Helen Arnold, Prize Winner (1916) 🇺🇸

Helen Arnold, the little Louisville (Ky.) girl, who was selected by William A. Brady as the most beautiful photographic type he had ever seen, and who was one of the winning candidates in the Photoplay Magazine’s Beauty and Brains Contest, has become a permanent player in the roster of the Frohman Amusement Corporation and will make her first screen appearance as Viola in that company’s production of The Witching Hour. She will be in support of C. Aubrey Smith and Jack Sherrill and is now at work under Director George Irving.

Helen Arnold entered competition against twelve  thousand  girls and because of her photographic propensities, and her intelligent correspondence, was selected as one of the winners.

Upon arrival in New York, four  weeks ago Miss  Arnold began visiting various studios hoping to gather some insight into the work before her. At the Frohman Flushing studio she was used in a court room scene and attracted the attention of George Irving, who was then engaged making The Conquest of Canaan. A test was made and after a few lessons in poise and pantomime. Miss  Arnold went through several difficult scenes with Jack Sherrill. Result — she was immediately engaged by Mr.  Sherrill and will remain definitely with the Frohman company. A legal release was secured by Miss  Arnold from the World Film Corporation, on September  9. She is the typical Southern beauty. Her brown eyes, golden brown hair and perfectly contoured facial features photographed like a cameo. Slender, graceful and dignified. Miss  Arnold’s future is almost an assured fact. In such pictures as she is cast for. Miss  Arnold will play opposite Jack Sherrill. The couple will prove ideal opposites.

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Signal’s New Serial

Helen  Holmes, the Star, and J.  P.  MacGowan, director of “A Lass of the Lumberlands” — Released through Mutual, commencing October  23.

The Signal Film Corporation has ready for release October  23 a new motion picture serial, entitled A Lass of the Lumberlands. It will feature the popular favorite, Helen Holmes, star of The Girl and the Game. Like other Signal Film Corporation’s productions, the serial when completed will be released through the Mutual Film Corporation’s sixty-eight exchanges.

A Lass of the Lumberlands is in fifteen  chapters of two  reels each. Treating as it does of a theme and an industry wholly new to motion picture patrons, it should prove an extraordinary attraction. E. Alexander Powell is the author of the story, which is filled with action and thrills, while the direction is in the capable hands of J. P. MacGowan, who was responsible for the other Helen Holmes pictures.

“In announcing to the public the release of the new serial,” said President S. S. Hutchinson, of the Signal Film Corporation, “we feel that we are presenting a screen subject that will not only exceed all previous offerings in magnitude, interest and thrills, but one which will prove very entertaining and interesting in its portrayal of mammoth industry. As the title, A Lass of the Lumberlands, indicates, the story is laid in the great North  Woods, amid the mighty sequoia, pines and cedars that makes this region famous. As the story progresses the screen will actually illustrate every detail of operation in the great lumbering industry.

“All who see A Lass of the Lumberlands on the screen are sure to gain a comprehensive idea of what the great lumbering industry means to this country.

“Of course,” continued President Hutchinson, “the story is not primarily an educational feature, but an interesting, splendidly acted spectacular chapter play. Best of all, it has been actually filmed in the real lumberlands. There is nothing staged or artificial about it from first to last. Every chapter of the entire fifteen is crammed with action, and each chapter demonstrates the daring of the fearless film star, Helen Holmes.”

From the standpoint of advertising possibilities, it is something really new in pictures. The fact that the story has the lumbering industry as its theme and that its scenes are laid in the big timber regions will give the exhibitor innumerable opportunities for odd and unusual displays in his lobby and for outdoor display on the street.

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Arrows New Series.

The Bishop’s Son is the title chosen for the first of a series of special seven and eight reel productions to be made by the Arrow Film Corporation at its studios in Yonkers, N.  Y., which, it is anticipated, will be finished within a fortnight.

This first Arrow special feature is also Arrow’s first from a story by Hall Caine.

The picture is based on Mr.  Caine’s own dramatic version of The  Deemster” which his son, Derwent Hall Caine, produced and played in on the English stage under the title of The  Bishop’s  Son.

In Arrow’s film version of The  Bishop’s  Son, Derwent Hall Caine plays the same role which he created and made famous throughout England.

The  Deemster (on which The  Bishop’s  Son is based) is laid in the Isle of Man in the years 1700 to 1710. It is therefore a costume play of a period of extremely picturesque garb.

After a careful search of all available locations by Howell Hansel, it was decided to utilize the rolling turf and the steep cliffs of Block Island to stage the production. The home of a multi-millionaire of Fort Washington avenue. New  York  City, was secured as the Deemster’s residence, and an equally imposing mansion for Bishop’s Court, the historic abode of the Bishop of Man.

A special mound, an exact counterpart of the famous Tynwald  Hill, the ancient open-air court of judgment on the Isle of Man, was constructed at Fox  Hills, Staten  Island, and more than 800  extra people were used there in the trial scenes.

The costumes for Arrow’s film version of The  Bishop’s  Son were brought over from England by Derwent Hall Caine, and are identical with those used in the famous London production of this play.

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Scene from The Bishop’s Son (Arrow).

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Henry Siegel Joins Selznick.

Henry Siegel, who recently made an enviable record as New  Jersey salesman for Bluebird, was engaged last week by Sol. H. Berman, New  York Exchange Manager of Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises Inc., to handle the mosquito belt for Selznick Pictures. Siegel began his career in the film business with the World Film Corporation in Pittsburg, transferring his activities to the East when given charge of the Newark branch. He resigned from World Film to go with Bluebird, where he put that company’s pictures on the New  Jersey map so ably as to attract the attention of Mr.  Selznick and Mr.  Berman.

Collection: Moving Picture World, October 1916