* * * * * A cat, mistaking a ball of wool for a meat ball, swallowed it, and sure enough when she had kittens they had on sweaters. * * * * * Child’s is a great place to eat. Went in there yesterday and amongst the dirty dishes on the table I found thirty cents. _Movie Hot Stuff_ These be dull days in the movie and even the stage world. The dark clouds of the Arbuckle case still hang over the two “arts,” thanks to the obdurate lady juror who caused a disagreement in the San Francisco trial. The pleasantly informal old days, when Wallie Reid could run up to ’Frisco and pelt eggs upon pedestrians from the fourteenth floor of the St. Francis Hotel, are long past. One simply =_has_= to be circumspect these days. After Whiz Bang’s comments upon the way the New York stage was getting away with salaciousness came a police investigation of “The Demi-Virgin,” the gentle whimsy with the strip poker game. The farce was severely condemned by the police commissioner—but it is still running and to crowded houses. The risque plays have had one or two additions since we wrote last. For instance, there’s David Belasco’s adaptation of the French farce, “Kiki,” with a little gutter gamin of the French music hall as its heroine. Mr. Belasco has substituted the word marriage for liaison throughout but the intent is there—and the lines, oh, boy! Once Kiki remarks “The men are like cats—they follows us as though our veins were full of catnip!” Then there is a whole act in which Kiki—posing as a rigid somnambulist—is carried and tossed about by the various members of the cast, all the time dressed only in a simple pair of open work pajamas. We aren’t intimating that “Kiki” isn’t entertaining. It is. But, the latitude they get away with! Meanwhile the censors go on cutting out bathing girls from our films and making sure there is no indication ever shown that babies are born. * * * * * Charlie Ray, spats, cane, trick overcoat with its fur collar, et al., has been making his first visit to New York and not creating a ripple of interest. Of course, friend wife was along. We saw Ray strolling up Fifth Avenue the other day—and nobody knew the ornate pedestrian as the simple country boy of the films. They tell me that Ray takes himself very seriously and left the cynical New York reporters dizzy with his confessions about his “mission in life.” * * * * * Jack Pickford continues to loiter about New York. There are all sorts of rumors linking Jack up with pretty Marilyn Miller o’ the Follies. Marilyn lost her husband, Frank Carter, in an auto accident some time ago and is as pleasant a little widow as the White Lights possess. Maybe Marilyn has an eye towards the screen. By the way, those reports of an impending family event in the Fairbanks family still persists. What could be nicer? * * * * *