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Show BI A. H. GIEBLER. I "SPHE movies have invaded Rus- l sia, and now Russia is going H' i to invade this country with ' her movies. The Russians are going to bombard ; us from tho screen with the shrapnel i , of their dramas and tragedies; shoot ; us up with big moments produced ty Olga Zovska; hand-grenade us with dramatic situations made possible by Petrof Jvarabanova; charge us with the tense action of Ivan Mozukin; bay-Hj bay-Hj onct our emotions with ihe thrilling I climaxes of Natalia Lcsienko, Tanya ' Fetner, the well-known Colodna, tne fl I celebrated Orlova and other Russ 1 players with art as great ana names as hard to pronounce. All of which is very good, since it H. trill give American audiences a chance ' of enjoying the art of some of the fore- I t most dramatic stars of the Russian stage, an opportunity We would never have had without the aid of the pic- fv tures, however, because of the Rus- I clan habit of keeping their great actors J at home. I Russian actors do not travel about HL from country to country as do the ! players of other lands, because most ! of them all of tho really big ones, in I fact have been trained and educated la their art at government expense, and cannot go beyond the borders of I Bussia to practice their art without special permission. , : We have always regarded Russia as a queer country and her people as a I people with queer habits.. Mainly be- cause their customs and habits did not j coincide with our own customs and Hi habits; but the customs' they have ap- Hj plied to the stage might well he iml- tatcd by us to our great advantage. The Russians take the stage very sc-Hj sc-Hj riously, as, indeed, they should, for no H art or science so truthfully reflect tho H life and passions - of a people as the H drama. H j Regulated by State. H The Russian government took charge H j of the stage and reduced it to bureaT- H cratic regulations many years ago. It H is not known what the now republican regime will do, but as most excellent j' results seem to have been gained from j tho system, it will nodoubt-be con- ' j tlnued. ; One of tho most Important parts of tho plan of state regulation consisted ! In catching their actors when they were young and training them up In : i the way they should go. A promising youngBttrr wtio was ) found with an Inclination and talent for the stage was taken In hand and ,1 placed at one of the state-controlled ! theaters In Moscow or Petrograd. : They were under tho best masters of the art. and everything that was possible possi-ble to develop them was. done for them. If the students did not live up.io their early promiso they were gently dropped by the wayside and found their way into other walks of life. Or course, they were not restricted from being actors If they wanted to be, they could act just as much and as often as they wanted to if they could give them an engagement; but they could not take part on the stage under patronage patron-age of the state. It must not be imagined that the lot of the Russian actor is a hard one, or that his earning capacity is not as great because of these conditions. Mile. Olga Zovska, of the Art Theater Thea-ter in Moscow was Just recently paid $10,000 for taking part in a screen play, which she produced in addition to .her regular work It looks as if the American movie queens are not the only high and mighty ones when it comes to salary, doesn't it? Russian' players are seldom advertised, adver-tised, and never as we "boost" our players in this country. There is no particular law against it, but there As a feeling. It just isn't done, that's all. The players are expected to advertise themselves by their own efforts. The press agent is unknown in Russia, Rus-sia, and if an actor were to engage one of these strange birds to exploit him ihe public would pay little attention to his efforts, but reserve their judgment for the work of the player himself. The Russian actor does not jump into in-to s.udden fame. There is only one way for him to claim public attention, and that Is for him to do something worth while in the acting line. No actress could land herself on tno stntje In Russia by getting married and divorced six times, unless she could act as well as she could pull the wqoI over the eyes of prospective juries to untie her conjugal kno.ts. Supporting sixteen different and assorted as-sorted dogs out of her meager salary would never cause a Russian crowd to stand outside In the rain waiting to buy scats to her show unless the owner own-er of the "bow-wows" could register in strong terms on the stage or screen. The actress that can get herself a long-term contract on Broadway, New York, by doing something outre or spectacular would have a hard time in Petrograd. She might parade the entire en-tire length of the Nevsky Prospect lugging a Hon cubsky in her arms, and never be offered a contract. Must Have the Goodsky. She might shoot an aged admirer in a taxlcabsky, or be abducted by a half dozen roughneckskys, and still be as far from getting a jobsky as when she started out on her notoriety-seeking careersky, The Russian films are not so very different from ours except that there are fewer light subjects. In fact, comedy com-edy plays a small part on the Russian stage. The Slavic demand for light amusc-m'ent amusc-m'ent on the stage runs-more to dancing danc-ing than to farce and comedy. That is the reason the Russians have produced pro-duced such 'great dancers as Anna Pavlowa and Theodoro Kosloff. Tho. Russian audiences demand stronger and more forceful stories than we do in this country. The struggles of the Russian people, tholr age-long fight for liberty and equality, equal-ity, furnish much material for dramatic dra-matic subjects, so that they seldom go out of their own country for themes. One of the picture plays that will be seen in this country soon