“Yes, I remembers dat gal when she warn’t more’n hawn-high to a billy-goat. But I’s had expe’unce dis day dat eve’thing ain’t sweet whut’s called Sugar!”
Every Pose a Picture
I
AN ALL-COON CAST
Mr. Shirley Rouke was one of the first-born sons of the silent drama.
The first moving picture ever thrown upon a screen in the city of New Orleans was projected by the capable hand of this red-headed Irishman.
In the famous resort known as West End, on Lake Pontchartrain, half of the inhabitants of the Crescent City assembled to watch the revelation of a two-hundred foot film which showed a man walking down the street, a dog trotting across the street and a horse and buggy going up the street!
Thrilled by this vision, the people roared their applause until the porpoises sporting far out in the lake dived for deep water.
In a short time the thrill and novelty of a plotless jumble of pictures wore off, and Mr. Rouke was quick to inform the Gitagraft Company that the people wanted stories—the pictures must have a punch and tell a tale. Then came an era of real plays and real actors and dramatized novels and scenarios written by authors whose names were famous across the continent.
“Do the newest thing first!” was Rouke’s motto. His active brain devised novelties like a liver secretes bile, and after each sensational innovation the Gitagraft Company counted its receipts, raised Rouke’s salary, and told him to go the extreme end of the limit.