Patrick’s Gold Piece
For the sake of this story, we will say his name was Pat. Now Pat was a good Irishman and had attended mass at the same church for twenty-five years.
In the good old days, when a “slug” was 10 cents and a “schooner” a 5-cent piece, Pat was always visiting Casey’s saloon for a wee nip.
On this particular Sunday morning, Pat found himself in church with only a 5-cent piece and a five dollar gold piece in his pocket. During the offertory of the mass, he made the mistake of dropping in the gold piece. After service, following his custom of many years, he slipped into the back door of Casey’s for his morning’s drink.
“Have one with me, Mr. Casey,” said Patrick. They both had their drink and Pat reached in his pocket and laid the nickel on the bar.
“Come again,” said Casey, “you haven’t even enough to pay for your own drink.”
Pat then told of his mistake of putting the gold piece in the collection box. Casey promptly urged him to go at once to Father Monahan, explain his error and get back his gold piece.
On his way to the priest he kept repeating to himself: “I hate to do this; oh, I hate to do this, but I will, I need the money.” He was just about to push the bell at Father Monahan’s home, when he hesitated and again said:
“Oh, I hate to do this; in fact, I can’t do it, and I won’t do it. I gave that money to the good Father and to hell with it.”
Chaplin’s New Love
Enter now the halcyon days of romance for our noted picture entertainer! Charles Chaplin has lived down the shattered memory of Mildred Harris and is now romancing with a girl of seventeen; Mary Pickford is a victim of gossips; “Midsummer Madness” breaks record for naughty films, and the story of comedienne assaulted by picture director comes to light. These newsy nuggets sum up our monthly gossip from the inside circles of Hollywood and Universal City.
By RICHMOND
Lest anyone imagine that Charlie Chaplin is wearing mourning weeds as a result of his recent and widely advertised marital tribulations, forget it! Charlie has been busy making much over a dainty frail of seventeen or eighteen, who came west to work in an Anita Loos picture. It is said that Charles finds a delightful communion of spirit in the acquaintanceship which has developed between himself and the pretty girl.
Does Chaplin care for wild women? This is a highly personal question. Few women apparently have any appeal for him. Most of them seem too thick-headed and lack the lustre of wit and conversational powers that make headway where a high-strung, keen-minded man is concerned. It has been quite noticeable that the object of Chaplin’s recent devotion bears none of the eye, ear or leg marks generally supposed to feature the extra smart ladies. This girl is modest appearing and, what is more, modest acting. She doesn’t smoke, nor drink; and, so far as anyone knows, doesn’t chew nor swear. She goes about with Charlie but indulges in none of the frivolities.
Not to swear is regarded as remarkable among the movie dames. Most of them could tame a Captain Kidd pirate and make a buccaneer hang his head in a bucket of blushes. Young lady clerks or stenographers quite frequently are told to leave the room when an irate movie girl enters. It may be that Chaplin is experiencing a state of austerity and aloofness from ordinary mundane affairs which a man often does experience after his soul has somewhat been seared by the white iron of social cruelty—whatever that means.
Anyhow Charlie is not intending to commit suicide as a result of the parting from Mildred. The women flock after him if they get half a chance. He realizes this fact, but seemingly attributes it to the lure of his name and wealth. As a matter of fact, Chaplin at his best would attract many women. He has a winsome way, as they say. Truth of the matter is that this young favorite of film fortune is quite lonesome, not knowing who is or who isn’t his friend, either man or woman. He is paying the stern penalty which fame frequently exacts.
There was considerable excitement in the studios and bungalows recently when a rumor went forth that Mary Pickford had been seen at the Orpheum the night before with her former husband, Owen Moore, and one of Owen’s brothers. Several persons swore that this remarkable sight was witnessed. Truth probably is that one of the Moore boys, not Owen, was in the party or happened to be seen talking with Mary. At last accounts Owen Moore was in a New York hospital.
