Books: Merton of the Movies

H >> Harry Leon Wilson >> Merton of the Movies

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"Out there in the big open spaces?" suggested Merton, who had
listened attentively.

"Exactly," assented Baird, with one of those nervous spasms that
would now and again twitch his lips and chin. "Out there in the big
open spaces where men are men--that's the idea. And you build up a
little gray home in the West for yourself and your poor old mother
who never lost faith in you. There'll be a lot of good Western stuff
in this--Buck Benson stuff, you know, that you can do so well--and
the girl will get out there some way and tell you that her brother
finally confessed his crime, and everything'll be Jake, see what I
mean?"

"Yes, sir; it sounds fine, Mr. Baird. And I certainly will give the
best that is in me to this part." He had an impulse to tell the
manager, too, how gratified he was that one who had been content
with the low humour of the Buckeye comedies should at last have been
won over to the better form of photodrama. But Baird was leading him
on to the set; there was no time for this congratulatory episode.

Indeed the impulse was swept from his mind in the novelty of the set
now exposed, and in the thought that his personality was to dominate
it. The scene of the little drama's unfolding was a delicatessen
shop. Counters and shelves were arrayed with cooked foods, salads,
cheeses, the latter under glass or wire protectors. At the back was
a cashier's desk, an open safe beside it. He took his place there at
Baird's direction and began to write in a ledger.

"Now your old mother's coming to mop up the place," called Baird.
"Come on, Mother! You look up and see her, and rush over to her. She
puts down her bucket and mop, and takes you in her arms. She's
weeping; you try to comfort her; you want her to give up mopping,
and tell her you can make enough to support two, but she won't
listen because there's the mortgage on the little flat to be paid
off. So you go back to the desk, stopping to give her a sad look as
she gets down on the floor. Now, try it."

A very old, bent, feeble woman with a pail of water and cloths
tottered on. Her dress was ragged, her white hair hung about her sad
old face in disorderly strands. She set down her bucket and raised
her torn apron to her eyes.

"Look up and see her," called Baird. "A glad light comes into her
eyes. Rush forward--say 'Mother' distinctly, so it'll show. Now the
clench. You're crying on his shoulder, Mother, and he's looking down
at you first, then off, about at me. He's near crying himself. Now
he's telling you to give up mopping places, and you're telling him
every little helps.

"All right, break. Get to mopping, Mother, but keep on crying. He
stops for a long look at you. He seems to be saying that some day he
will take you out of such work. Now he's back at his desk. All
right. But we'll do it once more. And a little more pathos, Merton,
when you take the old lady in your arms. You can broaden it. You
don't actually break down, but you nearly do."

The scene was rehearsed again, to Baird's satisfaction, and the
cameras ground. Merton Gill gave the best that was in him. His glad
look at first beholding the old lady, the yearning of his eyes when
his arms opened to enfold her, the tenderness of his embrace as he
murmured soothing words, the lingering touch of his hand as he left
her, the manly determination of the last look in which he showed a
fresh resolve to release her from this toil, all were eloquent of
the deepest filial devotion and earnestness of purpose.

Back at his desk he was genuinely pitying the old lady. Very lately,
it was evident, she had been compelled to play in a cabaret scene,
for she smelled strongly of cigarettes, and he could not suppose
that she, her eyes brimming with anguished mother love, could have
relished these. He was glad when it presently developed that his own
was not to be a smoking part.

"Now the dissipated brother's coming on," explained Baird. "He'll
breeze in, hang up his hat, offer you a cigarette, which you refuse,
and show you some money that he won on the third race yesterday. You
follow him a little way from the desk, telling him he shouldn't
smoke cigarettes, and that money he gets by gambling will never do
him any good. He laughs at you, but you don't mind. On your way back
to the desk you stop by your mother, and she gets up and embraces
you again.

"Take your time about it--she's your mother, remember."

The brother entered. He was indeed dissipated appearing, loudly
dressed, and already smoking a cigarette as he swaggered the length
of the shop to offer Merton one. Merton refused in a kindly but firm
manner. The flashy brother now pulled a roll of bills from his
pocket and pointed to his winning horse in a racing extra. The line
in large type was there for the close-up--"Pianola Romps Home in
Third Race."

Followed the scene in which Merton sought to show this youth that
cigarettes and gambling would harm him. The youth remained obdurate.
He seized a duster and, with ribald action, began to dust off the
rows of cooked food on the counters. Again the son stopped to
embrace his mother, who again wept as she enfolded him. The scene
was shot.

