Helen Holmes — Intrepid Queen of the Rail (1917) 🇺🇸

Just how far superstition controls railroad men cannot be contemplated without amusement, and yet it is all a serious proposition to the men who are engaged maintaining our transportation facilities, which are so vital to our existence, especially now.

It is not at all uncommon for engineers to refuse to go out on the regular runs because of certain “signs” which arouse their suspicions of some impending danger. Many a time has a conductor remained at home and reported himself ill in order to avoid going on the road when he got a “hunch” that something terrible would happen. Scores of men charged with the duty of running trains have ultimately come to nervous break-downs because of worrying over ill forebodings, which must be classified as superstitions.

Few people are more conversant with the eccentricities of the men of the rail than the queen of the rail, who is none other than Helen Holmes, the heroine of so many thrilling Mutual photoplays in all of which trains play important parts. Since she adopted the railroad atmosphere as her forte in photoplaying. Miss Holmes has acquired just about enough knowledge of the entire business to make her capable of taking the position of most any man who might be called away to the trenches. She is really an expert telegrapher, and she is so accustomed to excitement she would make an ideal despatcher. She is also very proficient as a stenographer, having established the record of “doing” one hundred and fifty words per minute, which is waltzing across the keys at a right merry pace. And, when it comes to flashing words via the wire, she can operate the key to the tune of about eighteen words per minute. From her earliest schooldays Miss Holmes was known as a “comer” of the key, and she was always affiliated with some branch of the railroad industry before she ever thought of developing her histrionic talents. Therefore, it was most natural when she entered the photo-drama that she should have a “picture railway career” from the inception and to the finish. So thus it came about that she drove Mogul engines, seized telegraph keys despite the muzzles of revolvers and occasionally became a demure stenographer in “The Girl and the Game.” She spiked switches, cut wires and otherwise ornamented her railway reputation in “The Manager of the B & A” and “Whispering Smith.”

Throughout her screen activities she has been constantly thrown in the company of railroad men in real life, and she has come in contact with most every phase of the operating of railroads. Consequently she has been able to glean a great many facts on the matter of superstition in its relation to the railroader.

“Most railroad men hold a terrible fear of black cats, and if by any chance a dark-hued member of the feline family should tread across the line of vision of especially an engineer or fireman just before he is ready to go on duty, there is little possibility of dissuading him from returning at once to his home,” Miss Holmes says. “A black cat is an omen of bad things in general to many people outside of the railroad business, but I’m sure no set of men have such implicit faith in the superstition as many railway men. Why, I know a veteran locomotive engineer who absolutely retired from the business because a black cat persisted in coming into his company three nights in succession. Not only did he quit his job, but he swore he would never set foot on a train again in his whole life in even the capacity of a passenger. So far as I know he has stuck to his threat too.”

On the Western roads there is a superstition which has to do with the seeing of imaginary mirages. Trainman after trainman has come in from long runs across the more desolate stretches of western land and declared stoutly that they have experienced nerve-racking thrills as a result of seeing mirages. Once a fireman reported that he had seen in the mists of the sky a vivid picture of a wreck in which several lives were lost. That very day a similar wreck did occur a thousand miles away, and he was convinced the actual wreck is what he saw in his mirage. Furthermore, he considered himself lucky to escape disaster after being thus “warned.”

Engineers come to regard their engines as pals, according to Miss Holmes. Oftentimes an engineer becomes so attached to one certain engine that he gets all out of sorts when he has to work on another one. His good humor absconds because of still another superstition, which obtains in many quarters. It is the old change-of-luck saw. If one engine has proven immune to accidents for a prolonged period, it is calculated it will continue safe, while a new engine comes as an unknown quantity and is therefore to be watched too closely to keep down nervousness. On one occasion an engineer died from natural causes about one week after being transferred from a locomotive he had operated for three years, and it was widely remarked in his fraternity that had he been retained on his “pal” he would have likely escaped the Grim Reaper. This is superstition unalloyed.

After participating in about every variety of excitement possible in “railroading,” Miss Holmes has developed a few superstitions herself. Forsooth, she is chary of many things which do not ruffle most people in the least. Of course she has had all of her experiences with trains while moving picture cameras were focused on her, but her make-believe has been quite real after all, because her every performance has been replete with plenty of hazards and wild chances. It is very well to assume that her railway adventures are carefully staged, but actually the young star encounters many dangerous and difficult situations. If anybody thinks that clinging to the driving-rod of a locomotive travelling thirty miles an hour involves no danger of disaster to the dinger, Miss Holmes can quickly disillusion them. She did this in The Girl and the Game, but it was the result of a misunderstanding, and she will never do it again. But, back to her superstitions — she will never permit her maid to help her dress for a scene in which she is to “play her part” in a train wreck or in a mad race. She has apprehensions for the “cross purposes idea.” Another thing she always insists upon doing before undertaking any precarious work before the camera is to wear on the middle finger of her left hand a small gold band ring on which are engraved her initials.

“Purely superstition, you will say, but I feel safer and it helps,” Miss Holmes declares.

Verily, it is marvelous how superstition seems to help some people, but it surely does help a whole lot.

Railroad men are not alone in the world of superstition. Members of the army of photoplayers evince about as many “fears of untoward events” as any class of people and as convincing proof we have but to cite the case of June Caprice, the Fox star. Here are only some of her strongest superstitions:

• She refuses to walk under a falling safe, and advances the unique reason for this that the world is losing its population rapidly enough.
• She will not put her hand in a lion’s mouth because she doesn’t believe in cruelty to animals.
• She will not stand near a lightning blast because she says the light hurts her eyes.
• She doesn’t like sawdust for breakfast because she thinks heavy foods are unwholesome.
• She will not run through a glass door on account of the pane.
• She is extremely superstitious about the use of carbolic acid as a face lotion.
• She refuses to jump off the Palisades because the wind made by her descent would ruffle her hair.
• She will not sit at a table of thirteen persons unless there is something to eat.
• She will not open an umbrella in the house unless the roof leaks.
• She thinks it unlucky to take a trip to Europe at this time of the year.
• She is a firm believer in signs. For example, she never tries to buy French pastry in a shop labelled “Hardware.”
• She thinks it the best sort of luck to pick up pins in the street, especially if they are studded with diamonds.
• Unlike most persons, she wouldn’t dream of picking up a horseshoe, particularly if the latter were attached to the horse’s foot.
• She thinks a white horse lucky if you’ve bet on him for the race.
• She thinks misfortune will overtake anyone wearing an opal if he or she doesn’t keep up the payments on it.

Now say superstition isn’t a joke!

—

Helen Holmes “at home” on train-top

—

Rhymed Biography of Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett, natural funny man,
first saw the light in Danville, Can.
He soon began to show some class —
his home was then Northampton, Mass.
At sixteen years he went to school
and busted every old-time rule
by playing jokes and chaffing chaff
and making all the pupils laugh.
He studied hard through each A. M. —
and at each class — by dodging them.
For just at noon he fled the scene
and scampered o’er the village green
and beat it back! behind the stage
even at that tender age,
he strove to be an actorette.
It’s proved that that was his best bet.

At seventeen he ambled down
to seek a job in New York town.
At last one day he got a chance —
he learned to prance;
he learned to dance.
He did that stunt just fairly well,
and “Floradoraed” there a spell.
Then came a change and pretty soon
he joined The Chinese Honeymoon.
At Buffalo, Fred Mace, the boss,
came ambling in and said: “Ol’ hoss,
it’s kind of sad, but awful true,
I guess we’ve got enough of you.”

To old New York he beat it back.
A sad and lonesome man was Mack.
Though sad, he didn’t lose his laugh;
and soon he joined the Biograph.
Dave Griffith was the man in charge,
which, on the whole and by the large,
was just the thing for Mr. S.,
for soon he made them all confess
that with his most infectious laugh
he’d put the “Buy” in Biograph.

Came six months more
and he was made a boss director,
calm and staid. Though staid he was he built the fun
and filmed each laugh and joke and pun
that went upon the screen those days,
and grabbed off fame in many ways.

In nineteen-twelve, with little cash,
but loads of nerve and pep and dash,
he took two men, then glory be!
He formed the Keystone Companee.
With Adam Kessel at his back
and Charlie Baumann, this here Mack
went right ahead abuilding jokes
with only four laugh-making folks —
just Mabel Normand, Freddie Mace
(the fellow with the funny face),
Ford Sterling, too, another sport,
and last, Miss Alice Davenport.

The sledding then was somewhat rough;
they labored hard and things were tough,
but no one swore or tore his hair,
and every-body did his share.

Today, the Keystone films, you know,
are tickling ribs in Callao,
and Zanzibar and Mozambique
and everywhere that people speak —
wherever any flag’s unfurled.
Mack Sennett tickles all the world.

Do giggles pay? Does laughter win?
Do smiles beat frowns and upturned chin?
Yes, yes, again in ringing tones.
Mack Sennett has three million bones!
Three million fish to buy his hash!
Three million dollars, mostly cash.
And best of all twixt you and me,
his age is only 33.

Which proves to man, if he reflects,
that laughter pays — and Mack collects! —
From the Los Angeles Review.

Collection: Photoplay Magazine, July 1917 (The Photo-Play Journal for July, 1917)