One of the naughtiest plays seen in some time came to light when “Midsummer Madness” appeared at a Los Angeles picture house. It came just in the midst of a campaign for picture censorship. This Midsummer Madness play would better have been called a Midwinter Nightmare or “The Passion Play.” William De Mille produced it.
The picture is supposed to teach a lesson to husbands who work too much and fail to properly Romeo their wives. Cutting out what it is supposed to teach, it was produced for the purpose of getting the money by showing two young married people—not married to one another—deciding that they would have a grand time in a lonely cabin.
It chanced that just as the supreme sacrifice was to be made, the lady looked up and saw her husband’s picture on the wall. This broke up the meeting and nothing much happened. Just how the lady chanced to open her eyes cannot be explained, as one of the local newspapers has been printing a series of articles to the effect that when women are being kissed they keep their eyes tightly glued.
The newspapers unanimously proclaimed this a great play, teaching moral lessons. The film ends “happily,” of course, with the wronged husband satisfied that he hasn’t been cheated beyond a pardonable degree.
Many people may have wondered what became of a girl who several years ago was probably the most noted of the film comediennes. She didn’t seem ever to be the same following an episode between herself and one of the big producers, a man nationally known.
The story was never published, but a penitentiary term stared this big gun in the face had the girl died. It seems that the producer had a well oiled case on her, but became enraged one night when, upon visiting her home, he discovered another man had made considerable inroads, so far as appearances went.
The best dope—and the newspaper folk knew of it—is to the effect that the famous producer dragged the girl around by the hair and gave her such a mauling that she was in bad physical condition for some time. The story goes that the girl’s sister was given a substantial bonus to make herself scarce, but remained in town, vowing that if her sister died she would expose the whole mess.
The man whom the producer caught with the girl comedienne was married. This would have added to the complications. Fortunately for everyone concerned, the girl survived, though it is said her health never has been so good. The repentant producer treated her handsomely in a financial way, but she has never risen high in pictures since and apparently has left the films for good.
Whiz Bang Filosophy
Eat, drink—and be careful.
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A Miss is as good as her smile.
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Home is where the mortgage is.
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Man proposes and woman imposes.
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Fine feathers make fine feather beds.
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Oh, for the gland, gland days of youth!
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There’s many a slip between the cop and the nip.
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Many a girl has a good beginning and a week-end.
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No skirt should be so short as to expose the knee plus ultra.
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One of the proverbs of politics is, “Money makes the mayor go.”
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Some men court, then marry, and then go to court again.
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People who live in glass houses should dress in the dark.
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There’s many a good thing lost by not asking for it—think it over.
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Just because your sweetheart is “crummy,” don’t think he is a baker.
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As long as truth is naked, people will continue to take liberties with her.
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The front door of the business man’s office says “Push.” The front door of the city hall says “Pull.”
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A laugh, a sigh; a smile, a tear; a giggle, a sob; a joy, a pain; a gain, a sacrifice—that is the synthesis of Love.
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Wives should never nag their husbands. A hubby is like an egg—if kept continually in hot water he will become hard-boiled.
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Don’t imagine that you can avoid a courting stunt by paying attention to a widow. She’ll expect as much fuss and “ootsy-wootsy” slush as a 16-year-old maiden.
Adventures of Sven
“Inside doings” in the motion picture camps of California, with real characters and true incidents, will be reeled off to Whiz Bang readers in this and subsequent issues under the character title of “Svens Peterson’s” letters to his Minnesota friends, with Whiz Bang Bill as the interlocutor. The Whiz Bang has increased its regular staff of war correspondents in Hollywood and Universal City now to four crack writers, who will bring to the readers of this great family journal first-hand gossip from the dressing-rooms.
Hallo! Uncle Billy:
Ay aint bane pretty gude writin’ faller, anyhow Ay yust take a chance. Ay skol tole you Ay yust got gude yob in moving picture studyo hyar in Loose Angels being actor faller.
