The Film Mystery | Page 2

the producer was Manton Pictures,
Incorporated, and that she had dropped dead suddenly and without warning in the middle
of a scene being photographed in the library at the home of Emery Phelps.
I was singularly elated at the thought of accompanying Kennedy on this particular case. It
was not that the tragic end of a film star whose work I had learned to love was not
horrible to me, but rather because, for once, I thought Kennedy actually confronted a
situation where his knowledge of a given angle of life was hardly sufficient for his usual
analysis of the facts involved.
"Walter," he had exclaimed, as I burst into the laboratory in response to a hurried
message, "here's where I need your help. You know all about moving pictures, so--if
you'll phone your city editor and ask him to let you cover a case for the Star we'll just
about catch a train at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street."
Because the film world had fascinated me always I had made a point of being posted on
its people and their activities. I remembered the very first appearance of Stella Lamar
back in the days of General Film, when pictures were either Licensed or Independent,
when only two companies manufactured worth-while screen dramas, when any subject
longer than a reel had to be of rare excellence, such as the art films imported from France
for the Licensed program. In those days, Stella rose rapidly to prominence. Her large
wistful eyes had set the hearts of many of us to beating at staccato rate.
Then came Lloyd Manton, her present manager, and the first of a new type of business
man to enter the picture field. Manton was essentially a promoter. His predecessors had
been men carried to success by the growth of the new art. Old Pop Belman, for instance,
had been a fifth-rate oculist who rented and sold stereopticons as a side line. With blind
luck he had grasped the possibilities of Edison's new invention. Just before the break-up
of General Film he had become many times a millionaire and it was then that he had sent
a wave of laughter over the entire country by an actual cable to William Shakespeare,
address London, asking for all screen rights to the plays written by that gentleman.
Manton represented a secondary phase in film finance. Continent Films, his first
corporation, was a stockjobbing concern. Grasping the immense popularity of Stella
Lamar, he had coaxed her away from the old studio out in Flatbush where all her early
successes had been photographed. With the magic of her name he sold thousands of
shares of stock to a public already fed up on the stories of the fortunes to be made in

moving pictures. When much of the money so raised had been dissipated, when
Continent's quotation on the curb sank to an infinitesimal fraction, then it developed that
Stella's contract was with Manton personally. Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was formed
to exploit her. The stock of this company was not offered to outside investors.
Stella's popularity had in no way suffered from the business methods of her manager.
Manton, at the least, had displayed rare foresight in his estimation of public taste. Except
for a few attempts with established stage favorites, photographed generally in screen
versions of theatrical classics and backed by affiliations with the producers of the
legitimate stage, Continent Films was the first concern to make the five-reel feature.
Stella, as a Continent player, was the very first feature star. Under the banner of Manton
Pictures, she had never surrendered her position of pre-eminence.
Also, scandal somehow had failed to touch her. Those initiated to the inner gossip of the
film world, like myself, were under no illusions. The relations between Stella and Manton
were an open secret. Yet the picture fans, in their blind worship, believed her to be as
they saw her upon the screen. To them the wide and wistful innocence of her remarkably
large eyes could not be anything but genuine. The artlessness of the soft curves of her
mouth was proof to them of the reality of an ingenuous and very girlish personality.
Even her divorce had helped rather than harmed her. It seemed irony to me that she
should have obtained the decree instead of her husband, and in New York, too, where the
only grounds are unfaithfulness. The testimony in the case had been sealed so that no one
knew whom she had named as corespondent. At the time, I wondered what pressure had
been exerted upon Millard to prevent the filing of a cross suit. Surely he should have
been able to substantiate the rumors of her association with Lloyd Manton.
Lawrence Millard, author and playwright and finally scenario writer, had been as