Irene Warfield for “Satan Sanderson” (1915) 🇺🇸

Pretty Irene Warfield, formerly leading ingénue with Essanay and laterly playing opposite Robert Edeson in Belasco’s The Girl I Left Behind Me, was engaged this week by B. A. Rolfe to appear opposite Orrin Johnson in the production of the famous play, Satan Sanderson which will be the next release of the Rolfe Photo Plays Company through the Alco Corporation.

Miss Warfield, on a recent occasion when she was being sought after by a producing company, and was introduced to David Belasco, was the recipient of a sincere compliment from the great dramatist. She was being submitted to Belasco for his official approval for appearance in one of the Belasco plays in pictures. “Young lady,” said the brilliant stage wizard, “you have been specially endowed by Providence, with an abundance of beauty and your face, in addition to being beautiful, possesses that rare charm, activity and animation so seldom seen in great beauties.”

Last year Miss Warfield played the two leading roles in Within the Law for several weeks. Later she decided that she preferred to remain in the east and it was under this specification that she was engaged by B. A. Rolfe.

Mr. Rolfe is considering a second company which will do their productional work on the coast, in a studio now being completed and it is thought Miss Warfield will become a permanent feature with Rolfe interests. Once titled the prettiest girl in California, blessed with more than her share of loveliness and possessing a bounteous portion of histrionic ability, Miss Warfield’s appearance on the Alco program is being looked forward to with the keenest anticipation.

—

“The Stolen Ruby”

Two-reel picture of clever thief and her dupe — novel treatment gives it freshness and sense of mystery (Kalem).

Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.

Whenever a sense of mystery can be created and maintained by a picture, that picture by that very fact, and no matter what it deals with, will leave a fresh impression on the spectator and give him a new experience. Pictures are for no other purpose than to give that new experience and though the depth and value may vary in every case, it is always welcome and of some value — leaving out, of course, the few instances where the producer has a vicious purpose. It is strange that another man’s way of looking at things is always a new experience to us; but all we care for is that he shall make his idea, the condition that is giving him emotion, clear to us. He gives us his emotion and it is new to us.

C. Doty Hobart wrote this picture, The Stolen Ruby, and Robert Vignola directed it. The things that are utilized are not at all new, and the experience that it gives us is not deep, but it is fresh. It teases us with a sense of something unexplained and makes us strive to understand and unravel the complex of the evidence that it presents. The sole reason why it is a success is that it keeps adding only just enough evidence to give us a feeling not so much of progress toward a solution as of collecting bits that may be of use to us in putting the whole together at the end. Only at the proper place does it explain the seemingly inexplicable and close with the whole made clear.

The central figure of the story is the “softy” son of a policeman, played by Harry Millard. Over-sensitive, emotional and flighty, he himself doesn’t clearly know what has happened. When first presented he is found in his room by his father and a few policemen who have chased fugitives to the house. The boy can hardly hide the fact that he has been shot in the arm. They leave him and soon the father comes back to find him senseless on the floor. Brought to he knows that someone has hit him on the head with a chair but cannot ever guess who. He confesses to his father his part and tells of a pretty woman (Alice Hollister) with whom he had fallen in love. He thought she was eloping with him when they were chased by two men and the shot was fired. To escape from the police he brought her to his room and hid her in a trunk. After the father, with the policeman, had gone she had come out and then he found that she had a great ruby. He was trying to save it from her when he was knocked on the head. Next morning the newspaper tells of a confession made in the police station and this unravels the whole mystery for us.

It is a well directed, well made and photographed offering, is not quite two reels long, and ought to go very well indeed with the public.

—

Scene from The Stolen Ruby (Kalem)

—

Bergh Joins Baermann Literary Agency

Albert E. Bergh, for some time a member of the scenario staff of the Biograph Company, has accepted an offer to take charge of the scenario department of the Baermann Literary Agency, at 225 Fifth avenue, New York. Mr. Bergh will continue to write scenarios and contribute to the Biograph Company during the sojourn of its players in Los Angeles this winter.

—

Alliance Trebles Office Capacity

A big crew of workmen have been toiling overtime making extensive alterations and additions to the executive offices of the Alliance Films Corporation. The offices when completed will occupy practically the entire eleventh floor of the Leavett building in West 46th street, New York.

One of the features will be the projection room. Mr. Cobe (Andrew J. Cobe), the general manager, and his secretaries will occupy a suite of offices to the front, while between the offices of Mr. Kosch (Harry G. Kosch), the treasurer, and the auditing department, in a large double office, will be the headquarters of the advertising and publicity manager. The sales and the shipping departments, together with the exchange, will have commodious quarters at the rear of the main hall.

—

Consolidated Film of Texas Expanding

Early in the year 1913, not quite two years ago, there was no such thing as a supply department attached to the Consolidated Film and Supply Company at Dallas, Texas, and naturally there was no supply man. It was simply a case of carrying a few carbons, condensors and tickets in stock, and the first man who happened to be around, whether bookkeeper, stenographer or manager, sold these articles at regular prices, and no stress was laid on supplies at all.

Not quite two years ago Ned E. Depinet, the manager of the Consolidated, engaged the services of R. B. Morris, who was at that time running a moving picture theater at Memphis, Tenn. Mr. Morris was engaged as purchasing agent and manager of a new venture called the supply department. This company was then situated in cramped quarters at 1310 Elm street that city, and the supply department consisted of a rough board desk, one case of carbons, fifty rolls of coupon tickets, two second-hand machines and lots of nerve. The manager now sits at a large mahogany desk, with a plate glass top, has two assistants, a stenographer, has a beautiful exhibition room, all fitted up in brass and mahogany, carries a $25,000 stock of supplies on hand, and has recently closed a lease for an entire floor at 1900 Commerce street, Dallas, this floor, measuring 200 by 60 feet, to be used exclusively as a supply department.

Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915