Step by step, under the patient coaching of Baird, the simple drama
unfolded. It was hot beneath the lights, delays were frequent and
the rehearsals tedious, yet Merton Gill continued to give the best
that was in him. As the day wore on, the dissipated son went from
bad to worse. He would leave the shop to place money on a horse
race, and he would seek to induce the customers he waited on to play
at dice with him. A few of them consented, and one, a coloured man
who had come to purchase pigs'-feet, won at this game all the bills
which the youth had shown to Merton on entering.

There were moments during this scene when Merton wondered if Baird
were not relapsing into Buckeye comedy depths, but he saw the
inevitable trend of the drama and the justification for this bit of
gambling. For the son, now penniless, became desperate. He appealed
to Merton for a loan, urging it on the ground that he had a sure
thing thirty--to-one shot at Latonia. At least these were the words
of Baird, as he directed Merton to deny the request and to again try
to save the youth from his inevitable downfall. Whereupon the youth
had sneered at Merton and left the place in deep anger.

There followed the scene with the boy's sister, only daughter of the
rich delicatessen merchant, who Merton was pleased to discover would
be played by the Montague girl. She entered in a splendid evening
gown, almost too splendid, Merton thought, for street wear in
daylight, though it was partially concealed by a rich opera cloak.
The brother being out, Merton came forward to wait upon her.

"It's like this," Baird explained. "She's just a simple New York
society girl, kind of shallow and heartless, because she has never
been aroused nor anything, see? You're the first one that's really
touched her heart, but she hesitates because her father expects her
to marry a count and she's come to get the food for a swell banquet
they're giving for him. She says where's her brother, and if
anything happened to him it would break her heart. Then she orders
what she wants and you do it up for her, looking at her all the time
as if you thought she was the one girl in the world.

"She kind of falls for you a little bit, still she is afraid of what
her father would say. Then you get bolder, see? You come from behind
the counter and begin to make love, talking as you come out--so-and-
so, so-and-so, so-and-so--Miss Hoffmeyer, I have loved you since the
day I first set eyes on you--so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, I have
nothing to offer but the love of an honest man--she's falling for
it, see? So you get up close and grab her--cave-man stuff. Do a good
hard clench--she's yours at last; she just naturally sags right down
on to you. You've got her.

"Do a regular Parmalee. Take your time. You're going to kiss her and
kiss her right. But just as you get down to it the father busts in
and says what's the meaning of this, so you fly apart and the father
says you're discharged, because his daughter is the affianced wife
of this Count Aspirin, see? Then he goes back to the safe and finds
all the money has been taken, because the son has sneaked in and
grabbed out the bundle and hid it in the ice-box on his way out,
taking only a few bills to get down on a horse. So he says call the
police--but that's enough for now. Go ahead and do that love scene
for me."

Slowly the scene was brought to Baird's liking. Slowly, because
Merton Gill at first proved to be diffident at the crisis. For three
rehearsals the muscular arm of Miss Montague had most of the
clenching to do. He believed he was being rough and masterful, but
Baird wished a greater show of violence. They had also to time this
scene with the surreptitious entrance of the brother, his theft of
the money which he stuffed into a paper sack and placed in the ice-
box, and his exit.

The leading man having at last proved that he could be Harold
Parmalee even in this crisis, the scene was extended to the entrance
of the indignant father. He was one of those self-made men of
wealth, Merton thought, a short, stout gentleman with fiery
whiskers, not at all fashionably dressed. He broke upon the embrace
with a threatening stick. The pair separated, the young lover facing
him, proud, erect, defiant, the girl drooping and confused.

The father discharged Merton Gill with great brutality, then went to
the safe at the back of the room, returning to shout the news that
he had been robbed by the man who would have robbed him of his
daughter. It looked black for Merton. Puzzled at first, he now saw
that the idolized brother of the girl must have taken the money. He
seemed about to declare this when his nobler nature compelled him to
a silence that must be taken for guilt.

The erring brother returned, accompanied by several customers.
"Bring a detective to arrest this man," ordered the father. One of
the customers stepped out to return with a detective. Again Merton
was slightly disquieted at perceiving that the detective was the
cross-eyed man. This person bustled about the place, tapping the
cooked meats and the cheeses, and at last placed his hand upon the
shoulder of the supposed thief. Merton, at Baird's direction, drew
back and threatened him with a blow. The detective cringed and said:
"I will go out and call a policeman."

The others now turned their backs upon the guilty man. Even the girl
drew away after one long, agonized look at the lover to whose
embrace she had so lately submitted. He raised his arms to her in
mute appeal as she moved away, then dropped them at his side.

"Give her all you got in a look," directed Baird. "You're saying: 'I
go to a felon's cell, but I do it all for you.' Dream your eyes at
her." Merton Gill obeyed.

