Lionel Pape (1915) 🇺🇸

He is very, very English, and he delights to act in pictures. His monocle is the wonder of the Kinetophote office force, the butt of ridicule on the part of the office boy, and, withal, the medium through which shines a most kindly eye. This just by way of introducing Mr. Lionel Pape, one of the newest recruits, to the ranks of character actors in the pictures. Mr. Pape is playing the part of Viscount Acheson in the screen production of A Man’s Shadow, which is being filmed for the Kinetophote under the direction of Tom Terriss.

Mr. Pape was first brought to America after a successful career in London to play one of the best roles in Fanny’s First Play. After finishing with that piece, he was engaged to play the part of the aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the play, Gen. John Regan. The curious part has been his own in real life. During the coronation of King George, he was aide-de-camp to Maharajah Cooch Behar, an Indian Prince, who has since died.

One of the professional ambitions of Lionel Pape is to direct a big feature production which will have its setting in India, preferably in the domain of the present Maharajah Cooch Behar, the grandson of his former chief, and with whom he went to Oxford. He says that the Maharajah would be delighted to work in the pictures himself, and would see great fun in having the company do a spectacle with his estate as the principal locale.

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“The Affair of the Deserted House”

Society girl loves adventure and gets it — earns big reward for counterfeiters (Kalem two-reel picture).

Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.

The Kalem Company will begin releasing on January 27, and on each Wednesday following for a while a new series of detective stories in which a society girl is the heroine. The role is to be played alternately by the Kalem Continental Girl (Cleo Ridgeley) and Ruth Roland, and the character is going to be a very attractive part, for there is new and breezy touch of character in this young Miss who thinks that adventure is something that naturally comes to one. She never looks for trouble, but just has her nerve with her, and if some one, for instance, slips her a note saying, “Follow me to the taxi; there’s danger in it,” she sees it through. That is what happened to her in this first installment, and she, being mistaken for the chief counterfeiter’s daughter, who was to wear black and have a white rose, finds an interesting state of affairs. A note of hers taken by a street urchin (out of as fine a bunch of gamins as one could desire) brings the police, and the gang is nabbed, so she gets the thousand dollars reward that she never heard of. She doesn’t need money, but counts it a windfall.

It seems to me a new idea, to exploit this kind of nervy and happy-go-lucky society girl as a detective, and we believe the series is going to be very popular. The initial picture, The Affair of the Deserted House, a two-part offering, is fair. The acting is good and it holds one in suspense after the first scenes that do not properly belong to the main story are passed and the story well on its way. The first instalment was chosen because it was the least strong of the lot. All the pictures are interchangeable, and it makes no difference in what order they are shown. The backgrounds are the dilapidated suburbs of a city, with hills gathered about it. The camera work is good.

The opening scenes show the girl’s parents taking ship for a trip around the world. The leave-taking uses up too much space and does not add to the final effect. Following this come scenes which show the counterfeiters and, on the picture’s other side, the girl in her home. A copy of Adventure is utilized to bring out her peculiar bent, a desire to have experiences. The chief counterfeiter is wounded, and so it comes about that he needs a messenger to go between his home and the deserted house. They choose his daughter and arrange to have her meet the gang’s messenger, who, seeing the black dress and white rose on the society girl, slips her the note that gets her into the “press room” of the deserted house.

The author is Hamilton Smith, and, beside the two leading women mentioned, other players are William H. West, the chief counterfeiter; Paul C. Hurst and James Horn, his right-hand assistants; and Edward Clisbee, the chief of police.

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Scene from The Affair of the Deserted House (Kalem)

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Prisoners to See “Spoilers”

Through the courtesy of Sol. L. Lesser, president of the All Star Feature Distributors, Inc., the prisoners at the State Prison, Folsom, Cal., will be given an opportunity of seeing Selig’s Spoilers. For sometime past, Lesser has been sending films to the prison each Christmas.

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Smallwood Gets Real Interiors

Arthur N. Smallwood, President and General Manager of the Smallwood Film Corporation, makers of Grandin Films, in which the dainty little actress Ethel Grandin appears, has solved one of the biggest problems of filmdom.

Until a very short time ago, one of the biggest expenses a film producer had to cope with was that of a good studio in which to make the necessary interior sets for his photoplays. Today the Smallwood Film Corporation dispenses with the use of a studio altogether although their stories show a larger number of interiors and more realistic ones than ever before.

A new portable lighting system, which can be carried about in two ordinary suitcases solved the problem. Today instead of planning scenery weeks in advance, the Smallwood Film Corporation dispatches its scouts on the errand of finding the real settings the scenario calls for.

When the story calls for bedrooms, dining-room and kitchen scenes as would be found in a home of moderate circumstances, the scout goes to that kind of a home and contracts to pay the owner for the privilege of making interior pictures therein. Twenty-five dollars a day is the ordinary price paid, although when the story calls for such interiors as can only be found in a wealthy man’s home, an expense of several hundred dollars is often gone to in order to get the privilege of bringing the players, director and camera expert into the home.

The “motion picture scout” is invading stores, offices, factories and homes. It is his business to get the right settings and bring realism to the picture. The new vocation demands tact, perseverance and an abundance of just “plain nerve.”

The adventures of a “motion picture scout” might prove an interesting story judging from the experience of the scouts employed by Arthur N. Smallwood. Their work, however, is productive of good results inasmuch as they are making the photoplay settings more realistic and incidentally lowering the cost of producing good pictures.

Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915