Léonce Perret (1918) 🇺🇸

Léonce Perret, considered among the premier French directors in this country, is author and director of the pro-ally propaganda picture, Lest We Forget, which is now enjoying a four-week run at a Broadway house.

Mr.  Perret came to this country a year ago to direct big features, and made three productions in which Captain Robert Warwick was the star, The Silent Master, released on the Selznick [Lewis J. Selznick] program, The Mad Lover, released by Pathé, and The Accidental Honeymoon, which will be released in the near future.

M. Perret has also written a fictionized version of Lest We Forget, which will appear in early issues of both La Vie Parisienne and La Rennaissance du Livre, publications of first importance in France.

At present M. Perret is engaged in writing and directing a series of pictures in which the Dolly Sisters are starred, the first of which has already been completed. Following the cutting and editing of this feature, work will be started at once on the next production. The releasing plan for these Perret–Dolly Sisters pictures will be announced in the near future. In speaking of his production of Lest We Forget, M. Perret said: “When the war broke out and we in France were all asked to do our utmost, I was solicited to produce propaganda films to stimulate recruiting and inject the war spirit in all classes. After making 22 such productions, I came to the United States, and after the entry of this country into the war, was sought to make a pro-ally production. In Lest We Forget I attempted to show some of the incidents leading up to the sinking of the Lusitania, together with the prior mobilization of French troops, which I had actually witnessed. There was a moral story, rather than a love story used as the theme of the picture, and the climax was the introduction of the child of war, for whom these men were fighting so valiantly. There was also a communal school in France shown in which the future generations were taught the actual promptings which caused the Americans to war side by side with the French, making the United States and President Wilson as much of a figure in the French history as the French troops led by Lafayette are today so prominent in every version of your American history. This is the moral I sought to convey in my story without any resort to sensationalism or melodrama.”

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Exhibitor Tries to Burn Theater

Was losing money and hoped to cash in on his insurance — confesses to act.

Robert Allen, proprietor of the Colonial theater, a moving picture house in Bloomfield, Ind., has confessed to the authorities there that he set fire to his theater recently to obtain the insurance on his equipment. Allen is an electrical engineer and works as a machine man in a coal mine at Jeffersonville, Ind. His family, however, live in Bloomfield and his wife has been operating the show during his absence.

When Allen appeared in court attorneys had prepared an affidavit charging him with attempting to defraud insurance companies. He entered a plea of guilty to the charge and was sentenced to the Indiana reformatory for a term of from one to three years, but Judge R. E. Slinkard later suspended sentence and permitted Allen to go on his good behavior. The original affidavit against Allen charged him with arson, but if he had pleaded guilty to that charge the court, under the law, could not have suspended the sentence.

According to his confession, Allen left Jasonville on Wednesday night, January 23, and went to Linton, Ind. There he hired a jitney bus to drive him to Bloomfield. In his theater, he gathered up all the loose papers he could find, and took them and an old film and placed them under the stage and stairway leading to the stage and set the mass on fire.

When he closed the stage door the space under the stage was made air tight, and this prevented the building from burning. Although the stage was scorched considerably the fire went out before much damage was done. This was about midnight. He then drove back to Linton without letting Mrs. Allen know that he had been in Bloomfield.

Allen said he committed the act in an effort to obtain the $1,450 insurance on the motion picture equipment, worth probably $1,000.

Allen has owned the show for more than a year, and it is generally known that because of the war tax, high cost of films and increase cost of production he made no money on his investment. Allen is twenty-four years old and has a wife and one child. He is known as an industrious young man and belongs to a highly respected family. He has always borne a good reputation in the community.

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Shift Attitude on Censorship

Local Council of Women of Montreal would permit restricted showing of subjects now banned.

The Local Council of Women of Montreal has performed a right-about-face in its attitude toward certain classes of moving pictures. A deputation from the council appeared before G. Maxwell Sinn of the Board of Moving Picture Censors for the Province of Quebec at Montreal on January 31. The women declared that they wanted sex pictures for the purpose of educating the public and they asked the censor to permit the showing of several releases, including Damaged Goods and “Birth,” under certain conditions. The women admitted that these pictures possessed a “moral,” but that they were harrowing and should not be presented to mixed audiences.

Censor Sinn agreed that it would be proper to have such pictures shown to adults of either sex and the matter is to be discussed by the Quebec Board upon the return of Sheriff Lemieux, the chairman, from Europe. It is probable that the pictures in question will be approved by the board on the condition that the Local Council of Women or some other organization assume the responsibility for their presentation.

The women in the deputation included Mrs. J. H. Liddell of the National Council of Women, Mrs. John Scott and Mrs. Thomas Watson. They ventured the opinion that Damaged Goods should be shown at every camp or barracks in the Dominion and that Birth should be presented at universities and other institutions.

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Irving to Direct Lockwood.

Hereafter George Irving will alternate with Fred J. Balshofer, under the dual director system, in the production of Metro subjects featuring Harold Lockwood. Mr. Irving is now in Florida with the Lockwood company. In the acquisition of Mr. Irving for the place of alternate director Metro has secured the services of a man with keen insight of what is required of a director, coupled with the knowledge of how to achieve these requirements which he gained through years of experience, so that he can be relied upon to maintain the high standard of excellence established by past Lockwood subjects.

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James Young Directing Hayakawa.

Partially owing to the fact that William C. DeMille is to stop directing for a time in order to write two photoplays for production by his brother, Cecil B. DeMille, James Young has been engaged to direct Sessue Hayakawa (早川 雪洲) in his next Paramount picture by Marion Fairfax, which has as its working title The Unforgivable Sin.

James Young’s career as a director dates back to practically the inception of the photodrama. He has since done much work that has stamped him as possessing imagination and technical skill. At present it is not known whether Mr. Young will remain to do more than this picture, but this will be decided upon long before he completes his first Paramount photoplay.

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H. J. Smith with Wholesome.

The appointment of H. J. Smith, formerly a representative of Mutual in the Minneapolis territory, to the management of the service department of the Wholesome Films Corporation, is announced by General Manager M. J. Weisfeldt. The executive offices of the Wholesome are now on the fourth floor of the Shops Building, 17 North Wabash avenue, Chicago.

Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1918