Walter Richard Stahl (1917) 🇺🇸

Walter Richard Stahl, aside from being one of the youngest author-directors in the motion picture art, is also an assiduous bookworm. He can be located at almost any hour of the night in his apartments digging into some frayed volume on art, science, sociology and many kindred subjects of which he had to inform himself in the production of Hate, a seven-reel feature soon to be released by the Fairmount Film Corporation.

Mr. Stahl is a stickler for facts in portraying the simplest detail in the silent drama, and before he began work on Hate, and long after he was in the story, he made certain that his interpretation of his subjects were correct before he gave the cameraman the order to shoot.

“There are three things a director must keep foremost in his mind in the making of a photo-drama,” Mr. Stahl explained. “His first idea must be toward the selection of a story which will interest the masses. My idea of an ideal story is one which involves a big vital problem; something which confronts the people of the world. And I don’t mean to infer that we should burden the theater-going public with such problems as war. Rather, I mean that authors should seek out some problem that has a heart appeal.

“The second idea should be in making it certain that the story conveys an accurate interpretation to the public. Directors and writers should not attempt to fool their audiences, nor to burden them with fantastic or immaterial subjects. People go to the picture theaters to be informed as well as to be entertained, and after they have seen a picture with a gripping problem, and are enlightened as to its most intricate phases they will reflect, and it is safe to assume that they will soon look to the motion picture drama for knowledge as well as pastime.

“I have found it true that the most powerful photodramas are those with the simplest appeal; those pictures which can he grasped by those who have but a very limited knowledge of worldly information. I believe that there is a decided tendency among producers of today to aim to these ideals. Some of the recent releases indicate, at least, that producers are striving for the best there is in fiction for the benefit of the screen.”

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Steele Shifts Berth in Paramount

Resigns secretary-treasurership to become district manager with offices in Pittsburgh.

James Steele, secretary and treasurer of the Paramount Pictures Corporation for the past year, has resigned that position in order that he may continue his residence in Pittsburgh. He will hereafter be located in the Iron City, acting in the capacity of district manager over the Paramount offices in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Indianapolis. Mr. Steele will also retain his directorship on the board of directors of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, controlling Paramount, Artcraft, Famous Players, Lasky, Morosco and Pallas, producers and distributors of Paramount and Artcraft Pictures.

When Mr. Steele accepted the position as secretary-treasurer of the Paramount Pictures Corporation a year ago it was with the full understanding that it would only be temporary, as his family remained in Pittsburgh, and the ties binding him to that city were too strong to be severed entirely. When Paramount absorbed its exchanges some months past, Mr. Steele endeavored to retire from the position he held in the home office, but the time was not propitious and he deferred taking the step until last week, when the final arrangements were made for the merging of the Artcraft and Paramount business, which move made it possible for him to resign and take up his work in the Middle West.

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Schayer Retires from Selznick Staff

Publicity man to take belated honeymoon and resume fiction work in Maine Woods.

E. Richard Schayer, who has been director of publicity for Lewis J. Selznick since the organization of the Selznick Enterprises, has resigned, and will be succeeded by Randolph Bartlett. Mr. Schayer, who, prior to entering the film business a year and a half ago, had achieved a wide reputation as a newspaper man, war correspondent and magazine writer, intends to spend the entire summer in the Maine woods, where he expects to complete a number of stories for which he has been accumulating data during recent months. This vacation is in the nature of a belated honeymoon, as it will be remembered that Mr. Schayer married last summer, during the height of the activities of Mr. Selznick’s first productions, and was unable to leave New York for a wedding trip. During the year that Mr. Schayer presided over the publicity and advertising of the Selznick operations he achieved an enviable, reputation.

Mr. Bartlett, who succeeds Mr. Schayer, entered the film world nearly a year ago as press representative for Herbert Brenon. Following his publicity campaign for War Brides, he joined the Selznick central organization, and for several months has been collaborating with Mr. Schayer in the publicity department. He is well known for his magazine articles on various personalities and phases of the picture business.

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At Leading Picture Theaters

Programs for the week of June 10 at New York’s best motion picture houses.

“On Trial” at the Rialto.

On Trial, Elmer L. Reisenstein’s [Elmer Rice] notably successful play, was given its first presentation in photoplay form at the Rialto the week of June 10. The production was made by the Essanay Company with a cast which includes Barbara Castleton, Sidney Ainsworth, James Young and Little Mary McAlister. The film has the distinction of being the first one purchased by the recently organized First National Exhibitors’ Circuit. On Trial makes a particularly powerful picture because of the photoplay methods used in developing the original stage version.

Glimpses of the ever fascinating geishas of Japan formed part of The Land of the Rising Sun, the added attraction. Beautiful effects of architecture and illumination were found in the second installment of “The Thirteenth Labor of Hercules,” the official pictures of the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Greek Evans and Gaston Dubois were the soloists.

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“Her Strange Wedding” at the Strand.

The Strand Theater presented Fannie Ward in Her Strange Wedding, adapted by Charles Maigne from George Middleton’s popular story. The supporting cast included Jack Dean, Tom Forman and Billy Elmer. Another interesting film feature was Gold That Glitters, one of O. Henry’s most famous stories, in which Mildred Manning appeared in the leading role. Victor Moore was seen in his latest comedy. There were also scenic and educational studies and the latest American and European news pictures. Louise Patterson, Mary Qentay and Walter Vaughn were the soloists.

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“The Bar Sinister” at the Broadway.

The Edgar Lewis production, The Bar Sinister, is in its third week at the Broadway.

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Bill at the Eighty-first Street Theater.

At the Eighty-first Street Theater a new series of pictures were shown. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Dorothy Dalton in Wild Winship’s Widow and Billie Leslie in a Triangle comedy, His Marriage Failure, were the picture features. On Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday Charles Ray in The Millionaire Vagrant and the Keystone funmakers in A Royal Rogue were on the program.

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Red Men Invade Wharton Reservation.

Fifty Indians from the Onondaga reservation have arrived in Ithaca, N. Y., to take their places before the camera and their place in the films. But they came without their war paint and their feathers, for they are to do something beside just “act natural.” The Indians are to appear as the inhabitants of a cannibal village, which is a part of one of the comedies which the Whartons [Leopold Wharton | Theodore Wharton] now are producing. They are under the command and guidance of Chief Isaacs.

Collection: Moving Picture World, June 1917

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