One time in Minneapolis, faller tole may Ay yump yust so high lak Douglay Bareflanks so Ay yust sall may team an’ kom out hyar. Ay hang round studyo for ’bout sax week looking for yob. One day, faller with long chin an’ punkin-seed mustache kom out an’ hire me. He skol take all may clothes away for tray dollar a day to be Indian. Nother faller he paint me with whitewash brush all over red an’ before he paint me he grease me all over with lard so brush she slip gude You bat Ay look lak hal! Some girls jump and squeek when Ay kom out from dressing-koop. Pretty quick after Ay hang round for ’bout two hours in hot sun with lard frying on may back a faller called Director git sober up an’ tal me Ay skol stand by log house made of gunny-sack. Nother faller he soak me on head with tommy-axe for rehersal an’ ay bane be knock out. After we skol have rehersal ’bout fourteen times Ay git pretty mad an’ Ay yump on him’s neck an’ bust him’s yaw an’ den Director faller he yell “CAMERA” an’ a faller start grinding krank lak machine-gun. Nother faller turn switch-light on me so Ay skol go blind an’ den Ay gitting mad lak Devil an’ Ay lick Director an’ bust up camera an’ kick slats out of some extra fallers hangin’ ’round. Log house she fall down an’ bust up switch-lights an’ set fire on studyo. Faller run out from office an’ slip me tray dollar quick lak lightning an’ Ay lose may clothes an’ watch an’ Ay aint give a dam. Nother faller give me pants so Ay aint skol go to yail an’ nother faller hire me for prize-fight picture next week to lick Bulls in Montana.
Ay skol let you know how Ay git long just so quick as Ay am Star. Ay show them fallers how gude Swede actor put up moving picture show, Ay bat your life!
Your old friend,
SVENS PETERSON.
Post Chips—Please can you tole me where Ay can get gude book about how to shooting craps?
Post Chips agan—If you know gude steady girl that likes to git marry Ay skol start own kompany out in Hollywood.
Midnight Madness
Reverend Morrill, the author of this article, is now touring the West Indies and Cuba and soon will bring home with him a message of truth. He will picture to Whiz Bang readers the volatile life of our Latin neighbors.
By REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL
Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
Paris is the paradise of pleasure. Cafés and cabarets invite on every hand. One night at Montmartre I went to “Le Cabaret du Neant.” As I entered, a green lantern overhead flung its deadly pallor on me. Two waiters dressed like undertakers met me and ushered me into a room where the walls were draped in black, the tables were coffins, and the cups were skulls. Like the mummies at Egyptian feasts which reminded the revelers of death, I saw a skeleton in the corner of the room, and the chandelier over my head was festooned with bones. Funeral tapers served as lights on the coffin-lid table, and to dead march music pictures on the wall were transformed from life into sickness, decay and fleshless bones.
Here death was ridiculed, but I thought this micawberesque surrounding and setting was but an analogy of much cabaret, roof garden and café life in America.
Late hours lure. The cup of foaming pleasure is mixed with tears of pain. Excitement and absence of restraint drain vitality so that carousers are unfit for life’s practical duties of business, home, society and religion. Midnight dissipation breaks down the reserve of virtue and becomes a vestibule to vice through which throng fevered bodies, stifled wits and sodden souls. Surely they show, as the mask is removed, faces that are anything but gay. Sin has pleasures, but they are only “for a season.” Soon the lights fade, the sweet turns bitter, apples of Sodom turn to dust and ashes, and we have nothing but grief and pain for promised joy.
Women rule. Cherubim of hell, they sit around in scanty costumes that show what they are supposed to hide, and eat and drink, talk and look and leer with a flushed and overwrought animation of mind and body. De Musset’s confession is ours, and first astonishment gives way to horror and pity. The masked ball is but the scum of libertinism; the feast is ennui trying to live; the palace of sin is filled with yawning mouths, fixed eyes and hooked hands.
If we believe with the Mohammedan that heaven here and hereafter is pleasure, and so smile at debauchery and defy death, we will live to shed tears hotter than blood, dream dreams that reflect the flames of a literal hell, and have a moral nature as hideous and deformed as our bodies, so twisted with disease that the undertaker must change the shape of the coffin to fit the limbs.