Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1915-08-08
FRITZI SCHEFF-7HEf
 ,INC0MPARABLE
By Carl Horton Pierce

most any other prima donna before the American public. Little. if any thing, has been said about her screen acting. because her coming debut in Pretty Mrs. Smith" which is soon to be released on the Paramount pro- gram by the Oliver Morosco Photo play Company. is her first screen per- formance. as well as Mr. Oliver Mo- rosco's first screen offering to the public.
 To say that Fritzi Scheff has found acting before the camera a delight IS putting it mildly Shortly after she had begun to act at the Bosworth- Morosco studios in the play in which she made such signal success on Broadway, she was heard to exclainl, Tt is ze life"
 To hear Miss Scheff say this with all the charm of accent which is hers carries one back to that dash and color of Miss Scheff's foreign train ing. life and environment, with which she was surrounded in her earlier years-the foreign metropolitan lite which leaves its stamp of chic and piquant liveliness upon those who have been participants. So, to listen to the words. Tt is zee life, as she ,pronounces them, you must for mo ment traverse the great waters which separate us from the gay scenes ot Paris and Vienna. scan the good times which must naturally come to one who has had the bon vivant annusements of the Continent, and then travel again. if you please, to the sunny land where flowers bloom the whole year round--Southern Cali fornia.
 Miss Scheff delights in the balmy air, the perfume of the orange groves, the open of the. country. Why" she exclaimed as the picture-taking pro- cecded. this is not like work upon zee stage-this is zee real life She delights because the test of her act ing thrown upon the screen proves her perfect type for pictures-the animated. changeable, vivacious Fritzi of the stage perfect figure, accom- plished actress, plus the childish pleasure of intense endowment m her work. All the worlds stage" is true of motion pictures. Fritzi ScheH i'll Pretty Mrs. Smith" is not on the dingy boards with painted scenery. Consider the difference between the two On the one hand make. believe: on the other the glories ot Gods country, expressed in boundless grandeur and sublimity.
 Have you ever stopped to think of the possibilities of Eos Angeles as a motion picture mecca. Some one has called Los Angeles not a place, but a disease. Once one becomes innocu- lated one never recovers. This may be one of the reasons that there are hundreds of motion picture manufac- turing concerns in and around the town Another reason is that within two hours of Los Angeles one has the snow-capped mountains; or, on the other hand one has the sea with it's rolling whtecaps, pounding Or the beaches with its many successive series of wonderful breakers. Again within another short journey, you have the cliffs and the sea as at La Jolla. Sand dunes, seashore. natural caves, snow-topped mountains-all are within rifle shot, as it were while from azure skies descend thu warm suns rays while all the world without IS wrapped in snow or chilled by winter blasts.
 Little wonder that Miss Schcf cn loved these surroundings in prefer ence to the painted scenery. of th painted stage. especially because in Pretty Mrs. Smith" she goes through SO much of travel and out-of-door life. The play itself, as you doubt less know, written by Mir Oliver Mo- rosco and Mr. Elmer Harris, opens with Fritzi Scheff in the role of Dru- cilla-a home-wcary maiden who, to escape the drudgery of housework, decides to marry the Reverend Ferdi- nand Smith Shortly after the mar riage this gentleman takes his charm ing bride to Africa in response to an appointment as missionary.
 Can you conceive of this little jewel of maiden. dressed in the latest style and daintily reared. enjoying the society in darkest Africa2 Probably not. Nor can Drucilla enjoy it any more than you can conceive any such result. Finally, after enduring the austerity of her husband as long as she can, she returns to America. where she again renews the acquaint- ance of Letitia Proudfoot. an angular person with sunny disposition.
 At a reception which she attends with Letita, Drucilla meets a popular poet. Forrest Smith by name, who falls violently in love with the heart hungry Drucilla. His ardent wooing is relief after living with the sack cloth and ashes to which she has been accustomed for so long. Meanwhile she hears that her missionary husband has been lost at sea. yields 10 the pleadings of the poet and again she marries.
 But the poet was poor. He was a masterful lover, but no provider for the family. Love in a cottage did not appeal to the young woman as strongly as one might suppose. There are certain drawbacks to such an lexistence. as most anyone is willing to admit. Mr. Forrest feels that he has no poetic license to attend to ,he more sordid facts oi existence. such as bread, butter and clothes. sc he takes an extra coat to the brink oi the ocean. pins to 1t a note oi fare we'll and walks away landward lcav- ing no footprints behind 10 tell the !story of his perhdy.,
 Drucilla finds the note aHd' wh,le fshe regrets the radical step her husband supposedly has taken. she Assls that. she Is aga.m to hnSa : M.,an M pair of beatingS