Émile Chautard (1915) 🇺🇸
Émile Chautard is one of the best known French directors.
He is now at work at the World Film studios at Fort Lee on a feature in which Vivian Martin is to be starred.
M. Chautard is a graduate of the French Éclair studios and has been associated with such noted artists as Rejane [Gabrielle Réjane], and he has played at the Gymnase and the vaudeville theaters in Paris.
M. Maurice Tourneur, who is well known to American picture fans because of his making of the Robert Warwick picture, Man of the Hour, and Vivian Martin in The Wishing Ring, was formerly a member of the same company in which M. Chautard appeared. When Alias Jimmy Valentine was originally produced in Paris, M. Chautard played Valentine while M. Tourneur acted as stage manager.
More and more the motion picture is demanding the co-operation of men of the type of Émile Chautard, artists by instinct and experience. There is probably no department of theatrical production of which this gentleman is not master. His European career demanded of him that he should be the possessor of the highest intellectual abilities when you come to produce for Maeterlinck and Rostand [Maurice Maeterlinck | Edmond Rostand]; “you’ve got to go some.”
Paul Bomget [Paul Bourget] was another of Chautard’s authors — in fact, he was one of the prominent and successful stage directors in Paris when the gay city, before the war, was at the very height of its theatrical prosperity.
The French stage is a good training ground for motion picture directors, as Pathé, Gaumont, Éclair and others have demonstrated. Chautard, by the way, played Napoleon in Sans Gène fifteen hundred times. So he knows the show business all around. World Film have secured another capable aid.
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“The Exploits of Elaine.”
Episode 9, in which the indomitable Craig Kennedy still battles with defeat and is again the victor.
Reviewed by Margaret I. MacDonald.
Again the great detective demonstrates his remarkable resourcefulness in the conflict with the “Clutching Hand” that has made us all sit up and hold our breath through episode after episode of this unusually live serial. And we must all admit to being beautifully deceived by him when at the carrying out of the dreadful threat of the master criminal each hour a pedestrian falls dead at his door, he at last gives the signal of his consent to leave the country, by placing, as requested, a vase of flowers in the window. We see him board the ship which is to convey him to South America, while pretty Elaine bids him a sorrowful good-bye; and when the express drivers bring to Elaine’s home a box of valuable scientific instruments (so it was marked at any rate) belonging to Kennedy, and which was too late in arriving at the pier to gain a passage with its Blaster, we believe that we are tremendously surprised to discover beneath the unkempt appearance of the two men the personalities of Kennedy and his friend Jameson.
The big thrill of this episode takes place when again everybody concerned, meaning the three main characters of the story, are again captured and are about to have their lights extinguished by another scientific death-dealer, the Infra-Red Ray, the power of which is cleverly diverted to the room above in which the powerful instrument is placed, by means of a diverting shield which Kennedy in his experimental work has learned to make use of. The police are raiding the place, and everybody is in safety, including the inmates of the place (that is so far as we know) when the curtain is drawn.
Regarding the action of the play there is little to be said that has not been said before. Suffice it to say that the Pathé–Hearst serial continues to hold interest.
Scene from The Exploits of Elaine (Pathé).
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Seaside Theater Company fails.
Operating motion picture playhouses at seashore resorts isn’t a very profitable venture judging from the experience of Harry Sterling Goldman, who has just filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy in the United States District Court, with liabilities of $29,662 and no assets.
The petitioner conducted picture theaters at Newport, Long Branch and other places, but found to his sorrow that the wealthy people who frequent those resorts prefer to play bridge, polo, tennis or go yachting and attend dansants than witness the best thrillers on the film.
Among the creditors listed in the petition are the Strand Theater Company, of Mt. Vernon, $5,500; Charles E. Kenniston, of Long Branch, $1,500; the Associated Amusement Company, of Newport, $1,000; Abraham Michelbacher, $1,000; the Chalmers Motor Company, $625; the Greater New York Film Company, $99; the World Film Corporation, $97, and the General Film Company, Pathé Frères, the Exclusive Feature Company for lesser sums.
The People of the State of New York are listed as creditors for $300 on a forfeited bail bond which the bankrupt furnished for a friend charged with a minor offense last year which he has failed to make good.
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Unique Feature Co. bankrupt.
The Unique Feature Company is in the hands of a receiver following the institution of bankruptcy proceedings against the corporation in the United States District Court. The petition was filed against the company by Myers, Robinson & Lauber, representing the following creditors: Thomas C. Steinberg, Jennie Steinberg and R. W. Fisher on assigned claims aggregating about $500. The creditors all say the film company is insolvent and that it has preferred certain creditors.
The liabilities of the film company are estimated at $5,000 and the assets, consisting of films, rental contracts and office fixtures are valued at a somewhat smaller figure.
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Mirror-Edison Play contest decided.
The Artistic Ending Contest, held by the Edison Company in conjunction with the Dramatic Mirror and which has excited so much comment because of the novel possibilities of the plot ending, has been decided. The unfinished scenario by Mark Swan which led up to the question, “Who Stole the Portrait,” to be solved by the proffered and winning manuscript, was completed by having the artist himself steal the portrait on exhibition. This winning manuscript was submitted by Maude Moore Clement, 4118 Lake Park avenue, Chicago, to whom goes the prize of $100, while the winning title was submitted as “The Phantom Thief,” by Philip H. Lenoir, Y. M. C. A. Bldg., Las Vegas, New Mexico, for which he gets $10. Those that submitted the next best four manuscripts, entitling them to $10 were Kathleen Butler, 1876 Arthur avenue. New York City; C. H. Chaffee, 23 Roycroft Apts., Detroit, Mich.; Henry C. Grant, 247 West 50th street, New York, and Arthur E. Kohl, 330 W. 58th street, New York.
Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1915