Books: Merton of the Movies
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Harry Leon Wilson >> Merton of the Movies
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Baird had listened with mild interest to the recital, occasionally
seeming not to listen while he altered the script before him. But he
took the telephone receiver from its hook and said briefly to the
girl: "You win. Hello! Give me the Victor office. Hello! Mr. Baird
speaking--"
The two were presently in the dark projection room watching the
scenes the girl had told of.
"They haven't started cutting yet," she said delightedly. "All his
close-ups will be in. Goody! There's the lad-get him? Ain't he the
actin'est thing you ever saw? Now wait-you'll see others."
Baird watched the film absorbedly. Three times it was run for the
sole purpose of exposing to this small audience Merton Gill's notion
of being consumed with ennui among pleasures that had palled. In the
gambling-hall bit it could be observed that he thought not too well
of cigarettes. "He screens well, too," remarked the girl. "Of course
I couldn't be sure of that."
"He screens all right," agreed Baird.
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think he looks like the first plume on a hearse."
"He looks all of that, but try again. Who does he remind you of?
Catch this next one in the gambling hell--get the profile and the
eyebrows and the chin--there!"
"Why--" Baird chuckled. "I'm a Swede if he don't look like--"
"You got it!" the girl broke in excitedly. "I knew you would. I
didn't at first, this morning, because he was so hungry and needed a
shave, and he darned near had me bawling when he couldn't hold his
cup o' coffee except with two hands. But what d'you think?--pretty
soon he tells me himself that he looks a great deal like Harold
Parmalee and wouldn't mind playing parts like Parmalee, though he
prefers Western stuff. Wouldn't that get you?"
The film was run again so that Baird could study the Gill face in
the light of this new knowledge.
"He does, he does, he certainly does--if he don't look like a No. 9
company of Parmalee I'll eat that film. Say, Flips, you did find
something."
"Oh, I knew it; didn't I tell you so?"
"But, listen--does he know he's funny?"
"Not in a thousand years! He doesn't know anything's funny, near as
I can make him."
They were out in the light again, walking slowly back to the Buckeye
offices.
"Get this," said Baird seriously. "You may think I'm kidding, but
only yesterday I was trying to think if I couldn't dig up some guy
that looked more like Parmalee than Parmalee himself does--just
enough more to get the laugh, see? And you spring this lad on me.
All he needs is the eyebrows worked up a little bit. But how about
him--will he handle? Because if he will I'll use him in the new
five-reeler."
"Will he handle?" Miss Montague echoed the words with deep emphasis.
"Leave him to me. He's got to handle. I already got twenty-five
bucks invested in his screen career. And, Jeff, he'll be easy to
work, except he don't know he's funny. If he found out he was, it
might queer him--see what I mean? He's one of that kind--you can
tell it. How will you use him? He could never do Buckeye stuff."
"Sure not. But ain't I told you? In this new piece Jack is stage
struck and gets a job as valet to a ham that's just about Parmalee's
type, and we show Parmalee acting in the screen, but all straight
stuff, you understand. Unless he's a wise guy he'll go all through
the piece and never get on that it's funny. See, his part's dead
straight and serious in a regular drama, and the less he thinks he's
funny the bigger scream he'll be. He's got to be Harold Parmalee
acting right out, all over the set, as serious as the lumbago--get
what I mean?"
"I got you," said the girl, "and you'll get him to-morrow morning. I
told him to be over with his stills. And he'll be serious all the
time, make no mistake there. He's no wise guy. And one thing, Jeff,
he's as innocent as a cup--custard, so you'll have to keep that
bunch of Buckeye roughnecks from riding him. I can tell you that
much. Once they started kidding him, it would be all off."
"And, besides--" She hesitated briefly. "Somehow I don't want him
kidded. I'm pretty hard-boiled, but he sort of made me feel like a
fifty-year-old mother watching her only boy go out into the rough
world. See?"
"I'll watch out for that," said Baird.
CHAPTER XII
ALIAS HAROLD PARMALEE
Merton Gill awoke to the comforting realization that he was between
sheets instead of blankets, and that this morning he need not
obscurely leave his room by means of a window. As he dressed,
however, certain misgivings, to which he had been immune the day
before, gnawed into his optimism. He was sober now. The sheer
intoxication of food after fasting, of friendly concern after so
long a period when no one had spoken him kindly or otherwise, had
evaporated. He felt the depression following success.
He had been rescued from death by starvation, but had anything more
than this come about? Had he not fed upon the charity of a strange
girl, taking her money without seeing ways to discharge the debt?
