Willis L. Robards (1914) 🇺🇸
He signs his checks “Willis L. Robards,” but out in Santa Paula, Cal., where the Frontier studio is located everybody knows him as just plain Bill.
Besides being the director of the Frontier dramatic company, he has also been playing his own character leads, and in addition is the author of a good many scenarios. Mr. Robards has gained further fame in that he is known as one of the speediest directors in the game, and on more than one occasion has produced three single-reel pictures in week, which is going some.
It has been about twenty years since Willis L. Robards began his stage career. As a member of the famous Benton Juvenile Opera Company, singing the principal baritone roles, he made his first bow to the footlights. Entering dramatic work he was featured as O. K. Hopper in The Lightning Rod Agent for three years. Then for four years he starred at the head of his own company. It was while he was a member of the Hudson Stock Company in New York that he received his first temptations from the movies. This was when the motion picture business was still in its swaddling clothes. So he joined the original Nestor company, and at the expiration of a year was given the directorship of the second company. Shortly after this he put on the “Mutt and Jeff” series. Since that time Mr. Robards has seen service under the Méliès [Georges Méliès | Gaston Méliès], Lubin [Siegmund Lubin] and Eastern Universal brands. At the present time he is directing a large production at St. Louis for the St. Louis Motion Picture Company, upon the completion of which he will return to the California studio.
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Boycott the Bad Films, Advises Mr. Blackton.
“Now a little bird has told me that some one in the convention has said something about boycotting those manufacturers who go into the exhibition business. Might I suggest that if you are going to do any boycotting that you turn your attention to the bad films and boycott them? — these plays where the boycott should go? But, really, I am getting very serious, and that won’t do. I want to tell you what one woman wrote to our genial friend John (and Mr. Blackton [J.Stuart Blackton] turned to Mr. Bunny at his side). ‘Dear Mr. Bunny,’ she said; ‘is that your natural face, or is it a joke?’ John tells it himself, so it is all right,” added Mr. Blackton reassuringly.
Mr. Bunny’s face wore his most grieved comedy expression. “But I was going to tell it myself,” he said.
There were bursts of laughter all over the hall when Mr. Blackton resumed. “I’ll tell you what John wrote to the lady in reply,” he said. “‘Yes, it is my natural face, and I assure you it is no joke.’”
“The reason Mr. Blackton didn’t know I was here,” suggested Mr. Thomas as Mr. Blackton sat down, “is that he was over at the Exposition trying to convince two girls that he was still alive. There is a time in life when it doesn’t do for a man to be too ambitious.”
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John Bunny is Serious for a few Moments.
“It was my intention earlier in the evening to try to entertain you a few moments with the recital of a number of experiences I have encountered in my short time ill this moving picture game-industry-art,” said John Bunny. “As I look at this assemblage of charming ladies and intelligent gentlemen and everything that goes with it I am tempted to wax very, very serious. I would like to congratulate the Exhibitors’ Association upon their achievements for the year. We have grown, gentlemen, tremendously. I would then congratulate you upon the advance you have made in your theaters. A year ago there was no Strand, no Vitagraph, no New York, no Knickerbocker. I might go on with quite a number of other names of houses showing moving pictures, but these I have mentioned and others are showing them splendidly. In other words, the moving picture has landed on Broadway; and I feel confident it is to stay.”
Mr. Bunny told of his efforts a short three years ago to induce the Lambs to have a picture taken of one of their gambols. In spite of the ample gratuity and the sentimental value to the Lambs of having a record made of some of their more famous members, the offer was declined. Mr. Bunny referred to the picture taken by the Lambs this year as indicative of the change of attitude on the part of the more prominent stage players toward the picture. Mr. Bunny ended his remarks with a number of amusing anecdotes, most fitly closing an evening that for deep pleasure and great profit will long be remembered by every person present.
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“Duty”
Quite new, fresh and dramatic, the Éclair-Universal two-part offering, “Duty,” makes a desirable release.
Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.
Leaving “big” productions out of account for the time, one can still find room for pride and enthusiasm over any two-reel picture that provides a good story and develops it on the screen in an artistic and human way, and more so when the picture is made in America and deals with American life. The Éclair-Universal picture, Duty, can be truthfully said to do all this. It deals, more properly speaking, with life in any country, for its theme is deep enough to get below national peculiarities and be clearly understood by spectators everywhere. Indeed, it gets its best value from this very thing, its purpose being to picture how it often happens that external peculiarities hide the true worth of a man or woman until some incident dramatically reveals a courage and a character unsuspected. Youth has its charm and joyous freshness that surround it like a perfume, and worldly splendor is flattered by its golden crown, but the true dignity of man is always inside of him. It is this inherent dignity alone that gives meaning to the perplexing thing we call life. A heavenly light inside of us. It can shine around the humblest hammer and anvil like an aureole more impressive than the grandest march that ever passed through a kingdom’s coronation abbey. Could a picture have a higher theme? Having such a theme, could a writer or producer fail of his best to make the work human, truthful and convincing? Of course, we are all human as well as di¬vine and our best work is apt to be touched with some lack that now and again keeps it from being perfect. There is little in this picture’s development for which fair-minded spectators will not make sympathetic allowance.
The center of the picture is a young woman, played by Delia Adair [Belle Adair], the wife of an earnest-minded, elderly doctor, played by Alec Francis. He doesn’t neglect her; but could hardly be expected to be, like her, an ardent devotee of the new dances — maxixe, tango and the like. It is shown that the doctor is a kindly, sane-minded man who gives his best science to helping the patients who need his services. It is also shown that among his wife’s younger friends is an artist, quite a society man, who needs money. She is an heiress in her own right and he loves money, so he pays her court. All is done in a natural way. To tell the truth, this particular situation is played, in most pictures one sees, in a way to insure the failure of the man’s scheme; it is a situation often made ridiculous. Not so here. Good manners, graceful acting and restraint are noticeable all through. M. Artand [Étienne Arnaud], its producer, is to be congratulated on his careful workmanship.
The artist has been painting her picture and has at length persuaded her that she will be happier with him. She has written a note agreeing to go with him. That evening a child is brought into the doctor’s office choking with the croup. The doctor has just loaned his last tube of serum to an associate. The only thing to save the child’s life is for the physician to draw the clotted mucous from the boy’s throat — a situation that is new (in pictures) and strong with possibility and, in this place, very dramatic. He tells his wife. whom he finds with her cloak and hat on, just what he is compelled to do and its danger to him. She tries to dissuade him; but it is his duty and he accomplishes it safely.
The change in the wife’s feeling on account of it is truthful and logical, a bit more so that her going to the studio of the artist to tell him of the change. That he should change from pleas to threats is also truthful, and we can not deny the possibility in his telling her that unless she comes to him he will blow his brains out before her, although the use of the gun in this way has been seen many times. In the struggle when she tries to get it from him, it falls in the open grate fire and presently goes off, badly wounding the man. He lies on the floor. His housekeeper comes Without the wife’s knowing it, a doctor is sent for and her husband comes. He needs a paper to write his prescription and her note to the artist is on the table. He reads it; yet, when she tells him the truth, believes and forgives her. Here the picture properly ends; but there are a few feet of still happier ending, conventional and improbable. The photography throughout, like the general staging, is excellent.
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Scene from Duty (Éclair-Universal).
Collection: Moving Picture World, June 1914