What Kind of a Fellow Is — Lasky? (1918) 🇺🇸
Being a glance at the real human side of the big men of the picture game — caught in action!
by William A. Johnston
“All aboard for Los Angeles!”
“All aboard for New York!”
By these tokens we introduce Jesse L. Lasky, the champion trans-continental commuter of the motion picture industry.
Mr. Lasky hurdles the continent so often that he now signs his name to dining car checks, calls the conductors “Bob,” “Charlie,” etc., has a collection of twenty-six Pullman brushes and fifty-four of the little black combs, sees his old clothes on Pullman porters in all first-class cities, and gets Christmas cards from the general passenger agents of four trunk line systems.
It is some job to get an interview with Mr. Lasky. You have to sign him up six months in advance, by his railroad schedule.
And it is still more of a job to get anything out of Mr. Lasky after you get him.
He’s excessively polite, courteous, and non-committal. Mr. Lasky has the highest development of what is commonly termed, “the poker face.” To this is added an illusive smile and eyes that wink rapidly while they change expression.
Moreover, his mind has a flitting habit. While you’re asking him a question it is over in the next lot thinking about something else; and the aforesaid mind, by the way, was making pictures en route.
Mr. Lasky is gentle in manner and speech; in other words, he is naturally and instinctly a gentleman.
But even such characters have dark blots in their past.
We would not speak of this were it not germane to this sketch. We believe such things should be kept hidden.
Jesse L. Lasky once played a cornet!
It happened in this wise. In San Francisco some years ago the elder Grauman, father of Sid of the million-dollar Los Angeles theatre, needed a vaudeville act in a hurry. He happened to think of young Lasky, who played a cornet. (Mr. Lasky, by the way, is a native son.)
So, beginning then and there, Mr. Lasky corneted in and out of Frisco and on to the Atlantic shores, via the vaudeville route.
One evening in Utica, N. Y., the silver tones of his instrument fell upon the ears of a musician in the orchestra pit, a man who is now trying hard to live down the reputation of being one of the two best cornetists in the United States — none other than B. A. Rolfe, the present well-known producer on the Metro program.
The two looked at each other with intense sympathy. Naturally, the world turning against them, cornetists must hang together or separately.
Anyway, these two met a little later in New York, and it wasn’t long before they were known as the two most successful producers for the United Booking Offices. One of their numbers, the Colonial Sextette, is still on the vaudeville boards.
Then came musical shows, successful ones; and one day, four years ago, the trade journals carried prominent articles announcing the entry into picturedom of the well known Jesse L. Lasky.
Today “Lasky” means a lot on pictures. Everyone knows that. And a lot of credit therefore is due the artistic ability and idealism and the bright, untiring enterprise and concentration of Jesse L. Lasky.
It is said that Mr. Lasky is a Showman. Well, that’s true. Certainly he has had the requisite experience. But there are Showmen and Showmen. Mr. Lasky is of the higher order. And being instinctively a Showman he will continue to keep up with the head of the procession — or be ahead of it.
For Mr. Lasky has foresight. He gave New Yorkers The Folies Bergère years before they finally got the habit of seeing shows while they eat. And he gave them a cabaret ‘way ahead, in quality, of anything they’ve ever had since.
He is modest and absorbed in his work. He is concentratedly and altogether — a producer. And such men are vastly needed in this field.
One hears of lots of praise of Mr. Lasky; and it comes from writers, actors and directors. He gives every possible encouragement to his co-creators of pictures. He stands for good stories and the better things in motion picture visualization.
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Proctor and Loew Book Comics
E. W. Hammons, vice-president and general manager of the Educational Films Corporation, announces this week that he had booked the “Katzenjammer Kids” and “Happy Hooligan” cartoons with the Proctor [F. F. Proctor (Frederick Freeman Proctor) (1851–1929)] theatres and many of the Loew [Marcus Loew] theatres. This is one of the most important contracts that has ever been signed in the history of animated cartoons, and is said to be only the forerunner of other announcements that Educational is to make shortly.
Last week announcement was made that as a result of an agreement with the International Film Service, Education had taken over the booking and distribution of this famous series and that these plans would be backed by a great publicity campaign in the Hearst string of newspapers. Since this agreement has been made all of the papers printing these comics carry at the same time the announcement that these comics in animated form are released by Educational.
“This is a sort of advertising that all the money in the world could not buy,” said Mr. Hammons, “and it ought to be worth millions of dollars to the exhibitors of the country. They are showing their appreciation of the fact and we are being deluged with requests for the pictures and I fed sure that within a few weeks these comics will set a new record in the number of theatres in which they are being shown. Leading theatres in practically every city in the country will have these comics regularly.”
The Proctor houses which have booked the pictures include the Fifth avenue, Fifty-eighth street, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street, Twenty-third street theatres and Harlem Opera House, New York, Prospect, Greenpoint and Halsey, Brooklyn, and the theatres in Jersey City, Newark, Elizabeth, Plainfield, Yonkers, Mt. Vernon, Schenectady, Albany and Troy. As was announced last week, Mr. Rothapfel [S. L. Rothafel] will show these comics at the Rialto and Rivoli theatres. He booked them immediately after the contract between Educational and International was signed.
