Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
"Of course not! She only plays mothers, and you know what that means in
moving pictures. Ever see a moving-picture mother that had a chance to be
happy for more than the first ten feet of film? You certainly got to cry
to hold down that job. Ain't she always jolted quick in the first reel by
the husband getting all ruined up in Wall Street, or the child getting
stole, or the daughter that's just budding into womanhood running off
with a polished shoe-drummer with city ways, or the only son robbing a
bank, or husband taking up with a lady adventuress that lives across the
hall in the same flat and outdresses mother?
"Then it's one jolt after another for her till the last ten feet of the
last reel, when everything comes right somewhere on a ranch out in the
great clean West where husband or son has got to be a man again by
mingling with the honest-hearted drunken cowboys in their barroom
frolics, or where daughter has won back her womanhood and made a name for
herself by dancing the Nature dance in the Red Eye Saloon for rough but
tender-hearted miners that shower their gold on her when stewed. Only, in
this glad time of the last ten feet she still has to cry a-plenty because
the clouds have passed and she's Oh, so happy at last! Yes, sir; they
get mother going and coming. And when she ain't weeping she has to be
scared or mad or something that keeps her face busy. Here--I got some
programmes of new pieces Vida just sent me. You can see she's a great
actress; look at that one: 'Why Did You Make My Mamma Cry?' And these
other two."
I looked and believed. The dramas were variously and pithily described
as The Picture with the Punch Powerful--The Smashing Five-Reel
Masterpiece--A Play of Peculiar Problems and Tense Situations--Six
Gripping Reels, 7,000 Feet and Every Foot a Punch! Vida Sommers, in
the scenes reproduced from these plays, had indeed a busy face. In the
picture captioned "Why Did You Make My Mamma Cry?" the tiny golden-haired
girl is reproaching her father in evening dress. I read the opening lines
of the synopsis: "A young business man, who has been made successful
through his wife's money, is led to neglect her through pressure of
affairs, falls into the toils of a dancer in a public place and becomes
a victim of her habit, that of drinking perfume in her tea--"
But I had not the heart to follow this tragedy. In another, "The Woman
Pays--Powerful and Picturesque, a Virile Masterpiece of Red-Blooded
Hearts," Vida Sommers is powerfully hating her husband whom she has
confronted in the den of a sneering and superbly gowned adventuress
who declares that the husband must choose between them. Of course there
can be no doubt about the husband's choice. No sane movie actor would
hesitate a second. The caption says of Vida Sommers: "Her Love Has Turned
to Hate." It may be good acting, but it would never get her chosen by the
male of her species--the adventuress being what is known in some circles
as a pippin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account