How could he ever discharge it? Probably before this she had begun
to think of him as a cheat. She had asked him to come to the lot,
but had been vague as to the purpose. Probably his ordeal of
struggle and sacrifice was not yet over. At any rate, he must find a
job that would let him pay back the borrowed twenty-five dollars.
He would meet her as she had requested, assure her of his honest
intentions, and then seek for work. He would try all the emporiums
in Hollywood. They were numerous and some one of them would need the
services of an experienced assistant. This plan of endeavour
crystallized as he made his way to the Holden lot. He had brought
his package of stills, but only because the girl had insisted on
seeing them.
The Countess made nothing of letting him in. She had missed him, she
said, for what seemed like months, and was glad to hear that he now
had something definite in view, because the picture game was mighty
uncertain and it was only the lucky few nowadays that could see
something definite. He did not confide to her that the definite
something now within his view would demand his presence at some
distance from her friendly self.
He approached the entrance to Stage Five with head bent in
calculation, and not until he heard her voice did he glance up to
observe that the Montague girl was dancing from pleasure, it would
seem, at merely beholding him. She seized both his hands in her
strong grasp and revolved him at the centre of a circle she danced.
Then she held him off while her eyes took in the details of his
restoration.
"Well, well, well! That shows what a few ham and eggs and sleep will
do. Kid, you gross a million at this minute. New suit, new shoes,
snappy cravat right from the Men's Quality Shop, and all shaved and
combed slick and everything! Say--and I was afraid maybe you
wouldn't show."
He regarded her earnestly. "Oh, I would have come back, all right;
I'd never forget that twenty-five dollars I owe you; and you'll get
it all back, only it may take a little time. I thought I'd see you
for a minute, then go out and find a job--you know, a regular job in
a store."
"Nothing of the sort, old Trouper!" She danced again about him, both
his hands in hers, which annoyed him because it was rather loud
public behaviour, though he forgave her in the light of youth and
kindliness. "No regular job for you, old Pippin--nothing but acting
all over the place--real acting that people come miles to see."
"Do you think I can really get a part?" Perhaps the creature had
something definite in view for him.
"Sure you can get a part! Yesterday morning I simply walked into a
part for you. Come along over to the office with me. Goody--I see
you brought the stills. I'll take a peek at 'em myself before Baird
gets here." "Baird? Not the Buckeye comedy man?" He was chilled by a
sudden fear.
"Yes, Jeff Baird. You see he is going to do some five--reelers and
this first one has a part that might do for you. At least, I told
him some things about you, and he thinks you can get away with it."
He went moodily at her side, thinking swift thoughts. It seemed
ungracious to tell her of his loathing for the Buckeye comedies,
those blasphemous caricatures of worth-while screen art. It would
not be fair. And perhaps here was a quick way to discharge his debt
and be free of obligation to the girl. Of course he would always
feel a warm gratitude for her trusting kindness, but when he no
longer owed her money he could choose his own line of work. Rather
bondage to some Hollywood Gashwiler than clowning in Baird's
infamies!
"Well, I'll try anything he gives me," he said at last, striving for
the enthusiasm he could not feel.
"You'll go big, too," said the girl. "Believe, me Kid, you'll go
grand."
In Baird's offices he sat at the desk and excitedly undid the
package of stills. "We'll give 'em the once-over before he comes,"
she said, and was presently exclaiming with delight at the art study
of Clifford Armytage in evening dress, two straight fingers pressing
the left temple, the face in three-quarter view.
"Well, now, if that ain't Harold Parmalee to the life! If it wasn't
for that Clifford Armytage signed under it, you'd had me guessing. I
knew yesterday you looked like him, but I didn't dream it would be
as much like him as this picture is. Say, we won't show Baird this
at first. We'll let him size you up and see if your face don't
remind him of Parmalee right away. Then we'll show him this and
it'll be a cinch. And my, look at these others--here you're a
soldier, and here you're a-a-a polo player--that is polo, ain't it,
or is it tennis? And will you look at these stunning Westerns! These
are simply the best of all--on horseback, and throwing a rope, and
the fighting face with the gun drawn, and rolling a cigarette--and,
as I live, saying good-by to the horse. Wouldn't that get you--Buck
Benson to the life!"
Again and again she shuffled over the stills, dwelling on each with
excited admiration. Her excitement was pronounced. It seemed to be a
sort of nervous excitement. It had caused her face to flush deeply,
and her manner, especially over the Western pictures, at moments
oddly approached hysteria. Merton was deeply gratified. He had
expected the art studies to produce no such impression as this. The
Countess in the casting office had certainly manifested nothing like
hysteria at beholding them. It must be that the Montague girl was a
better judge of art studies.
