The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

 

PICTURE PLAYS AND PEOPLE.

THE Famous Players-Lasky Corporation has announced thirty-nine Paramount pictures for release during the six months from Feb. 1 to Aug. 1, 1923. These include a number of productions featuring the company's stars of 1922 — Dorothy Dalton, Gloria Swanson, Mary Miles Minter, Jack Holt, Betty Compson, Agnes Ayres, Thomas Meighan, Alice Brady and Wallace Reid––and the Cosmopolitan players, Marion Davies and Lionel Barrymore. There are also productions put out in the name of the Paramount directors — Cecil B. DeMille, George Melford, James Cruze, William de Mille, Sam Wood, and George Fitzmaurice — but the list does not show any picture credited to Penrhyn Stanlaws, which may, or may not, mean simply that he will have none ready in the six months specified.

Among the newcomers to the Paramount camp, it appears, are Tony Moreno, featured as a player; Wallace Worsley, who has hitherto directed for Goldwyn; Julia Crawford Ivers, a scenarist, making her bow as a director; J. Warren Kerrigan, named in one of the casts; Henry Kolker, who directed George Arliss in "Disraeli"; Allan Dwan, who used to direct for Paramount but is now represented by "Robin Hood" and Wesley Ruggles, who directed Priscilla Dean in Universal's "Wild Honey."

Among the pictures noted in the list are two with Pola Negri, the previously announced "Bella Donna," and "Déclassé," both directed by George Fitzmaurice, and a production entitled "Hollywood," which will be directed by James Cruze and include in its cast many of the best known Paramount players and Cecil B. De Mille. Walter Hiers's first starring film, "Mr. Billings Spends His Dime," is also among those present.

E. M. Newman's fourth Traveltalk of the season, "Khartoum," will be delivered at Carnegie Hall this evening, and, in addition, there will be an extra one, "Wild Animal and Savage Life," at the same place tomorrow afternoon.

The run of "When Knighthood was in Flower" at the Criterion Theatre will come to an end on Dec. 30, which will make a score of fifteen weeks and three days for the film. The Nazimóva "Salome" will come to the Criterion on the 31st.

The Society of Theatre Organists will give the second of its series of public demonstrations of music in connection with motion pictures at the Wanamaker Auditorium next Friday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock. Tickets are complimentary and obtainable at the Concert Bureau in the Auditorium, which will be open from tomorrow on.

The first public exhibition of a stereoscopic photoplay in New York will take place at the Selwyn Theatre on Dec. 27, it is announced. The Teleview Company, whose pictures have been shown privately here, has acquired the theatre for an indefinite period beginning on that date, according to the announcement.

Photoplays booked by S. L. Rothafel for the Capitol Theatre, beginning next week, are "Quincy Adams Sawyer," with Blanche Sweet; "The Headless Horseman," with Will Rogers; "The Stranger's Banquet," directed by Marshall Neilan, and "The Christian," directed by Maurice Tourneur.

The Widescope camera, an invention of George W. Bingham of Newark, which, it is said, has a photographic angle of sixty degrees, as opposed to the thirty degrees of the usual camera, has made its appearance. The camera uses two negatives and two lenses set at different angles, so that one-half of the field covered is photographed on one negative and the other half on the other. When prints from these negatives are projected contiguously on the screen a single picture spreading over twice the field of the usual picture is the result, according to the representations of those interested in the camera. It is possible with this camera, it is said, to photograph an entire baseball or football game at once, as well as other subjects which normally can be pictured only in part.

The Goldwyn Company's undertaking to picturize "Ben Hur" has called F. J. Godsol, the President of the company; Edward Bowes, the Vice President, and A. L. Erlanger, the theatrical producer, who retains an interest in the film, to the Culver City studios. June Mathis has finished the scenario, it is said, but no star or director has been announced.

Buffalo Bill is a historic character, the courts have decided, and may therefore be the subject of any picture any one choose to make... The decision was the result of a suit brought by the W. F. Cody Historical Pictures Corporation of Denver to restrain the Universal Film Company from using Mr. Cody in one of its productions... "Two George M. Cohan plays and Dickens masterpiece," it is proudly announced, will be used by Warner Brothers as starring vehicles for Wesley Barry, the plays being "Little Johnny Jones" and "George Washington Jr.," and the Dickens work nothing other than "David Copperfield"... Sigrid Holmquist, the Swedish actress, who appeared here in "Just Around the Corner" and "My Old Kentucky Home," has been engaged for the rôle of Patricia in the Pola Negri-George Fitzmaurice "Bella Donna."... Raymond Hatton will be seen as Gringoire, the Poet, in Universal's picturization of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," in which Lon Chaney will have the title rôle.... Rupert Hughes has started photography on his "Souls for Sale" at the Goldwyn studio in Culver City.... Miriam Battista is to be starred in a series of productions, beginning with "The Lucky Stone," from a story by Abbie Farwell Brown.... The Abbey Pictures, Inc., has been launched and Maurice Kriger, the production manager, boldly asserts that only actors will be used in the casts of photoplays.

Banner image: Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming, U.S.A.; Original Buffalo Bill Museum Collection, P.69.118