Mae Gaston with Horsley (1916) 🇺🇸
David Horsley has signed contracts with Miss Mae Gaston which make her a permanent member of one of his stock organizations at his studios in Los Angeles. Originally she was engaged for only one picture, The Love Liar, but her interpretation of the character of Diana Strongwell was done so understandingly and with such a keen conception of the requirements of motion picture acting that Mr. Horsley decided to retain her permanently. Her signature to a contract accordingly followed.
Prior to her appearance in Mr. Horsley’s production of The Love Liar, Miss Gaston was identified with the Reliance–Majestic and Fine Arts studios, playing under the direction of Jack Adolphi and W. Christy Cabanne. Among the pictures in which she figured are Up from the Depths, Rose Leaves, and Father and the Boys, with Digby Bell. Miss Gaston will be cast in the next David Horsley production starring Crane Wilbur.
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“Programs” for Exhibitors
Vest-pocket schedule of Biograph releases for April offers interesting selection — free special service.
“Programs” for April — the handy vest-pocket memorandum calendar issued monthly by Biograph — is just off the press. Copies of this attractive booklet were mailed this week to nearly fifteen thousand exhibitors, and Biograph wishes the trade generally to know that duplicate copies are free for the asking. The April issue repeats the offer of the Biograph publicity department to render free special service in solving publicity problems for any exhibitor or theater advertising manager who may be interested.
Ten subjects of various lengths from one to three reels are listed on the Biograph program for April. A Biograph spectacle and four Griffith reissues are among the good things offered.
There are four of the Wednesday three-reel features in the regular service. Paths That Crossed, released April 5, is a sensational drama of retributive justice; The Stampede is a spectacular drama of the Great West, released April 12. The climax, from which this unusual story of politics and love derives its name, shows the hero and heroine surrounded by a stampeding herd of cattle. The majority of the scenes were made amid the ruins of the great Zuni pueblo, a fact from which this subject derives great educational value.
The Larrimore Case, released April 19, is a mystery drama with an unusual plot and many situations calling for elaborate staging. The Spring Chicken, released April 26, is a famous Broadway success adapted to the screen in three reels of brisk comedy.
Two remarkable two-reel productions are The Man Who Called After Dark and Celeste, both featuring well-known Biograph favorites in productions of exceptional interest. The first named is a mystery with a unique twist, the second a drama of the sea.
D. W. Griffith directed the four single-reel subjects scheduled for reissue during April. Henry Walthall, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh and Lionel Barrymore figure in the cast of Three Friends; Robert Harron and Mae Marsh have the leading roles in The Tender-Hearted Boy; Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore head a large cast of present-day stars in the vivid drama, A Cry for Help; and Blanche Sweet leads with Charles H. West in The Blind Princess and the Poet.
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Fine Plant For Barker–Swan Films.
The accompanying engraving shows the new studio of the Barker–Swan Film Service, located in Peoria, Ill. The building is of steel and brick construction, measuring 75 x 110. Private and general offices, dressing and wardrobe rooms, film vaults, exhibition room, carpenter shop, laboratory and studio comprise the plant.
The studio is 86x45 feet, and is equipped with Cooper–Hewitt lamps and arcs. The lighting system is of the latest and most efficient type, all the skylights, side banks and arcs being fed and controlled in one unit. A traveling crane, 30 x 45 feet and weighing nine tons, which carries the lamps, traverses the studio.
The private and general offices are located on the first and second floors in one end of the building, the laboratory being on the first floor, parallel with the studio, above which are the dressing rooms, wardrobe room and exhibition room. Below one portion of the studio floor is a concrete tank. The laboratory contains separate chemical, developing, washing, tinting, drying and assembling rooms; also printing and title rooms, all equipped with the most improved machines. In the adjoining yard, which is 60 x 110 feet, are being constructed sunken gardens, pergolas, grape arbors, etc. The building is constructed in such a way that the roof is entirely clear and will be used when the weather permits as an outdoor studio. The building was designed by William T. Braun, a Chicago architect, who is a specialist in the designing and construction of motion picture studios.
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New Studio, Swan Film Service, Peoria, Ill.
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Universal to Dance on March 18
Like its predecessors is to be a big event — and then some.
We have received from H. H. Van Loan of the Universal’s publicity and promoting and propaganda staff an outline on the coming annual ball of the Universal Film Company, which will be held at the Grand Central Palace on the evening of March 18. To tell the truth, the story is more than an outline. It exudes outlines, it promises, even threatens them. We are not to be frightened — not for a moment — by anything Mr. Van Loan says about the big annual function of the Universal boys and girls. We shall be there, with bells on, and with our hair m a braid — if it so fortunately happen there be enough of that commodity to justify the braid. Just listen to this opening paragraph of the aforementioned outline, or rather a part of that paragraph, and see if you blame us:
“Nymphs, wood sprites and fairies; lissome denizens of the slopes of Parnassus. Harken to the pipies (sic) of Pan! Swelling over the lea, wafted on the zephyrs of spring (V. L. must be looking for some change in the weather hereabout), comes the announcement that on March 18, place Grand Central Palace, all the elfs, fays and aerie little dears of the Universal Company will dance” (cut here).
“Tickets for the affair are already at a premium,” says V. L. considerably further on, after outlining the prizes that will be awarded for costumes, “and it is the intention to limit invitations to the artistic world. Only authors and journalists, actors and actresses, and sculptors and painters will be admitted.” (We are sure going to horn in here, somewhere, somehow.) “The crass general public will be banned. In other words, those who lack the artistic viewpoint will be de trop and personas non gratae. if our Latine hasn’t gone back on us.” (This V. L. fellow is a regular kidder.)
We are not going to devote any more space to the advance announcement of the big time. We will refrain until the fait accompli or something like that — that is, always provided, of course, we survive the hospitality of the 1600 Broadway bunch.
Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1916