Vera Michelena, “Driftwood” Star, is Versatile Actress (1916) 🇺🇸

Vera Michelena, who is being starred in the forthcoming release of the Ocean Film Corporation, entitled Driftwood, or, the Wrong Way, adapted from the stage play written by Owen Davis, is reputed to be one of the most versatile actresses on the legitimate stage, having appeared as prima donna in light opera, leading heavy in dramatic productions, and comedy star.

Her appearance in Driftwood is her initial performance for the screen, and she was rather hesitant in appearing in motion pictures until convinced that her versatility included silent drama.

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Looking Ahead with the Producers

“To Have and to Hold” Will Be Filmized by Lasky, Introducing Mae Murray as a Star

Employing more than one thousand “extras” in the roles of early Virginia settlers and American Indians will lend atmosphere to the picturization of To Have and to Hold, from Mary Johnson’s novel of the same name, which is now being made at the studios of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company at Hollywood, Cal.

This photoplay, which is a picturization of one of the widest read and best-known novels in the last ten years, will serve to introduce Miss Mae Murray as a photoplay star.

She will divide the stellar honors with Wallace Reid, who recently appeared with Cleo Ridgely in The Golden Chance.

On the Lasky ranch in southern California they are building an entire village representing Jamestown, Va., as it was in the days of the early seventeenth century. Among the historical features which will be a part of this production is a representation of the Council Meeting of the Jamestown Settlement, based on authoritative records now in possession of the Congressional Library.

The Lasky company is making every effort to give to this production the semblance of historical correctness. Fannie Ward, the popular comedienne, who has given up her work on the legitimate stage to appear exclusively in photoplay productions of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, will be seen in her third photoplay production by that firm on the Paramount Program, February 3, in a picturization of Scott Marble’s play, Tennessee's Pardner, suggested by Bret Harte’s story.

Exceptional interest is felt in this production, in view of the recent success achieved by Miss Ward in Cecil B. De Mille’s production, The Cheat. Previously Miss Ward had appeared in The Marriage of Kitty.

Tennessee’s Pardner is entirely different from either of Miss Ward’s previous photoplays. The scenes are laid in the Far West in the days when the “forty-niners” crossed the continent, lured by the promise of great riches in the gold regions.

Miss Ward will play the role of Tennessee, a child whose parents are separated during the journey across the desert and who is left in care of her father’s friend when her father is killed.

Some of the scenes in the production were taken in San Fernando Mission, a Jesuit mission built about 1800, which is one of a string of missions extending from Mexico to Monterey and situated about a day’s journey apart.

Other portions of the production were made on the great American desert, and one of the interesting features of the picture is the use of an old-time stage coach which was obtained by the Lasky company in a little village in Nevada. In addition to the star the cast will include: Jack Dean, Charley Clary, Jessie Mae Arnold, Raymond Hatton and William Bradbury.

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Large Sets Required for “The City,” Essanay

In the filming of Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Essanay’s spectacular film version in five acts of Clyde Fitch’s satire of the early 70s, the largest sets since those used in Graustark were requisitioned. The action of the story takes place in big places, hotel lobbies, docks, New York streets, the Metropolitan Opera House and in the upper city. Crowds, large, moving, restless, are always in the shifting backgrounds.

Fred E. Wright, who directed the picture, has caught the spirit of bigness that Fitch put in his original story. In the scenes, as well as in the acting, the sense of bigness is ever prevalent. There is scarcely a small set in the whole play. Ann Murdock takes the leading role in the comedy.

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Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle and scenes from three coming Triangle–Keystones: A Modern Enoch Arden, Because He Loved Her, and Fatty and Mabel Adrift

Collection: Motion Picture News, January 1916