"I always liked this one, after the Westerns," he observed,
indicating the Harold Parmalee pose.
"It's stunning," agreed the girl, still with her nervous manner. "I
tell you, sit over there in Jeff's chair and take the same pose, so
I can compare you with the photo."
Merton obliged. He leaned an elbow on the chair-arm and a temple on
the two straightened fingers. "Is the light right?" he asked, as he
turned his face to the pictured angle.
"Fine," applauded the girl. "Hold it." He held it until shocked by
shrill laughter from the observer. Peal followed peal. She had
seemed oddly threatened with hysteria; perhaps now it had come. She
rocked on her heels and held her hands to her sides. Merton arose in
some alarm, and was reassured when the victim betrayed signs of
mastering her infirmity. She wiped her eyes presently and explained
her outbreak.
"You looked so much like Parmalee I just couldn't help thinking how
funny it was--it just seemed to go over me like anything, like a
spasm or something, when I got to thinking what Parmalee would say
if he saw someone looking so much like him. See? That was why I
laughed."
He was sympathetic and delighted in equal parts. The girl had really
seemed to suffer from her paroxysm, yet it was a splendid tribute to
his screen worth.
It was at this moment that Baird entered. He tossed his hat on a
chair and turned to the couple.
"Mr. Baird, shake hands with my friend Merton Gill. His stage name
is Clifford Armytage."
"Very pleased to meet you," said Merton, grasping the extended hand.
He hoped he had not been too dignified, too condescending. Baird
would sometime doubtless know that he did not approve of those so-
called comedies, but for the present he must demean himself to pay
back some money borrowed from a working girl.
"Delighted," said Baird; then he bent a suddenly troubled gaze upon
the Gill lineaments. He held this a long moment, breaking it only
with a sudden dramatic turning to Miss Montague.
"What's this, my child? You're playing tricks on the old man." Again
he incredulously scanned the face of Merton. "Who is this man?" he
demanded.
"I told you, he's Merton Gill from Gushwomp, Ohio," said the girl,
looking pleased and expectant.
"Simsbury, Illinois," put in Merton quickly, wishing the girl could
be better at remembering names.
Baird at last seemed to be convinced. He heavily smote an open palm
with a clenched fist. "Well, I'll be swoshed! I thought you must be
kidding. If I'd seen him out on the lot I'd 'a' said he was the twin
brother of Harold Parmalee."
"There!" exclaimed the girl triumphantly. "Didn't I say he'd see it
right quick? You can't keep a thing from this old bey. Now you just
came over here to this desk and look at this fine batch of stills he
had taken by a regular artist back in Cranberry."
"Ah!" exclaimed Baird unctuously, "I bet they're good. Show me." He
went to the desk. "Be seated, Mr. Gill, while I have a look at
these."
Merton Gill, under the eye of Baird which clung to him with
something close to fascination, sat down. He took the chair with
fine dignity, a certain masterly deliberation. He sat easily, and
seemed to await a verdict confidently foreknown. Baird's eyes did
not leave him for the stills until he had assumed a slightly Harold
Parmalee pose. Then his head with the girl's bent over the pictures,
he began to examine them.
Exclamations of delight came from the pair. Merton Gill listened
amiably. He was not greatly thrilled by an admiration which he had
long believed to be his due. Had he not always supposed that things
of precisely this sort would be said about those stills when at last
they came under the eyes of the right people?
Like the Montague girl, Baird was chiefly impressed with the
Westerns. He looked a long time at them, especially at the one where
Merton's face was emotionally averted from his old pal, Pinto, at
the moment of farewell. Regarding Baird, as he stood holding this
art study up to the light, Merton became aware for the first time
that Baird suffered from some nervous affliction, a peculiar
twitching of the lips, a trembling of the chin, which he had
sometimes observed in senile persons. All at once Baird seemed quite
overcome by this infirmity. He put a handkerchief to his face and
uttered a muffled excuse as he hastily left the room. Outside, the
noise of his heavy tread died swiftly away down the hall.
The Montague girl remained at the desk. There was a strange light in
her eyes and her face was still flushed. She shot a glance of
encouragement at Merton.
"Don't be nervous, old Kid; he likes 'em all right." He reassured
her lightly: "Oh, I'm not a bit nervous about him. It ain't as if he
was doing something worth while, instead of mere comedies."
The girl's colour seemed to heighten. "You be sure to tell him that;
talk right up to him. Be sure to say 'mere comedies.' It'll show him
you know what's what. And as a matter of fact, Kid, he's trying to
do something worth while, right this minute, something serious.
That's why he's so interested in you."
