Josephine West (1915) 🇺🇸

Josephine West, one of the new stars of the United Film Service, makes her first appearance at the head of the newly organized Pike’s Peak Film Company in a striking play of Indian life, The Greater Barrier, which is to be released shortly.

Miss West, while only just added to the roster of stars appearing under United auspices, is a leading woman of vast experience in legitimate as well as screen productions. Since entering the ranks of photoplayers she has been identified in particular with Western subjects, having played leads in the Broncho Films for two years, in the Cheyenne Feature Films and the Colorado Motion Picture Company’s productions, as well as with other companies, specializing in Western reels. She has also appeared in a great variety of roles for the Edison, Lubin and Selig companies. It was she who was the leading woman in The Hand of the Law, a Western photoplay which featured Thomas J. Tynan, warden of the Colorado State Penitentiary.

Miss West has entered heart and soul into the life of the plains since going West some years ago and has become an adept at riding, roping, shooting, boating and swimming. In a recent film play, Bringing in the Law, she permitted a horse to be shot under her while in full gallop, a fair example of her intrepidity and fearlessness. The play proved one of the greatest thrillers ever thrown on the screen. In the most recent production in which Miss West appears, The Greater Barrier, which is promised for early release by the United Film Service, Miss West allows herself to be dragged by a horse at the end of a lariat.

This lithe and lissome pet of picturedom has been appearing before audiences either in the flesh or in reflected poses ever since her sixteenth year. She is a Southern girl, being born in Virginia, and boasts all of the lusciousness, magnetism and olive-skinned pulchritude of the daughters of that state. Her experience on the legitimate stage includes many important roles, in which she won high recognition.

That invaluable asset where picture-playing is concerned, experience in a repertoire theater, is possessed by Miss West. She was leading woman of the College Theater Stock Company of Chicago and of the Imperial Stock Company of the same city for several years.

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“His New Job”

Charles Chaplin makes successful start with Essanay in enjoyable two-reel comedy.

Reviewed by Margaret I. MacDonald.

Judging from first impressions and the roars of laughter evoked by Chaplin’s first Essanay comedy from a representative New York audience, His New Job is going to be popular.

Strange to say, the production has no plot to speak of; but it would seem that Charles Chaplin has but to poke some other fellow in the stomach, pommel the seat of his trousers, or rattle his brains with anything that comes handy to call forth round after round of the heartiest laughter. And after all is said and done the whole production consists merely of slapstick comedy; nor does it seem to belong to any distinct school of comedy. The fact of the matter is that His New Job is rather a hard proposition to analyze, and the only thing that is certain, besides its assured popularity, is that it sets the fuse to the picture fan’s bump of mirth.

Ben Turpin proves a good foil for Chaplin. For him the comedy star has no respect whatsoever. He pushes his face in, kicks him, slams the swing doors in his face, and finally walks on the unfortunate’s stomach. In fact, he abuses with sturdy vigor most people who happen to cross his orbit; and stepping on the leading lady’s train, with the result that her shapely silk-stockinged calves, with their appendages of feet in French-heeled slippers continue on their upward way unconscious of the public gaze, is one of the least of the offenses committed by the clever comedian.

What there is of a plot consists of his coming to a moving picture studio to look for work. From the position of carpenter’s assistant he falls heir through stress of circumstances to the enviable role of the hero of a picture play which is in the course of production. The mistreated applicant whom he has pommeled to the queen’s taste takes his place as carpenter’s assistant. Later, by a clever reversal of situations, the head carpenter, blamed for the hero’s misdeeds, is thrown bodily from the studio.

It would be impossible in short space to recount the various atrocities committed by comedian Chaplin in these two vibrant reels; but, as indicated before, if the audience thinks it’s funny, it must be so.

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Artists’ Models in “Old Dutch”

Admirers of female beauty in real life, as well as between magazine covers, should make a point of seeing Lew Fields in Old Dutch, the five-reel comedy released by the World Film Corporation on February 8.

There is a scene in the film in which, at a large Florida hotel, it is necessary to have a group of beautiful girls. Frank Crane, the director of the picture, determined to have the most beautiful models he could procure, and instead of going to the theater for them went to the studios of the best-known illustrators in New York — those having pleasing drawings and sketches of feminine types which delight us on, and in, magazines, books, billboards, etc. This resulted in Mr. Crane being able to procure eight of these lovely girls to appear in Old Dutch.

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The artists’ models who appeared in Old Dutch

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Agnes Egan Cobb Leaves Éclair

Agnes Egan Cobb, after two years of hard work placing the Leading Players Film Corporation and Features Ideal, Inc., on the market and giving them a world-wide, substantial reputation, has resigned from the management of the aforesaid corporations, as well as from the board of directors of the Éclair Film Company.

Mrs. Cobb has had no vacation during this time and feels the need of one very badly. She has gone to Toronto to visit her brother for one week. Upon her return she will take up the management of the Egan Film Company until the complete recovery of her brother, Charles S. Egan, who is gaining his health rapidly, and is expected back to his office inside of the next two weeks, whereupon, Mrs. Cobb says, she will launch the biggest surprise the film industry has known yet.

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Carlyle Blackwell and “The High Hand”

Carlyle Blackwell hopes to be through with The High Hand in about a week, and both he and William D. Taylor, the director, believe that they have turned out a wonderfully interesting film for the Alliance Program. They are much pleased at the manner in which the Favorite Players’ features have been received by the exchange men, and Mr. Blackwell is in receipt of several letters telling him that the appearance of The Last Chapter has broken all records.

Collection: Moving Picture World, February 1915