Elsie Janis (1915) 🇺🇸

Elsie Janis, long considered one of our best mimics, comediennes and musical comedy artistes, has turned author and just completed her appearance, under the direction of Lois Weber, for Bosworth, Inc., in an original work, by herself, The Caprices of Kitty a five-part feature which will be released on the paramount program early in February.

Miss Janis suggested to Mr. Bosworth [Hobart Bosworth] a plot she had in mind for a dramatic production. “I am going to write a play as soon as I have enough money to stand a disappointment,” she said.

When it was suggested, in return, that her plot would make a capital motion picture story and further that Bosworth would produce her play, if she would scenarize it, the little actress began work and within ten days had completed a three hundred page scenario which she titled The Caprices of Kitty.

Lois Weber, Bosworth’s principal director, thought Miss Janice should play the role of Kitty, herself, with the result that a most satisfying and pleasing romance of sentimentality is about to be shown with Miss Janis as star and authoress.

Miss Janis is leaving Los Angeles this week for New York where, after a few days, she sails for London to assume the principal role in Charles Dillingham’s big winter review there. Bosworth completed three Janis pictures during the fourteen weeks she remained at the coast studios.

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“The Needs of Commerce”

A one-reel Edison educational release of unusual interest.

Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison.

Quite a number of those patient seekers after moving picture merit, the rapacious reviewers, expressed approval amounting to serene satisfaction when The Needs of Commerce was shown. The title does not convey more than a general idea of the subject matter. “Making Money” would have been more appropriate, as the actual process of engraving, printing, cutting and storing our paper money was shown, probably for the first time by motion pictures. From a newspaper point of view, the Edison producers have registered a scoop, and one of live interest at that. The picture will hold close attention in any theatre where it is shown.

There, right before the enraptured vision of the small audience of critics, was an ocean of greenbacks, rising in great billows, foam-crested at the edges, almost washing out of the screen. It was thrilling at times and agonizing at others — water, water everywhere and scarce a drop to drink. Critics are naturally spiritual, otherwise they could never go about with happy faces and nothing but keys to jingle, but they became suddenly absorbed and horribly material at the sight of millions of real money tossed about like amateurs’ scenarios on a reader’s desk. It is to be feared that the sight of so much stored wealth, in view of the fact that there is so little in general circulation, may make socialists of us all. One feels instinctively that Uncle Sam ought to divide with all his children instead of with those fortunate enough to own banks — there may be something the matter with a social and political system that appropriates the savings of industry for the uses of high financiers!

The Needs of Commerce starts with a few exteriors of our Washington money factory and then treats us to a glimpse of expert engraving. We watch the tracing of a master hand transferring the scholarly features of President Wilson [Woodrow Wilson] from a photograph to a plate destined to immortalize him on the new Federal Reserve bank notes, an entirely appropriate act in view of his work in revolutionizing the currency. After this glimpse of our visionary Chief Executive our eyes suddenly become rivited upon some ten thousand dollar bills in the process of making. This will make some eager eyes bulge, if, indeed, the owners of those eyes do not have to be chained to their seats.

All the processes from the transfer of engraving to the plate, through the tempering and hardening of that plate, the printing, cutting, ruling, trimming, examining and counting are boldly shown, and the working of both machinery and employees is of absorbing interest. The astounding thing about it all is how such fine photography was possible under actual conditions. Even the full sweep of a large shop is clear to the eye.

While the picture may be classed as “educational,” it is far more than that from the usual nature of the subject and the fact that very few people have more than a remote idea of how the making of money is done. It holds attention more than the average picture play because it is new to most of us. It becomes more thrilling than a subterranean melodrama when one set of employees carelessly shoves sixty-six millions into a formidable-looking safe, and another throws away five millions before our very eyes, prints that are slightly defective. Withal, it is a dignified presentation of what cannot fail to be of interest to the average audience, an audience of minds quite as eager to absorb information from dependable sources as to be merely entertained.

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Film Folk at Bronx Business Men’s Celebration

The film industry was well represented at the beef-steak dinner given by the Independent Business Men’s League of Bronx County at their clubhouse New Year’s Eve. Among “reel” fellows were Jacques Spiegel, manager of the New York Exchange of the United Film Service; Albert Kramer, Julius Schwartz, Max Cohen and David Weinberg, of the same office. Sam Trigger of the Exhibitors’ League, J. Goetz of the Crystal studio, Charles Goetz, manager of the Gauntier Studio, and the Misses Stella F. Janover and Victoria M. Pruss, of the general offices of the United Film Service, were other representatives of the film industry present. Jacob Kramer, manager of the Newark office of the United Film Service, was there also with an entourage of exhibitor friends. Sidney Asher, owner of a chain of theatres in the Bronx, was another well known film man present. Stars appearing in his several theatres contributed to the program which had been arranged for the amusement of the guests. Trigger was so pleased with the entertainment that he clamored to become a member of the organization and insisted on plunking down a half year’s dues on the spot.

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“The Exploits of Elaine”

Second installment of Pathé-Hearst serial utilizes new discovery of “The Twilight Sleep.”

Reviewed by Margaret I. MacDonald.

The interest excited in the first episode of The Exploits of Elaine finds new stimulation in the second, which is entitled The Twilight Sleep in which the mystery deepens, and the suspense is made even more breathless by the death warning sent to “Craig Kennedy” when he is enjoined to keep out of the Dodge affair or take the consequences.

Tremendously interesting, too, is the strange visitor to the sanitarium where the wonders of the Twilight Sleep is demonstrated, who rewards the kindness of the demonstrators by pocketing the syringe and serum. Later we find the mysterious agent of the “Clutching Hand” in possession of it, and still in the trail of the coveted letter belonging to the late Mr. Dodge, he enters the sleeping apartment of Elaine and injects the ethyl chloride into the arm of the sleeping girl, who, in her semi-conscious state, obeys the commands of the man of mystery, opens the safe, and afterward pens a note to Craig Kennedy, telling him that his services will no longer be required in following up the mystery of her father’s death.

In this instalment we have also the glimmer of a love element to be developed. The face of pretty Elaine has begun to crowd against science in the mind of scientific Craig. But the great feat of the picture is the ruse of the clever detective in administering an under dose of the Twilight Sleep producing fluid, under the influence of which Elaine recounts the incidents of the night before when her mysterious visitor has commanded her, thus clearing up the mystery of the receipt of the note in her handwriting by Craig.

Another thrilling point of the story occurs when the agent of the “Clutching Hand” just misses being clutched in the home of Elaine.

In the forthcoming instalments Craighton Hale will be seen in the role of Jamieson, the friend of Craig Kennedy, in place of Raymond Owens, who is giving place to Mr. Hale for the remainder of the series.

Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915