“Vanity and Vengeance” with the Katzenjammer Kids is the first of the releases, being scheduled for April 18. This will be followed by Happy Hooligan and afterwards they will be released on alternate weeks. An entirely new process is being used in animating these pictures, and Mr. Hammons is authority for the statement that they are so far ahead of any others that there is no comparison.
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Pierce Exploits “The Blue Bird” Successfully
Carl H. Pierce, who is in charge of the exploitation of the Artcraft picturization of Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird in the Middle and Far West, started with the picture in Columbus and has shown it to select audiences approximately twenty-five times in the past two weeks. As a result many flattering expressions of approval have been received from press and public, it is said, among them being a forceful editorial in the Kansas City Star.
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Prominent Editors Praise “Struggle Everlasting”
Struggle Everlasting, Harry Rapf’s late production written by Edwin Milton Royle and featuring Florence Reed, Milton Sills and Irving Cummings, has elicited favorable comment from prominent critics of the screen drama and editors of popular magazines.
Robert Rudd Whiting, editor of Ainslee’s magazine, wrote Mr. Royle, the author, the following letter: “I consider The Struggle Everlasting the finest thing you have written, and instead of losing its effectiveness as a picture, screening has served to bring out the beauty and power of it in a way that I did not believe possible.”
William Harlome Briggs of Harper’s Magazine wrote, “What a stunning embodiment of an immense idea you revealed to us. It was not only impressive. I have rarely seen such fine photography.”
Randolph Bartlett, Photoplay Magazine, wrote: “It is beautiful photo-dramaturgy. Florence Reed has never been so brilliant. Scenically the picture is gorgeous. Mr. Rapf deserves high praise for his sincerity and courage in attempting such a work.”
The Motion Picture Magazine said, “Nobody on the stage or screen can suggest physical lure as Miss Reed without impossible vampire trimmings — she is sex herself.”
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“Depths of Sea” on the Open Market
M. S. Epstin, with offices at 1495 Broadway, New York City, announces that Raymond L. Ditmars’ “The Depths of the Sea,” arranged in a series of four parts, is now ready for release on the open market. The Depths of the Sea has just completed a four weeks’ engagement at the Strand theatre, New York, running two reels each week. The subject shows in detail animal life such as it lives and exists under the surface of the sea, octopus, devil-fish, turtle, in fact every sort of fish known to science is shown with clearness and detail.
A combat to death between two giant octopi, also between an octopus and a turtle, and another being the “smoking caterpillar,” are some of the strong scenes. This is said to be the very first time that this animal of the deep has been caught by a motion picture camera, in action.
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Notable Gathering Sees “The Cross Bearer”
A large and notable gathering saw the new World-Picture, The Cross Bearer, presented at Carnegie Hall Tuesday evening, March 26, under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus in aid of the Catholic War Fund drive.
Heading the list of notables was His Eminence, John Cardinal Farley, and among others invited to the showing were John D. Rockefeller, James Butler, Clarence Mackay, Harry Payne Whitney, Thomas Fortune Ryan, Morgan J. O’Brien, Adrian Iselin and others.
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“Hearts of the World” at Forty-fourth
Since it was announced in Motion Picture News last week that D. W. Griffith’s newest cinema production, Hearts of the World, was scheduled to open at the Lyric theatre in New York on March 31, it has been decided to put the feature into the Forty-fourth Street theatre instead. This was made known in an announcement by Elliott, Comstock and Gest on April 1, together with the statement that Mr. Griffith was expected to arrive in New York on that date to take personal charge of the preparation for presentation of the picture.
The engagement at the Forty-fourth Street theatre is scheduled to open Friday, April 5, with two shows daily. On April 4 a private showing will be given for officials of the United States and Allied governments, municipal and State officials and prominent citizens.
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“The Belgian’s” Premiere in N. Y. April 18
Plans are being made for the initial New York presentation of The Belgian, Sidney Olcott’s spectacular photoplay depicting the tragedy of the little kingdom. It will be shown for the first time in New York City at the Eighty-first Street theatre on the afternoon of April 18 and will be the principal attraction at that house for three days thereafter.
The production, which is being distributed throughout the world by the U. S. Exhibitors’ Booking Corporation and its affiliated organizations already has been presented in a majority of the leading cities of this country but the metropolitan opening has been deferred to allow time in which to make fitting arrangements for the premiere.
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Brooklyn “Movie Ball” was Big Success
The annual “Movie Ball” of the Motion Picture Employees’ Mutual Aid Society, Inc., was held Easter Sunday at the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum and was universally pronounced a complete success. The grand march was led by Leah Baird and a myriad of Brooklyn friends were on hand to greet the popular film star. The officers and committee in charge of the arrangements are to be congratulated.
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Illustration by: Harry Palmer (Harry Samuel Palmer) (1882–1955)
Collection: Motion Picture News, April 1918