The action progressed. In this wait for the policeman the old mother
crept forward. She explained to Merton that the money was in the
ice-box where the real thief had placed it, and since he had taken
the crime of another upon his shoulders he should also take the
evidence, lest the unfortunate young man be later convicted by that;
she also urged him to fly by the rear door while there was yet time.
He did these things, pausing for a last embrace of the weeping old
lady, even as the hand of the arriving policeman was upon the door.

"All for to-day, except some close-ups," announced Baird when this
scene had been shot. There was a breaking up of the group, a
relaxation of that dramatic tension which the heart-values of the
piece had imposed. Only once, while Merton was doing some of his
best acting, had there been a kind of wheezy tittering from certain
members of the cast and the group about the cameras.

Baird had quickly suppressed this. "If there's any kidding in this
piece it's all in my part," he announced in cold, clear tones, and
there had been no further signs of levity. Merton was pleased by
this manner of Baird's. It showed that he was finely in earnest in
the effort for the worth-while things. And Baird now congratulated
him, seconded by the Montague girl. He had, they told him, been all
that could be expected.

"I wasn't sure of myself," he told them, "in one scene, and I wanted
to ask you about it, Mr. Baird. It's where I take that money from
the ice-box and go out with it. I couldn't make myself feel right.
Wouldn't it look to other people as if I was actually stealing it
myself? Why couldn't I put it back in the safe?"

Baird listened respectfully, considering. "I think not," he
announced at length. "You'd hardly have time for that, and you have
a better plan. It'll be brought out in the subtitles, of course. You
are going to leave it at the residence of Mr. Hoffmeyer, where it
will be safe. You see, if you put it back where it was, his son
might steal it again. We thought that out very carefully."

"I see," said Merton. "I wish I had been told that. I feel that I
could have done that bit a lot better. I felt kind of guilty."

"You did it perfectly," Baird assured him.

"Kid, you're a wonder," declared the Montague girl. "I'm that
tickled with you I could give you a good hug," and with that curious
approach to hysteria she had shown while looking at his stills, she
for a moment frantically clasped him to her. He was somewhat
embarrassed by this excess, but pardoned it in the reflection that
he had indeed given the best that was in him. "Bring all your
Western stuff to the dressing room tomorrow," said Baird.

Western stuff--the real thing at last! He was slightly amazed later
to observe the old mother outside the set. She was not only smoking
a cigarette with every sign of relish, but she was singing as she
did a little dance step. Still she had been under a strain all day,
weeping, too, almost continuously. He remembered this, and did not
judge her harshly as she smoked, danced, and lightly sang,

Her mother's name was Cleo, Her father's name was Pat; They called
her Cleopatra, And let it go at that.

CHAPTER XIV

OUT THERE WHERE MEN ARE MEN

From the dressing room the following morning, arrayed in the Buck
Benson outfit, unworn since that eventful day on the Gashwiler lot,
Merton accompanied Baird to a new set where he would work that day.
Baird was profuse in his admiration of the cowboy embellishments,
the maroon chaps, the new boots, the hat, the checked shirt and gay
neckerchief.

"I'm mighty glad to see you so sincere in your work," he assured
Merton. "A lot of these hams I hire get to kidding on the set and
spoil the atmosphere, but don't let it bother you. One earnest
leading man, if he'll just stay earnest, will carry the piece.
Remember that--you got a serious part."

"I'll certainly remember," Merton earnestly assured him.

"Here we are; this is where we begin the Western stuff," said Baird.
Merton recognized the place. It was the High Gear Dance Hall where
the Montague girl had worked. The name over the door was now "The
Come All Ye," and there was a hitching rack in front to which were
tethered half-a--dozen saddled horses.

Inside, the scene was set as he remembered it. Tables for drinking
were about the floor, and there was a roulette wheel at one side. A
red-shirted bartender, his hair plastered low over his brow, leaned
negligently on the bar. Scattered around the room were dance-hall
girls in short skirts, and a number of cowboys.

"First, I'll wise you up a little bit," said Baird. "You've come out
here to work on a ranche in the great open spaces, and these cowboys
all love you and come to town with you every time, and they'll stand
by you when the detective from New York gets here. Now--let's see--I
guess first we'll get your entrance. You come in the front door at
the head of them. You've ridden in from the ranche. We get the
horseback stuff later. You all come in yelling and so on, and the
boys scatter, some to the bar and some to the wheel, and some sit
down to the tables to have their drinks and some dance with the
girls. You distribute money to them from a paper sack. Here's the
sack." From a waiting property boy he took a paper sack. "Put this
in your pocket and take it out whenever you need money.

