Looking for Mabel Normand

a gift from William M. Drew

Film Facts and Reel Chatter

by Waddy

Los Angeles, February 28, 1913, pg II 14

The small boy, who lives in the neighbourhood of Central and Vernon avenues, has thrown his marbles and tops in the discard.  The little girls have also broken into a new game. 

The occasion for this revolution of child’s play was the invasion of the South Side by Mack Sennett and his Keystone Comedy Company.

Director Sennett is making a picture in which Ford Sterling stars in the role of a nickel-grafting streetcar conductor.  Arrangements were made with the Los Angeles Railway Company for the use of a car and the mile of track running from Central Avenue to the barns.

          It is seldom that a farce comedy is staged in the middle of a city street and realizing this, dutiful housewives neglected their “bungaloo” duties and spent the day on the sidewalk, enjoying performance.

          During the noon hour and after school, several hundred youngsters joined the crowd and it required the able services of two honest-to-goodness policemen and several cops of the photo=play brand, to keep the interested kids out of the picture.

          Some ingenious lads went home and returned with empty cigar boxes on tripods and several; directors-in-the-making, gathered together companies and began making pictures.

          Nick Cogley was a scream in himself but the combination of Sterling Cogley and “Spotter” Hatton was enough to make Melancholy Moses get the hiccoughs.

          Dot Furley, Evelyn Quick, Laura Oakley, Carmen Phillips and Helen Holmes were in the cast.  In the final scenes, which are to be taken today, Mable Normand, the Keystone leading woman will appear.

Nick Cogley

Ford Sterling

Raymond “Spotter” Hatton

Dot Furley

Evelyn Quick (Jewel Carmen)

Laura Oakley

Carmen Phillips

Helen Holmes

Mabel Normand