Evening star., 1923-12-09
BY HALLETT ABEND.

Special Dispatch TO The Star.
LOS ANGELES, December 1.-Monta
Bell, for several years assistant to
Charlie Chaplin and credited with
being film editor OF "a Woman of
Paris announces that he will follow
Chaplins unconventional methods of
production and direction.
Mr.. Bell, who had stage experience
before he joined Chaplin. is about to
start on his first production, Broad
way After Dark" for Warner Broth
ers. This Owen Davis play. long
stage melodrama of unqualified sue
cess, will be greatly changed and
given a theme that was not in the
original play. The experiment by Mr..
Bell will be watched with interest, for
picturedom needs new and competent
directors more than it needs anything
else just now. There are many men
sailing along on their regulations and
getting salaries running from $1,000
to $4,000 a week who turn out con-
sistently poor productions, despite the
fact that the producers who employ
them and pay the bills give them all
the money they can use, popular stars,
expensive stories and casts of able
players.
A mere expert knowledge of the me-
chanicS of production will no longer
day and the great ones of the future
will have to be dramatists almost u
the extent that playwriters are dram
atists, and they will have to have
the added ability to see plots in pic
ture form, to work them out with
reasonable economy and to supervise
both the cutting and final titling.
A Fourth Cruze Success.
. James Cruze, who now has Holly
wood, The Covered Wagon" and
"Ruggles of Red Gap" running in
many parts Of the country, has just
completed what will, I am sure. be a
fourth success. This new film is To
the Ladies" light little comedy,
which has withal a soul and con-
went to see a preview of this pro-
Guction l knew it had been only
fourteen days in the making and not
unnaturally / surmised it might have
some resemblance to the program
pictures turned out with d factory
like precision. Instead it is a film
play both delightful and different.
1t is played. in the main, in inti
mate scenes and close-ups. There is
no sex appeal-not even a romance.
All the leading characters have been
married for some years and all the
husbands love their own wives and
vice versa. Neither is there any
pageantry about the picture.
The cast includes Louise Dresser,
whose screen work is now as fine as
her stage work ever was: Theodore
Roberts, Helen Jerome Eddy, Wall
Covington and Edward Horton
What Others Are Doing.
Kitty Bradbury. character actress,
has been engaged 10 play the part
of Eleanor Boardman's mother in
Eooth Tarkington's '"rhe Turmoil"
which Hobart Henley is directing Al
Universal City Others in the case
include George Hackathornc, Eileen
Percy. Emmett Corrigan, Eddie
Hearne and Theodore Won Eltz.
Jack Holt, LaSky star, will appear
in a First National play during the
Lasky shutdown.
Gloria Swanson. who has been at
the Lasky Long Island studio since
June, will remain in New York until
spring. She has just rented her
mansion at Beverly Hills for six
months.
Robert F. Hill will direct Laura
La Plante III her first feature for Uni
versal, The Thrill Girl
Mack Sennett has signed Harry
Langdon and will star him in come
dies. There will be no slapstick in
the productions to be made featuring
the former Follies and Orpheum cir
cult headliner.
Lupfno Lane English comedian, has
signed with William Fox under
contract which will pay him $4,000
a year and which will permit him TO
return to England every other year
for a stage production. His pictures
will be made in Hollywood.
The death of Allen Holubar is con-