Page:Screenland October 1923.djvu/41

SCREENLAND 

 be he hero, villain or 'comic relief,' is the man for our money.

To "steal a picture," in Hollywood parlance, is to carry off acting honors away from the star. Such dramatic larceny is the end and aim of every actor that is worth his salt. But the star could be arrested and put in jail for life for what he thinks of the proceeding!

rnest Torrence is a notorious bandit, when it comes to stealing a scene right out from under a star's nose. Remember how he stood out as the central figure in The Covered Wagon? He wasn't supposed to. He was only a scout, a subordinate character. He wasn't pretty and he hadn't shaved for weeks. And as for the "sex appeal" that the exhibitors swear by, he had about as much as Bull Montana. But every spectator that saw the picture went home to tell about the old plainsman who got so deliriously drunk, and perhaps quite forgot to mention anything about the two leading characters, Lois Wilson and J. Warren Kerrigan. Quite right, too. Lois Wilson was sweet and gentle, but she missed the chance of a life-time to act, and Kerrigan wore what was apparently a self-cleaning, white doe-skin suit and looked as pretty as a new red wagon, but that was all. The real actors in the picture were Torrence. Tully Marshall and the little chap who "chawed tobaccer" so manfully.

But, speaking of Torrence, reminds us of his first success. He snapped into fame with his unregenerate bad man of Tol'able David, that classic of the Virginia hills in which Richard Barthelmess starred. Torrence didn't run away with Tol'able David, Barthelmess is too able an actor for that. But he did put himself across with a smash.

had wronged innocent young damsels under the blistering Kliegs for many years, before Douglas Fairbanks saw that he was something more than a "heavy." So it was a delightful surprise to the public to view Beery's superb characterization of the roystering Richard the Lion-Hearted, in Fairbanks'