Thanhouser’s Triple Coup — Lorraine Huling (1915) 🇺🇸
Secures the services of three well known picture workers.
Now the big announcements are beginning to issue from New Rochelle. The long arm of Thanhouser [Edwin Thanhouser] is reaching out for material and the first additions are there, at work. They are Miss Lorraine Huling and Messrs. George Foster Platt and Frederic Sullivan. The lady is an ingénue and the gentlemen are on the staff of directors.
Lorraine Huling is best known to the pictures through her work with the Famous Players in The Straight Road, Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch, and Bachelor’s Romance, with John Emerson and Henrietta Crosman. She is a graduate of the legitimate, however, having appeared in Prunella, Help Wanted, and other successes. Mr. Thanhouser has selected her to head one of the regular companies of the New Rochelle organization.
It is said at New Rochelle that these announcements are only the beginning; that some of the moves in contemplation will be startling in the quality of talent which they will add to the Thanhouser roster.
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Lasky in New Offices
Will occupy entire fifth floor of new building on 41st street — many improvements installed.
During the coming week the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company will become established in its new and elaborate offices, 120 West 41st Street, where this organization will occupy the entire fifth floor of one of the most beautiful new office buildings constructed in New York City. This removal has more than a passing significance. It means that the old quarters have become absolutely inadequate, and that larger quarters for the handling of the executive departments in this constantly growing business have become an indispensable necessity.
The building is the first of its type erected in this city and is an example of what is known as the concrete cantilever construction. It contains special film vaults conforming with all the new rules of the fire department and also an automatic fire sprinkler system which is a marvel of its kind. The entire structure is of steel and concrete, with scarcely a stick of wood.
The suite occupied by the Lasky Feature Play Company, constructed especially to meet its needs, will take up the entire fifth floor and is divided into ten offices. There are no transoms and no glass doors, and this combined with the entire absence of vibration makes the offices absolutely sound proof. One of the special conveniences is an intercommunicating dictaphone system. The entire south side of the building is of steel and glass and over the centre is a large skylight which provides light and air for all of the ten offices.
One of the unique features of the structure on the ground floor is a private theater with one hundred and fifty seats. This theater, which is beautifully decorated and equipped with every facility for projecting a perfect picture, is provided with a Wurlitzer Hope Jones organ and will be at the disposal of the Lasky Feature Play Company for the private showing of its new productions to the press and invited guests.
One of the advantages of the new offices will be larger space for the publicity department, which will make it possible to deal more successfully with advertising and accessory problems heretofore rendered difficult by insufficient facilities. It is the purpose of the Lasky company to furnish to the Paramount exchanges, and through the exchanges to the exhibitors, the most progressive assistance for the proper exploitation of its feature plays.
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Minusa Screen in Hippodrome
St. Louis concern, with Anderson as leading spirit, turn out biggest projection surface ever manufactured in record time.
The Minusa Cine Products Company, which began the manufacture of Minusa Gold Fibre Screens in St. Louis, Mo., not long ago, has just installed in the New York Hippodrome what is claimed to be the largest photoplay screen ever constructed. The screen measures twenty-tour feet and eight inches in width and eighteen feet and eight inches in depth.
When the Hippodrome inaugurated its present high class moving picture policy, considerable difficulty was experienced in securing the projection results which the management desired. The first screen installed was considered unsuited for the work to be done and a hurry order was placed with the Minusa people through Louis Kalvin, general manager of the eastern sales division with offices in the Times Building, New York City. Mr. Kalvin advised the kind of screen which he deemed best suited for the house and the St. Louis factory was worked night and day to turn the product out in the time allowed. The screen was delivered in New York just one week after it had been ordered — instead of the usual ten days required, despite the fact that it was not only the largest screen the company had ever manufactured but also the largest screen ever placed upon an American stage.
The installation at the Hippodrome was personally supervised by Mr. Kalvin who found it necessary to reconstruct and reinforce the frame originally ordered in order to permit the screen’s being moved once at each performance at the house to make room for one of the big spectacular displays which are featured in conjunction with the pictures.
The Minusa company has for its principal moving spirit E. R. Anderson, who has been engaged in the manufacture of photoplay screens for a number of years and has been responsible for the invention of gold fibre screens, other than the Minusa, which have given splendid results.
Collection: Moving Picture World, April 1915
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