Colleen Moore
Biography, Images
and Notes
The Man in the Moonlight, The Egg Crate Wallop, and Common Property
“(Colleen) can make as much noise as anyone.”
After The Wilderness Trail, Colleen departed Fox Films, and returned to the Universal Film Corporation. No longer a Bluebirder, her film would be produced and distributed by Universal. She would be reunited with Monroe Salisbury, her leading man from The Savage. Her new film was tentatively entitled Devils Have Their Friends, written by Elliott J. Clawson and directed by Paul Powell. The production would take the cast to Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains for the outdoor sequences. It was another film set in the Great North. The mountains of southern California would stand in for Canada. Salisbury would play the anti-hero named Rossignol and he had an unusual take on the French–Canadian villain in the film, “…dressed as a South American gaucho in a flat black hat, black poncho, open shirt, and beads. To complete the characterization Salisbury kept a cigarette dangling constantly from his lips.” The story, however, would revolve around the imperiled romance between Colleen’s character and her fiancé, and around Rossignol’s the doomed love.
The outdoor portions of the production were shot on Mount Baldy, some fifty miles east of Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Mountains, in San Bernardino County. It was a location high in the hills, isolated from the rest of the world. The cast and crew were truly roughing it. “While encamped in Bear Valley County of southern California, miles from the nearest ranch, director Paul Powell lamented the lack of variety in the next evening’s dinner menu; ‘beans and beans, and beans.’” Monroe Salisbury volunteered to run to the closest ranch to buy a chicken. The rancher Salisbury approached was reluctant to part with his chickens.
Later, Salisbury returned to the production in the hills with a chicken ready for roasting. That evening Powell, while biting into his chicken, came across a small round pellet: buckshot. When he asked Salisbury why the chicken was peppered with buckshot, Salisbury explained “That buckshot was meant for me….”
From the Great Outdoors, the production returned to Los Aneles to shoot interior scenes. The production lasted from May to July. With the typical efficiency of a large motion picture studio in those days, the film was cut and printed and released before the end of July, renamed The Man in the Moonlight.
Before it was released, Collen was one again reunited with Charles Ray and director Jeremy Storm for a Paramount picture to be produced at the Thomas H. Ince Studio. This time, Ray’s athletic sport would be boxing. He played Jim Kelly, the assistant to railroad freight agent who, through lifting egg crates, develops quite a wallop. The title would appropriately be The Egg Crate Wallop. Jim Kelly loves Colleen's Kitty, but he is framed for a theft, causing him to flee to Chicago. There, he finds work as a training assistant in a boxing gym. When he substitutes for another boxer, he discovers his opponent is the man who framed him and uncovers evidence on him of his innocence. He returns home to find Kitty waiting.
The boxing scenes were stages as realistically as possible. “The fistic duel between Charles Ray and Jack Connolly, which goes five rounds to a knock-out, is declared to be the fastest, most exciting mill ever picturized. Ince built a genuine prize fight arena and stadium at his studio for the ‘punch’ scenes….” It was the sort of extravagance that had marked Ince’s westerns as special, the willingness to go to great lengths for authenticity. For The Busher, an actual baseball game was staged with 500 extras. For The Egg Crate Wallop, to give the proper atmosphere, about 500 fight fans were hired as extras at $5 a head. “For two days (the extras) watched some of the liveliest pugilists in the country in action, and most of the ‘spectators’ agreed it was the softest job they ever had.”
Once her work for The Egg Crate Wallop was completed, Colleen moved onto her next production, Common Property, a topical film from Universal.
It was still July.
In the wake of the October Revolution in Russia, where banks were nationalized, private bank accounts seized, wages fixed and control of factories handed over to the soviets, America fell into a Red Scare. In Washington, at a 1918 Senate committee investigating Bolshevism, the committee was told the story of the Saratov decree which—as read to the committee—stated: “Social inequities and legitimate marriage having been a condition of the past which served as an instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie, thanks to which all the best species of all the beautiful women have been the property of the bourgeoisie, which has prevented the proper continuation of the human race.” In short, wealth meant all the beautiful women were married to the wealthy. To correct things it was proposed to abolish “possession” (by marriage) of women between the ages of 17 and 32, exempting them from “private ownership” and declaring them the property of the entire nation. The Anarchist Saratov Club was to have domain over their distribution. The women were to be issued an allowance. Those who were pregnant had four months off from their duties, and women with more than five children were exempt.
