Don’t cry little sucker--don’t cry! If they put Ponzi in jail the movies
will get you bye and bye. You will always be taken care of--considerably
more “taken” than cared for.
An easily deceived world has been led to believe that the official birth
rate of the sucker clan is “one every minute”--but the man who made the
calculation must have had a slow-motion watch.
We know that we are babbling words of truth. For we have before us the
shining example--the word “shine” is appropriate--of a person who calls
himself “Director Brennan.” Almost as long as we can remember, this
self-christened “Director Brennan” has been fishing in the Shimmering
Sucker Sea with the movies as his bait. And the fishing must be good,
for he keeps at it, and keeps expanding.
Our first recollection of the fisherman calls to mind some very crude
bait. But it worked. For a fee of several seaworthy simoleons, simpering
suckers who thought they had ability that could successfully cope with a
camera were permitted to see their photographic likeness in a bulletin
which they were warmly assured met the eyes of all the leading producers
and casting directors. The open road to a screen career was to pay for
the insertion of your photograph in the bulletin--and pay again, and pay
some more. Directors had to have players, and logic is logic, sooner or
later some director was going to see your photo.
Only a month ago we came across one of these old bulletins in a dingy
East Side printing shop. Honest, cross our heart, we are neither
spoofing nor joshing--there were three hundred pound would-be ingenues
and Ben Turpin doubles who aspired to play handsome heroes. Bleating
boobs waited in hourly anticipation of a wire from David Griffith--“I
saw your photo in Brennan’s Bulletin and must have you to play the lead
in my next picture.”
In vaudeville parlance “Director Brennan” was working a “single” act
then. Coming down to the Fall of 1920 we find him “doubling in brass.”
If you are a silly sucker anxiously fearing that you may escape your
fate we are about to show you how easy it has been made for you.
Director Brennan is playing both ends against the middle--for your
convenience. And--“if you don’t find what you want ask for it.”
In the New York Evening Mail we renewed our acquaintance with Director
Brennan one night by reading the following ad: