Hopp Hadley with United (1915) 🇺🇸

Hopp Hadley, widely and popularly known in screenland as a press representative and scenario editor, has joined the staff of John C. Graham (Movie Executive), the new president and general manager of the United Film Service, and is now occupying a busy corner in the company’s offices at 126 West 46th street, New York.

For the purposes of this yarn the many good qualities of Hopp will not be categorically enumerated. He is one of the capable and high-class men who have come into the business in the last few years.

His father was the celebrated Col. H. H. Hadley, lawyer, journalist and lecturer, and two of his brothers are occupying pulpits in near-by parishes. Hopp, himself, is a graduate of New York University and is entitled to practice law if, at any unfortunate time, the film business should go “Blooey-blooey.”

Hopp slipped into the “film game” in the first place by way of the Majestic-Reliance combination after those companies were secured by Messrs. Aitken and Ritchey [H. E. Aitken | J. V. Ritchey]. When the Mutual Film Corporation was organized Hadley continued to turn out stories for Reel Life and was for a time under the direction of Phillip Mindil, who then had charge of Mutual publicity.

Resigning from this position Mr. Hadley became editor and publicity manager for the Solax Company and Blaché Features (Alice Guy | Herbert Blaché), in which position he continued until that concern somewhat curtailed its activities a few months ago. A period of free-lancing followed until he made the connection with the United as mentioned before.

Hopp Hadley is a member of the Screen Club and was the secretary of that organization during the first year or so of its existence. His return to active service in the film business will be welcomed all round.

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Henry McRae Produces an Aeroplane Story

The most sensational aeroplane drama which the Universal has prepared in some time will shortly be released. Henry McRae, director of the 101-Bison Company, engaged aviator Frank Stites to fight a battle in the air with another aviator, and the filming of the fight was accomplished from another aeroplane.

Los Angeles newspaper reporters and thousands of spectators witnessed the thrilling spectacle which duplicated in all essential details the daily duels in Flanders and France between the British, French and German aerial corps.

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Life Photo Film Corporation Completes Its New Studio

The glass-enclosed studio, in addition to the studio heretofore operated by the Life Photo Film Corporation, of Grantwood, N. J., has been completed. Radical innovations devised by Mr. John Arnold, the head camera man of the Life Photo Company, have been installed in this new studio, such innovations being ballbearing trolleys running east and west, north and south, for the manipulation of the Cooper-Hewitt lights installed in such addition.

The length of the studio is 110 feet by 68 feet wide, and an unusual method of construction has been inaugurated so as to eliminate entirely all posts and obstructions, the roof of the studio being supported upon the same theory as the cantilever bridge.

The Commercial Motion Pictures Co., Inc., an allied corporation of the Life Photo Film Corporation, are rapidly progressing with their work in enlarging their laboratories.

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Reichenback with Metro

Harry L. Reichenback, press agent and motion picture feature promoter, more recently with the Bosworth Company, has joined the staff of the Metro Pictures Corporation as press representative.

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“The Heart of Maryland”

Mrs. Leslie Carter appears in the Tiffany Corporation’s six-part production of famous play.

Reviewed by Lynde Denig.

Mrs. Leslie Carter and Belasco’s The Heart of Maryland are inseparable in stage history. Reflections from the past of some twenty years ago bring back an inviting, highly colored picture of a woman with streaming hair swinging out from the belfry tower — a human muffler on a bell. Such was the artist’s vision of Mrs. Carter in the big dramatic scene of the popular war play that enjoyed a long run at the Herald Square theater, New York, and later was performed in every city of consequence the country over.

When the Tiffany Corporation arranged to place the drama in pictures, the logical selection for the part of Maryland Calvert was Mrs. Carter, and she was engaged to head an exceptional company under the direction of Herbert Brenon. The new Heart of Maryland in six reels of spectacle, action and strong human drama will be shown at the New York Hippodrome and at large theaters in other cities. Concerning its popular appeal there can be no question.

The production pleases the eye to a remarkable degree because of a great number of finely photographed scenes, the artistic merits of which are emphasized by beautiful tones and tints. The picture has every semblance of accuracy in the furnishing of rooms, the equipment of the armies of the North and the South and the detailed presentation of life in time of war. Every man in the picture who wears a uniform — most of them do — looks like a soldier, and when the troops are brought into action it is like standing on a hillside and watching a conflict in the valley — charges and repulses, onslaughts of cavalry, an inferno of exploding shells and lines of men rushing this way and that over a battlefield that appears to extend to the horizon. Supplementing the spectacle offered in these scenes is that of the burning church, built for the occasion and reduced to ashes after Mrs. Carter — there is no doubling here — has swung back and forth in the belfry tower. The camera men under Director Brenon secured striking contrasts in photographing the conflagration that is viewed from all angles.

The Heart of Maryland is a difficult story to present clearly in pictures, owing to the complexity of the plot and the number of families divided against themselves. But once the characters have been fairly established, the meaning of the action is readily grasped. From first to last there is not a foot of padding — not one scene that seems superfluous. And the chief figures are so well played that they excite interest of their own account.

Dramatically, the picture reaches its height with the struggle in the church between Mrs. Carter as Maryland and J. Farrell Macdonald as Colonel Thorpe, a character that he makes forceful and convincing without once resorting to melodramatic exaggeration. William E. Shay, in the quite dissimilar role of Alan Kendrick, is of equal value to the production, whereas Matt Snyder, in appearance and manner is unmistakably a Confederate general. Vivian Reed, Raymond Russell, Marcia Moore and Mr. Brenon are among others whose performances give strength to a photoplay of marked merit.

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Scene from The Heart of Maryland (Tiffany)

Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1915