Scary stuff, tailor-made for motion pictures.
The idea formed the basis of Common Property. It was a fast production, filming having commenced less than a year after most of the events that inspired the story. The lead was played by Robert Anderson, as Paval Pavlovitch, who brings his new American wife back home to Russia. The men of the town covet her. Nell Craig played the part of the wife, Anna Pavlovitch. When the decree is handed down nationalizing all the eligible women of the town, townsmen file claims for both she and Paval Pavlovitch’s daughter Tatyone, played by Colleen. They are rescued by American troops.
Photography was done before the end of July, but it would be October before the film was released. To take advantage of the lingering Red Scare, an unusual advertising campaign to promote the film was launched in Los Angeles: posters had appeared on walls and fences that read:
“PROCLAMATION. On and After November 30, 1919, all women between the ages of 18 and 37 are hereby declared to be ‘common property.’”
The proclamation signed by “Ivan Ivanoff, Bolsheviki Minister.” It was an advertising stunt, the Los Angeles Times stated in “Press Agent Stirs Storm.” Most of the posters had gone up in the Russian quarter. Recent Russian immigrants who were aware of the events back in their home country, the local women who read the decree feared the same fate being was being visited upon them. A press agent was discovered to be the perpetrator and he was fined $5. Those frightened and offended by the stunt would have preferred the press agent be strung up.
The Wilderness Trail was released on July 6th, followed less than a month later by The Man in the Moonlight. By August Colleen was faced with her first break in months, after a long and productive stretch of work. To relax, the Los Angeles Times reported that she spent time every afternoon in Washington Park: “She is an ardent baseball fan and can make as much noise as anyone.”
Her break would be short lived.
In October, Colleen was reunited with Tom Mix for another film. He had specifically requested her for his next film (perhaps as much for the fact that Colleen’s mother Agnes would accompany Colleen as for the actress herself). The film would be The Cyclone, and this time the Mix troupe returned to Prescott, Arizona for the production. Colleen was always anxious to learn new skills, and there were plenty opportunities. Buck Jones had been in the production, and he taught Colleen how to roll a cigarette one-handed and to lasso. Tom was pleased with the cooperation he received in Prescott and he showed his appreciation to Prescott and Yavapai County by appearing in the Northern Arizona State Fair. “He and his famous horse, Tony, led the parade, Mix saluting with his big white hat and flashing his famous smile…. Later, Mix headed up a contingent from the Fox Film Co. in a show called Range Pastimes that has the fair audience buzzing.”
When the location work completed, the company returned to “Mixvile” where interiors and more complicated stunt scenes would be shot. Like Inceville, Mix’s ranch had been equipped not only with all the props necessary to represent any western scene, but was run like a working ranch. The work at Mixville would have pure excitement for Colleen with the array of characters in residence at the lot, and the skills on display.
One stunt required the construction of a massive set for an over-the-top rescue. “When Director Cliff Smith made arrangements for the filming of The Cyclone, he consulted some of the best contractors… regarding the erection of a building that was to house a Chinese den….” The building was open on one side, consisting of a flight of stairs that ran up the set four stories; the stairs were break-aways rigged to collapse when Tom and Colleen, atop Tom’s stunt horse for Tony, climbed them. The walls were made of chicken wire and plaster, so that there would be a suitable amount of debris and dust sent crumbling on cue without injuring them. After the collapsing building, there was a picture window of breakaway glass to be jumped throught by the pair and their horse.
Once again, Colleen had been the heroine. She had begun to notice a trend in the roles she was being cast in: the damsel in distress. For the moment, those roles made for constant work, but it was limiting her career. Colleen didn’t just want to survive in the motion picture ecosystem, she wanted to thrive. She had pictured herself becoming a star in her youth: now that she was in the heart of the business, she was falling into a rut.