The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-02-25

away from his old lighter modern roles only by degrees.
 Douglas laughs at me when l as- sure him he's a great actor, but l know he is one just the same And the public would not have accepted him in Robin Hood if he had not done first the Mark of Zorro and then The Three Musketeers. Soon prospects for him will come through and he will justly rank as great romantic actor"
 At this point Douglass Fairbanks himself came strolllng in from the pantry-munching something that sounded like celery or unbuttered toast. They made a striking looking party as they stood there on the hearth-Mary, small and blond, clad in an afternoon gown of black velvet richly ornamented with a deep flame color red Fairbanks in a suit of dove grey with hair stripes of white and a white sweater vest
 We talked of course of the success of Robin Hood and Doug said he thought he better shoot himself or esomething because everyone told him he'd never equal in the future.
 Just let 'em wait and see,' said his wife with real pride and indig gna- tion in her tone.
 Without thought of turning up a ."story," but merely because of inter est. l asked how many feet of film had been "shot" for Robin Hood" 1 expected the figure named would be enormous, for Griffith took 100000 feet for "Way Down East" Won Stroheim 190,000 feet for Merry Go Round" and there is as a rule 10000 feet of waste film for every ordinary program feature of 5000 feet.
 "Why l took only TOO feet that is not included in the film as it is shown ncw,i Fairbanks said. He grinned at my evident surprise. Preparation <is what did the trick,' he explained. This old wasteful way of not know ing what you want when you start work is ridiculous. l find the result more artistic and the picture infin- itely more profitable if l spend sew eral months on careful preparation before a single scene is shot An immense amount of work was done on Robin Hood before the cast was assembled, but under my plan l al- ways know what l had on hand. In- ei ntally, the cutting was all fin- ished and the film was ready for showing three days after the last scene was photographed.'
 What this method of preparation twill mean to stabilizlng the motion picture industry financially, and what it will mean artisticallys can not be overestimated. In business sense it means building film from carefully estimated amount of ma- terial-as competent contractor builds house. Artistically. it mak kes for close knit production with real supervision, in contrast to the queer hodgepodges which the cutters for the studios often turn out after fum- bling for weeks and even months with tens of thousands of feet of in- consequential footage shot on chance
 Fairbanks left us alone after we had talked for time of Robin Hood and then Miss Pickford admitted one of the reasons she has given up mak- ing Faust" at this time is because she could not find a good Mephisto ! I suggested that her husband would | have done well in the part-and meant it, too. "In the light of scenes, yes" she conceded q urged him to take the part and so did MT. Lubsitch. but he always countered with Can you ina zine anyone taking me seriously as the Devil'
 Well now l am going ahead with my new plan. Within two weeks think, I'll be in front of the camera again. And Douglas is busy on his pirate picture. After that I'll prob ably do Dorothy Vernon of Haddon i Hall
 o 0 0
 Trip Around World.
 And then? Oh then thls much talked of trip around the world In a chartered liner will become a reality