HIS PICTURE IN THE PAPERS
starring Douglas Fairbanks and Loretta Blake
VARIETY
February 4, 1016
The craze for publicity on the part of the progressive American business man is the theme which served for the scenario for this latest Fine Arts five-reel feature in which Douglas Fairbanks is starred. It is a story with great comedy possibilities and both the star and director have made the most of the opportunities offered for laugh getting purposes. Douglas Fairbanks again forcibly brings to mind that he is destined to be one of the greatest favorites with the film seeing public. The manner in which he works in this picture will surely endear him to those who have already seen him in pictures and those that are seeing him for the first time in this film comedy will immediately become boosters for him in the future. In "His Picture in the Papers" he is the ne'er-do-well son of the millionaire manufacturer of health foods that are bought by the host of the vegetarian cranks throughout the country. Proteus Prindle, the father (Clarence Handysides) has given Pete an opportunity to win a place for himself in the business, but the worst feature of the old man's life is the fact that he, himself, believes in the ground-up sawdust and other like commodities that he foists on an unsuspecting public. Pete is the only member of the family who has a longing for red meats, cocktails, etc., that go with good living, and, whenever he indulges his desire for these things he has to do it under cover. Among the advocates of the Prindle food reforms is the aged president of the Transylvania R.R. Christopher Cadwalader, who incidentally has a daughter who, like Pete, likes the more solid forms of food. Popper Cadwalader has picked out a nice harmless youth of the vegetarian type for Christine's husband, when she and Pete make each other's acquaintance at a dinner party. It is a case of love at first sight and the two immediately make plans for a future marriage. Popper Cadwalader is willing if the boy will get a half interest in Popper Prindle's business. Pete goes right after his dad and arrives just as the later is admiring the front page of the "Vegetarian Journal" on which is displayed a photograph of his two daughters who, in an interview, proudly boast that they have lived solely on their father's food products, and grown fat thereby. In replying to the boy, the father points to the sisters as workers for the welfare of the family's stock-in-trade and tells the youth that when he does something fully as worthy for the cause, he will consider his proposition to become a member of the firm. The comedy in the picture deals with a number of futile attempts on the part of the boy to gain notoriety and publicity through the daily press and his final success in landing a three-column "spread" in all of the papers through saving a train from being wrecked on old Pop Cadwalader's road. Pictorially the feature is all that could be desired and the direction is without a flaw. The prize fight, in which Pete competes against the champion, is exceedingly well staged and carries a real thrill. Incidentally this feature is one of the first that has been produced by the Fine Arts people in New York and it shows that little old Gotham is just as capable of being the scene of good comedy pictures as any picture city on the west coast.
For more information, see "His Picturre in the Papers" as our "Featurre of the Month"