As intended, our stay in California this second year was much longer than the first. The three months lengthened to five, and it was May when the company returned East.
It did seem a pity to close up the new studio, for it was the last word in organization. Why, we’d even a separate department for finances. The money end of things had grown to such proportions that David could no longer handle it as he had the first year. And Mr. Dougherty was along too, in charge of the front office.
* * * * *
With Mabel Normand and Blanche Sweet well started on their careers, the second winter’s work in California ended. Another milestone had been passed, the birth of the two-reeler, which having been tried was not found wanting.
What otherwise came out of the winter’s work as most important was Biograph’s acquisition of the little hop-skip girl, Mae Marsh. She played no parts this season, made very few appearances even as an insignificant extra girl, and when the company returned to New York they left little Mae behind them.
CHAPTER XXV
MARKING TIME
The serious students of the motion picture, for they had arrived, were at this time writing many and various articles in the trade papers. Epes Winthrop Sargent was a-saying this:
The Moving Picture World more than advocates the ten cent theatre. It looks forward to the time when the dollar photoplay theatre will be an established institution following the advance in quality of the films. But there will always be five cent theatres in localities that will not support the ten cent houses and ten cent houses for those who cannot afford fifty cents or a dollar. It is the entertainment for the whole family.
And W. Stephen Bush, the reviewer, this, of a Biograph:
“The Battle” is a perfect picture in a splendid frame. I cannot close without a well-deserved word of praise regarding the women’s dresses and coiffures of the wartime period. It is in the elaboration of such details that the master hand often betrays itself as it does here to the last chignon on the young girls’ heads.