"Well, of course, that's different." He was glad to learn this of
Baird. He would take the man seriously if he tried to be serious, to
do something fine and distinctive.
Baird here returned, looking grave. The Montague girl seemed more
strangely intense. She beckoned the manager to her side.
"Now, here, Jeff, here was something I just naturally had to laugh
at."
Baird had not wholly conquered those facial spasms, but he
controlled himself to say, "Show me!"
"Now, Merton," directed the girl, "take that same pose again, like
you did for me, the way you are in this picture."
As Merton adjusted himself to the Parmalee pose she handed the
picture to Baird. "Now, Jeff, I ask you--ain't that Harold to the
life--ain't it so near him that you just have to laugh your head
off?"
It was even so. Baird and the girl both laughed convulsively, the
former with rumbling chuckles that shook his frame. When he had
again composed himself he said, "Well, Mr. Gill, I think you and I
can do a little business. I don't know what your idea about a
contract is, but--"
Merton Gill quickly interrupted. "Well, you see I'd hardly like to
sign a contract with you, not for those mere comedies you do. I'll
do anything to earn a little money right now so I can pay back this
young lady, but I wouldn't like to go on playing in such things,
with cross-eyed people and waiters on roller skates, and all that.
What I really would like to do is something fine and worth while,
but not clowning in mere Buckeye comedies."
Mr. Baird, who had devoted the best part of an active career to the
production of Buckeye comedies, and who regarded them as at least
one expression of the very highest art, did not even flinch at these
cool words. He had once been an actor himself. Taking the blow like
a man, he beamed upon his critic. "Exactly, my boy; don't you think
I'll ever ask you to come down to clowning. You might work with me
for years and I'd never ask you to do a thing that wasn't serious.
In fact, that's why I'm hoping to engage you now. I want to do a
serious picture, I want to get out of all that slap-stick stuff,
see? Something fine and worth while, like you say. And you're the
very actor I need in this new piece."
"Well, of course, in that case--" This was different; he made it
plain that in the case of a manager striving for higher things he
was not one to withhold a helping hand. He was beginning to feel a
great sympathy for Baird in his efforts for the worth while. He
thawed somewhat from the reserve that Buckeye comedies had put upon
him. He chatted amiably. Under promptings from the girl he spoke
freely of his career, both in Simsbury and in Hollywood. It was
twelve o'clock before they seemed willing to let him go, and from
time to time they would pause to gloat over the stills.
At last Baird said cheerily, "Well, my lad, I need you in my new
piece. How'll it be if I put you on my payroll, beginning to-day, at
forty a week? How about it, hey?"
"Well, I'd like that first rate, only I haven't worked any to-day;
you shouldn't pay me for just coming here."
The manager waved a hand airily. "That's all right, my boy; you've
earned a day's salary just coming here to cheer me up. These mere
comedies get me so down in the dumps sometimes. And besides, you're
not through yet. I'm going to use you some more. Listen, now--" The
manager had become coldly businesslike. "You go up to a little
theatre on Hollywood Boulevard--you can't miss it--where they're
running a Harold Parmalee picture. I saw it last night and I want
you to see it to-day, Better see it afternoon and evening both."
"Yes, sir," said Merton.
"And watch Parmalee. Study him in this picture. You look like him
already, but see if you can pick up some of his tricks, see what I
mean? Because it's a regular Parmalee part I'm going to have you do,
see? Kind of a society part to start with, and then we work in some
of your Western stuff at the finish. But get Parmalee as much as you
can. That's all now. Oh, yes, and can you leave these stills with
me? Our publicity man may want to use them later."
"All right, Mr. Baird, I'll do just what you say, and of course you
can keep the stills as long as I got an engagement with you, and I'm
very glad you're trying to do something really worth while."
"Thanks," said Baird, averting his face.
The girl followed him into the hall. "Great work, boy, and take it
from me, you'll go over. Say, honest now, I'm glad clear down into
my boots." She had both his hands again, and he could see that her
eyes were moist. She seemed to be an impressionable little thing,
hysterical one minute while looking at a bunch of good stills, and
sort of weepy the next. But he was beginning to like her, in spite
of her funny talk and free ways.
"And say," she called after him when he had reached the top of the
stairs, "you know you haven't had much experience yet with a bunch
of hard-boiled troupers; many a one will be jealous of you the
minute you begin to climb, and maybe they'll get fresh and try to
kid you, see? But don't you mind it--give it right back to them. Or
tell me if they get too raw. Just remember I got a mean right when I
swing free."
"All right, thank you," he replied, but his bewilderment was plain.