is taken from Pushkin's poems, and will be called "The Painted Doll." The works of Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Turgenlcff anc Ostrovsky also furnish much material for film and stage plays. American movie plays ' are well known and Well liked in Russia, but, in tho main, they prefer the work of their own players in subjects by their own playwrights. Ivan Mozukin, one of tho prominent actors- of the famous Moscow Art Theater, is perhaps one of the best-known best-known players on the Russian stage and screen. Mozukin 'is, or was, a government-controlled government-controlled actor, and one of the last acts of the deposed Czar Nicholas was to grant him permission to appear in the movies whenever he felt moved to do so. Mozukin is said to he able to portray characters ranging from eighteen to eighty with equal facility, and he is known as the Francis X. Bushman of Russia, with as large a following as any screen idol on this side of the water. wa-ter. Star Is tho Czar. Mile. Olgo Zovska is an emotional player, and can tear passion to tatters just as ably as Pauline Frederick or Alice Joyce, or any other of our "sob sisters" of the screen. "When Mile Zovska works in a movie play, she selects her own scenario and allows no changes to be made in it without her consent. She theu picks the players for the supporting cast, and they stay picked. No high and mighty director can shift them around as they do here. She makes an estimate on how many trips she may have to take to the studio stu-dio for tho production, and an automobile automo-bile is arranged for to bring her there and take her home again, and if the trips figure out more than she thinks they ought to, or the play is unnecessarily unneces-sarily delayed, up goes Zovska's price for that particular play. There is said to be considerable hurry and bustle around the studio when Zovska is making a movie play. Vera Colodna, one of the youngest actresses in Russia, has just commenced com-menced screen work. Mile. Colodna specialized In the lighter dramas, young girl and ingenue parts, such as thefollowers o( Anita Stuart, Margtic-rite Margtic-rite Clark and Shirley Mason delight in. Mile. Colodna is a great beauty and is Idolized by the Russian film fans. Tanya Fetner is another popular star player whose name posted up in the lobby of a movie show makes the fans go home and dig up their rubles and kopecks. Russian audiences arc very fond of what we call "vampire" roles, and Natalia Lesicnko is perhaps their best screen homo wrecker and husband- and-wife separator. Mile. Lesicnko, in fact, almost has a monopoly on the rag-and-a-bonc and hank-of-hair business of the screen, and while she "vamps" with the same facility as our own Thcda Bara and Louise Glaum, she is said to be very much like these two,, in not being at all vampirish off the screen. Woman a Leading Exhibitor. Of the' theaters in Russia, there are plenty in the lurger towns and cities, but Just now. while the country is torn with revolutions and counter revolutions and rebellions, there is not a great deal of prosperity among the movie show managers. Ono of the most prominent exhibitors exhib-itors in Russia is a woman, Mme, Sophie So-phie Kaplan. She owns a chain of fifteen theaters, all of which are being used as barracks for soldiers. Mme. Kaplan's husband, N. S. Kaplan, Kap-lan, is a producer,, and works in. conjunction con-junction with tho Moscow Art Thea- ( tor, screening the productions used there. Kaplan, who Is now in this country, says the most notable differ- encc between American and Russian j films Is the kind of stories used for . film subjects. . , According to him, American stories are not strong enough. , "In Russia," he saiys, "we have to i give the theater-goers strong stories i or they will stay away. The Russian : drama, both spoken and pictorial, is s nothing more than a reflection of the 1 literature of the country, which in turn is a reflection of the life of the I people. a "We have no scenario writers in the Russian studios, turning out a given number of plays per month or writing films by the yard. The Russian Rus-sian producer cannot use the quickly rhushed-up plot, because tho audiences would reject them when they were shown on the screen." It remains to be seen whether or not we will take to the Russian movies when they come to our theaters, thea-ters, but as the Russians seem to take to ours over there we ought to be neighborly anurTry-to like theirs. The names of the players arc going to be difficult to pronounce. It will he hard for the movie fan who falls in love with the film heroes to rave about an actor with a name like Kara-banova, Kara-banova, but wc must remember that thenames that sound so jaw-breaking to us may be just as soft and euphonious eu-phonious in Russian as the names of our favorites are to us. Wc will hope they arc, at any rate. positc Mary Pickford in "Hulda from I Holland," and with Alice Brady in jl "Maternity," "Betsy Ross," and other jjl World Film productions. He is prob- III ably a year or so past the draft age, ill and he was on the stage with Donald I Robertson and Beulah Poyntcr beforo I cntcriug motion pcturcs. LILLIAN Roland Bottomley, Ruth I Roland and Corcnue Grant will get ' I letters addressed to them at the Bal- I boa Studio, Long Beach, Cal. Bottom- I ley is, not married. I JACK Louise Huff and Jack Pick- I ford arc both the same age, 21. Jack is still single, but Miss Huff answers to the name of Mrs. Edgar Jones in private life. Sj BESSIE The Erbograph company H produced "The Crimson Stain Mys- II tery," and released it through the ' I Metro exchanges, Maurice Costello H and Ethel Grandin ' were starred in H the serial. H EMMA Here arc the addresses you H ask for: Louise Glaum, Triangle Stu- H dios. Culver City, Cal.; George Walsh, H Fox Studio, Hollywood. Cal.; Sessue H Hayakawa, Lat?ky, Hollywood, Cal. 1 tI jl u t al |