In our own country, Helen Gardner in her own productions was appearing as Cleopatra and like characters.
The Vitagraph started on a trip around the world with Clara Kimball Young to do a picture in each country visited, but that rather fell by the wayside; Miss Young, however, had somewhat contented herself with having charming “still” photos taken in costume in each country on their route; when the company reached Paris, Vitagraph cabled for the actors to come home.
Kalem had already made some beautiful pictures in Ireland, and in Egypt had made “From the Manger to the Cross,” under Sidney Olcott.
Vitagraph answered an inquiry as to when they made “Macbeth” by saying they “made it so long ago they wanted to forget it in these days (1913) of high art production.”
Keystone Comedies were coming along, directed by Mack Sennett, featuring the two famous detectives, Mack Sennett and Fred Mace. In these comedies Mabel Normand began to daredevil. Henry Lehrman joined Sennett.
Hal Reid, Wally Reid’s father, was directing Reliance pictures.
“Traffic in Souls,” written by Walter McNamara and directed by George Loane Tucker, opened at Weber’s Theatre, Twenty-ninth Street and Broadway, at twenty-five cents the seat. People clamored for admission, with thousands turned away.
So Biograph, concluding to get into the march of things, ordered posters for twelve of their players whose names they would make public.
“David Belasco Griffith” became Mr. Griffith’s nom-de-moving-pictures. It was a time of tremendous ambitions to him. In California, during that winter, was filmed his “masterpiece”—“Mother Love”—seven hundred feet over one reel. Mr. Griffith refused to have it the conventional length, refused to finish it in a stated time, refused to consider expense, introducing a lavish cabaret scene, costing eighteen hundred dollars exclusive of salaries. Miss Bambrick arranged the dances and coached the dancers. Mr. Griffith said of it, “If it serves no other use, it will teach café managers in the interior how to run a café.”
There was also “Oil and Water” in which Blanche Sweet surprised both exhibitors and fans by her splendid work in an unfamiliar rôle. It was strange that the one woman in whom Mr. Griffith had seen the least promise came to play the most important rôles in his Biograph pictures. Strange also that Mary Pickford, who had played in so many more pictures than any of his stars, and was by far the most popular of them all, never played in a big Griffith picture.