She stared a moment, danced up to him, and seized a hand in both of
hers. "What I mean son, if you feel bothered any time--by anything--
just come to me with it, see? I'm in this piece, and I'll look out
for you. Don't forget that." She dropped his hand, and was back in
the office while he mumbled his thanks for what he knew she had
meant as a kindness.
So she was to be in the Baird piece; she, too, would be trying to
give the public something better and finer. Still, he was puzzled at
her believing he might need to be looked out for. An actor drawing
forty dollars a week could surely look out for himself. He emerged
into the open of the Holden lot as one who had at last achieved
success after long and gruelling privation. He walked briefly among
the scenes of this privation, pausing in reminiscent mood before the
Crystal Palace Hotel and other outstanding spots where he had so
stoically suffered the torments of hunger and discouragement.
He remembered to be glad now that no letter of appeal had actually
gone to Gashwiler. Suppose he had built up in the old gentleman's
mind a false hope that he might again employ Merton Gill? A good
thing he had held out! Yesterday he was starving and penniless; to-
day he was fed and on someone's payroll for probably as much money a
week as Gashwiler netted from his entire business. From sheer force
of association, as he thus meditated, he found himself hungry, and a
few moments later he was selecting from the food counter of the
cafeteria whatever chanced to appeal to the eye--no weighing of
prices now.
Before he had finished his meal Henshaw and his so-called Governor
brought their trays to the adjoining table. Merton studied with new
interest the director who would some day be telling people that he
had been the first to observe the aptitude of this new star--had, in
fact, given him a lot of footage and close-ups and medium shots and
"dramatics" in The Blight of Broadway when he was a mere extra--
before he had made himself known to the public in Jeff Baird's first
worth-while piece.
He was strongly moved, now, to bring himself to Henshaw's notice
when he heard the latter say, "It's a regular Harold Parmalee part,
good light comedy, plenty of heart interest, and that corking fight
on the cliff."
He wanted to tell Henshaw that he himself was already engaged to do
a Harold Parmalee part, and had been told, not two hours ago, that
he would by most people be taken for Parmalee's twin brother. He
restrained this impulse, however, as Henshaw went on to talk of the
piece in hand.
It proved to be Robinson Crusoe, which he had already discussed. Or,
rather, not Robinson Crusoe any longer. Not even Robinson Crusoe,
Junior. It was to have been called Island Passion, he learned, but
this title had been amended to Island Love.
"They're getting fed up on that word 'passion,'" Henshaw was saying,
"and anyhow, 'love' seems to go better with 'island,' don't you
think, Governor? 'Desert Passion' was all right--there's something
strong and intense about a desert. But 'island' is different."
And it appeared that Island Love, though having begun as Robinson
Crusoe, would contain few of the outstanding features of that tale.
Instead of Crusoe's wrecked sailing-ship, there was a wrecked steam
yacht, a very expensive yacht stocked with all modern luxuries, nor
would there be a native Friday and his supposed sister with the
tattooed shoulder, but a wealthy young New Yorker and his valet who
would be good for comedy on a desert island, and a beautiful girl,
and a scoundrel who would in the last reel be thrown over the
cliffs.
Henshaw was vivacious about the effects he would get. "I've been
wondering, Governor," he continued, "if we're going to kill off the
heavy, whether we shouldn't plant it early that besides wanting this
girl who's on the island, he's the same scoundrel that wronged the
young sister of the lead that owns the yacht. See what I mean?-it
would give more conflict."
"But here--" The Governor frowned and spoke after a moment's pause.
"Your young New Yorker is rich, isn't he? Fine old family, and all
that, how could he have a sister that would get wronged? You
couldn't do it. If he's got a wronged sister, he'd have to be a
workingman or a sailor or something. And she couldn't be a New York
society girl; she'd have to be working some place, in a store or
office--don't you see? How could you have a swell young New Yorker
with a wronged sister? Real society girls never get wronged unless
their father loses his money, and then it's never anything serious
enough to kill a heavy for. No--that's out." "Wait, I have it."
Henshaw beamed with a new inspiration. "You just said a sailor could
have his sister wronged, so why not have one on the yacht, a good
strong type, you know, and his little sister was wronged by the
heavy, and he'd never known who it was, because the little girl
wouldn't tell him, even on her death-bed, but he found the chap's
photograph in her trunk, and on the yacht he sees that it was this
same heavy--and there you are. Revenge--see what I mean? He fights
with the heavy on the cliff, after showing him the little sister's
picture, and pushes him over to death on the rocks below--get it?
And the lead doesn't have to kill him. How about that?" Henshaw
regarded his companion with pleasant anticipation.
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