells you that he was born in Newport, Kentucky, twenty-eight years ago, you are inclined to fancy that he is adding a few years to his actual age, and it is only when you recall the fact that he has been playing leads for the past five years that he becomes absolved from suspicion of attempting to evade the truant officer.

Coming from the legitimate stage where he played lead for Stella Hammerstein, and juvenile for Zelda Sears, he joined the Lubinville forces with whom he played leads for four years in such pictures as The Nation’s Peril, The Insurrection, The Gamblers, and Daughters of Men. Then, for a year he directed until he was captured for the Farnham [Joseph Farnham] feature, Race Suicide, which will be put on the screen late this fall, and which he played the leads in roles ranging from a prehistoric cavern and to the modern citizen. His latest success is in the principal part of the Buffalo Times’ forthcoming serial The Perils of a Girl Reporter, directed by George Terwilliger. When Mr. Metcalfe is not joining clubs, he is already a member of the Lambs, Green Room, the Screen Club, St. Augustine Yacht Club, the Theatrical Club of Jacksonville, the Masonic Fraternity, and the Actors’ Fund, he employs his leisure in writing short stories of which he has several to his bank credit.

Mr. Metcalfe has just returned from a yachting trip on which he embarked upon the completion of his Buffalo Times’ feature, and is resting and recuperating at the Longacre Hotel, New York, while regaining facility in saying “Right” and “Left” instead of “Starboard” and “Port.”

When he has thoroughly eradicated the nautical vocabulary from his system, he will be glad to consider propositions from producing companies whose activities will keep him on dry land for a few months.

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Extend “Girl from Frisco”

Success of Kalem series causes addition of ten more episodes.

The Kalem Company on Monday officially confirmed The rumors that plans have been considered to extend the Girl from Frisco series beyond the fifteen-week period originally set. Though many weeks were spent in consideration of this step the requests from exhibitors and exchange men for an extension continued with such persistency that it was definitely decided on Monday to add ten episodes, bringing the series to twenty-five.

Arrangements have been completed with Robert Welles Ritchie, whose realistic stories of the West have been so largely responsible for the success of the series, to write the plots for the additional ten episodes. Marin Sais and True Boardman will continue to be seen in the leads of the series that has proven the most popular of their screen careers.

Among the episodes of Girl from Frisco promised for early release are The Web of Guilt and The Reformation of Dog Hole. The former episode finds Barbara unraveling a baffling mystery in which her only clue is a peculiar weave in the rope used by the criminal. It is scheduled for release on Wednesday, October 4th.

One of the most picturesquely Western episodes of the series is The Reformation of Dog Hole, issued on Wednesday, October 11th. Marin Sais, as Barbara Brent, in this story undertakes to “clean up” Dog Hole, reputed as “the toughest town west of the Sierras.” With the aid of John Wallace, portrayed by True Boardman, she succeeds in her purpose, but only after a bitter struggle with the rough element of the town led by Hawk, proprietor of the “Red Copper,” the local saloon and gambling place. In the last mentioned character Ronald Bradbury, who has gained popularity in the “heavy” roles of the series, contributes a novel interpretation.

Included in the other players seen in these two episodes are Frank Jonasson, Josephine West, Edward Clisbee, Karl Formes and Steve Murphy. Director James Horne is handling the productions.

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Von Rittberg’s Side of Veritas Affair.

To the Editor of the Moving Picture World.

Dear sir:

In your issue of August 12 there appeared an article, “Cincinnati’s Veritas Photoplay Bankrupt,” in which insinuations were made against me, and it therefore behooves me to correct the statements made and give your readers the truth of the matter. By reason thereof I hereby depose under oath as follows:

After spending both time and money in gathering data for a sociological photodrama, which was scenarioized by Mrs. Winifred von Rittberg, a professional writer. I set about organizing the Veritas Photoplay Company, going to Cincinnati where I understood certain people were interested in getting into the business.

The preliminaries oyer, certain contracts were agreed upon by the officers and directors of the company and ourselves, but were later, when Mrs. von Rittberg and I were in New York selecting our cast, substituted by contracts containing clauses impossible of fulfillment. We fought against signing, but their secretary, Melvin R. Short, threatened that the deal would be called off unless we did. Still we refused until we had both wired and talked by long distance to Andreas E. Burkhardt, president of the company, and received from him both verbally and by telegram, assurances of his protection, and that of all the members of the board. In spite of this, however, we had Short sign papers as secretary of the company that the’ specific clauses objected to would be amended to our satisfaction. Mr. Short’s resignation from the company was secured shortly thereafter, however, and these papers signed by him disqualified.

Later, the president, Mr. Burkhardt, made demands upon me for some of my stock “if the company were to continue,” and named a figure of from $10,000 to $15,000. I did not accede inasmuch as I had already given him and three other members of the board an agreement whereby I was to turn over to them $15,000 worth of my stock for the selling of sufficient stock to produce the picture.

Upon the completion of the picture the film and other properties were spirited out of New York by the president. Going to Cincinnati we found matters “cut and dried,” and that the paragraphs we most objected to in our contracts were exercised to the letter in spite of the aforesaid assurances of “protection,” and it became evident that said contracts had been framed to freeze us out.

Our contracts violated, we put our case in the hands of Cobb, Howard & Bailey, associate attorneys of the Actors’ Equity Association, but there was little could be done on these contracts. The next move on the part of the company was to file bankruptcy. The petition in bankruptcy did not set a value on the only real asset the company had. namely the picture, which had meantime had been prepared for release, the cutting being done by Robert Olsson, cameraman, at his own suggestion. That it has as a result to be re-cut, is another story. The only asset of any value named was a claim against me for $11,355, an entirely false and spurious claim. Mrs. von Rittberg and I had, as a matter of fact, claims against the company for breach of contracts, unpaid salaries, and unissued stock; a settlement regarding which was paid by the company on August 18th to the amount of $1,500 cash, and $2,500 in stocks — and this in spite of the fact that the company’s assets as listed included a cash amount of $38 only.

The statement that appeared in this publication several weeks ago referring to me as “otherwise Jacques Jansen,” is untrue in every detail and hereby repudiated. Jacques Jansen happens to have been my stage name for seventeen years, and not an “alias” as insinuated.

That the company did reach a producing stage is evidenced by the fact that it has a picture produced by me under preparation for release.

Now the directors have gotten rid of the “inventors” of the company in the well known way. and for a small settlement, they have withdrawn their bankruptcy petition, and will release the picture and otherwise resume business.

(Signed) John Von Rittberg.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 18th day of Sept. A. D. 1916. (Seal.)

Tones Sullivan. Notary Public.

Collection: Moving Picture World, October 1916