Richard Le Gallienne (1915) 🇺🇸

Noted Author Writes for Equitable

Richard Le Gallienne succumbs to motion pictures and contributes a scenario.

Richard Le Gallienne has, at last, succumbed to the jingle of the screen dollars. He has just completed a sensational five act scenario for the Equitable Motion Pictures Corporation entitled The Chain Invisible, which he has constructed with a foreword of more or less interest to the producing company and the public at large.

“The Chain Invisible,” says Le Gallienne, “is founded on the proposition that a healthy, normal man and woman, each entirely dissimilar from the other in birth, breeding, education, tastes, temperament and disposition, must inevitably fall in love with each other, provided they are constantly thrown into each other’s society and have absolutely no opportunity for conversation or intimacy with any other human being.

“This theory is advanced on the belief that such falling in love is merely the inexorable working of nature — that two people so living are bound together by an invisible chain which merely stretches if they chance to be separated afterwards. But the chain never breaks.”

In order to get the parts into right hands it was decided to have twenty copies of the scenario written and one given to each of the noted players associated with Equitable, and then have the players themselves vote as to who should play the important roles.

Among the players who will be asked to vote are Robert Edeson, Kathryn Osterman, Lenore Ulrich, Florence Reed, Clara Whipple, Lily Cahill, Robert T. Haines, Margarita Fischer, Edwin Arden, Brandon Tynan, Alexandra Carlisle, Gail Kane, Katharine Kaelred, Charles J. Ross, Hilda Spong, Molly Mclntyre, Helen Ware, and Thomas A. Wise. The men will have two votes each, and the women one, which will even the matter of counts.

Richard Le Gallienne has been one of the foremost fictionists since 1887. Since 1912 big motion picture interests have been endeavoring to inveigle him into creating characters and scenes available for the screen, and which would be in keeping with his high standing as an author and literary critic.

All their blandishments were resisted, however, until the Equitable Motion Pictures Corporation invited him to see how its pictures were presented and join the ranks of its writers, backing up the invitation by a financial consideration which carried a great deal of weight. The Chain Invisible was the result.

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Vogue Films, Inc., New Mutual Comedy.

Announcement is made of a brand new comedy producing company, Vogue Films, Inc., which will have its first release on the Mutual program in November. The advent of this new company is without undue noise or preliminary trumpeting, having completed its organization without a hint of the plan reaching the trade. Studios have been obtained in Los Angeles, and work is already in progress, although actual turning of the crank on the first picture will not take place until next week.

There will be no announcement as to comedians until later, except that they will be of the artistically eccentric kind, set in stories that have understandable plots. The resultant comedy situations will be legitimate ones, a departure from the often seen “laughs for laughs’ sake” construction.

The managing director of the new organization is admittedly one of the master producers of the country, and equally well known abroad. He will devote his entire time to Vogue Films, an assurance that the exceptional quality marking his work will be given to the forthcoming comedy releases. The entire financing of the company was done in the West.

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Addition to Selig Chicago Plant.

A new addition to the Selig Polyscope Company’s plant in Chicago has just been completed for the purpose of housing the laboratories and technical departments. The new addition, built of steel, brick and stone, is three stories high, and new machinery installed in this addition aggregates in cost many thousands of dollars. The new addition includes the negative department, assembling department, developing department, printing department, perforating department, drying rooms, machine shop and film inspection department. There is also a job printing office in the new addition.

The film editorial department, with modernly-equipped projecting rooms, is also located in the new addition, as are the editorial rooms of the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial. The great vaults, which contain new films, negatives and other equipment, are also found in the new addition to the Selig plant. The new building was recently occupied and is in active operation.

Collection: Moving Picture World, October 1915

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see also Edwin Arden in World Film (1915)