_America is blessed with a flock of motion picture magazines, some of them with real stories of the public performances of the screen folk, and some of them a collection of press agent yarns at so-much per column. The Whiz Bang won’t invade their sacred field. We’ll bar the press agents and, instead, will endeavor to give our readers some inside dope direct from Hollywood and Universal City, written by our own staff author whose position within the sacred circle at Hollywood makes it necessary for him to transcribe under the nom de plume of “Richmond.” All right, director, let ’er shoot--_
=Reel One.= At last hearing “Doug” Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were living here happily in their little grey home in the west, on top of a big Beverly hill. Every day or so appears a dispatch that the Nevada authorities intend to dissolve the partnership but this is taken to be the final, spasmodic throb of a dying determination.
Doug thinks he’s married to Mary. Mary believes she is married to Doug. Owen Moore, Mary’s former hubby, is quite certain he isn’t married to Mary and what the state of Nevada thinks isn’t causing any particular excitement. If Nevada proved a convenient place to arrange the legal break and figures her dear judges or lawmakers were slip-shoddy she should get some new judges and lawmakers. What is done is done.
=Reel Two.= Recent presentation of the new Griffith play, “Way Down East,” caused a laughable situation for those who were aware of the facts. The laughable situation did not get into the newspapers because some of our very best families would have suffered humiliation. It appears that “D. W.” issued several invitations to prominent society women for the opening night, as his “guests”--though he was in New York.
What a flurry and flutter there was among the high-brows when they learned that the invites had gone out. Who had been asked? It did not occur to the high-brow ladies that D. W. Griffith is truly the master mind of pictures and that his use of Mrs. Belmont in the picture was smart bait to draw society. Mrs. Belmont really didn’t have much to do but appear in an up-to-date gown and give Lillian Gish a haughty look.
But society here went daffy when it became known that some society women had been invited by Mr. Griffith’s representatives, while others had not. Immediately there was a buzz of phones and considerable indignation, denouncements and heart-burnings seared the wires. “How came it that Mrs. Such and So had been invited and ‘I’ have not? It reflects upon my social standing.”