"It's the same sack, see, that the kid put the stolen money in, and
you saved it after returning the money. It's just a kind of an idea
of mine," he vaguely added, as Merton looked puzzled at this.

"All right, sir." He took the sack, observing it to contain a rude
imitation of bills, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Then, after the boys scatter around, you go stand at the end of the
bar. You don't join in their sports and pastimes, see? You're
serious; you have things on your mind. Just sort of look around the
place as if you were holding yourself above such things, even if you
do like to give the boys a good time. Now we'll try the entrance."

Cameras were put into place, and Merton Gill led through the front
door his band of rollicking good fellows. He paused inside to give
them bills from the paper sack. They scattered to their
dissipations. Their leader austerely posed at one end of the bar and
regarded the scene with disapproving eyes. Wine, women, and the
dance were not for him. He produced again the disillusioned look
that had won Henshaw.

"Fine," said Baird. "Gun it, boys."

The scene was shot, and Baird spoke again: "Hold it, everybody; go
on with your music, and you boys keep up the dance until Mother's
entrance, then you quit and back off."

Merton was puzzled by this speech, but continued his superior look,
breaking it with a very genuine shock of surprise when his old
mother tottered in at the front door. She was still the disconsolate
creature of the day before, bedraggled, sad-eyed, feeble, very aged,
and still she carried her bucket and the bundle of rags with which
she had mopped. Baird came forward again.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Of course you had your old mother follow
you out here to the great open spaces, but the poor old thing has
cracked under the strain of her hard life, see what I mean? All her
dear ones have been leaving the old nest and going out over the
hills one by one-you were the last to go-and now she isn't quite
right, see?

"You have a good home on the ranche for her, but she won't stay put.
She follows you around, and the only thing that keeps her quiet is
mopping, so you humour her; you let her mop. It's the only way. But
of course it makes you sad. You look at her now, then go up and hug
her the way you did yesterday; you try to get her to give up
mopping, but she won't, so you let her go on. Try it."

Merton went forward to embrace his old mother. Here was tragedy
indeed, a bit of biting pathos from a humble life. He gave the best
that was in him as he enfolded the feeble old woman and strained her
to his breast, murmuring to her that she must give it up-give it up.

The old lady wept, but was stubborn. She tore herself from his arms
and knelt on the floor. "I just got to mop, I just got to mop," she
was repeating in a cracked voice. "If I ain't let to mop I git rough
till I'm simply a scandal."

It was an affecting scene, marred only by one explosive bit of
coarse laughter from an observing cowboy at the close of the old
mother's speech. Merton Gill glanced up in sharp annoyance at this
offender. Baird was quick in rebuke.

"The next guy that laughs at this pathos can get off the set," he
announced, glaring at the assemblage. There was no further outbreak
and the scene was filmed.

There followed a dramatic bit that again involved the demented
mother. "This ought to be good if you can do it the right way,"
began Baird. "Mother's mopping along there and slashes some water on
this Mexican's boot-where are you, Pedro? Come here and get this.
The old lady sloshes water on you while you're playing monte here,
so you yell Carramba or something, and kick at her. You don't land
on her, of course, but her son rushes up and grabs your arm--here,
do it this way." Baird demonstrated. "Grab his wrist with one hand
and his elbow with the other and make as if you broke his arm across
your knee-you know, like you were doing joojitsey. He slinks off
with his broken arm, and you just dust your hands off and embrace
your mother again.

"Then you go back to the bar, not looking at Pedro at all. See? He's
insulted your mother, and you've resented it in a nice, dignified,
gentlemanly way. Try it."

Pedro sat at the table and picked up his cards. He was a foul-
looking Mexican and seemed capable even of the enormity he was about
to commit. The scene was rehearsed to Baird's satisfaction, then
shot. The weeping old lady, blinded by her tears, awkward with her
mop, the brutal Mexican, his prompt punishment.

The old lady was especially pathetic as she glared at her insulter
from where she lay sprawled on the floor, and muttered, "Carramba,
huh? I dare you to come outside and say that to me!"

"Good work," applauded Baird when the scene was finished. "Now we're
getting into the swing of it. In about three days here we'll have
something that exhibitors can clean up on, see if we don't."

The three days passed in what for Merton Gill was a whirlwind of
dramatic intensity. If at times he was vaguely disquieted by a
suspicion that the piece was not wholly serious, he had only to
remember the intense seriousness of his own part and the always
serious manner of Baird in directing his actors. And indeed there
were but few moments when he was even faintly pricked by this
suspicion. It seemed a bit incongruous that Hoffmeyer, the
delicatessen merchant, should arrive on a bicycle, dressed in cowboy
attire save for a badly dented derby hat, and carrying a bag of golf
clubs; and it was a little puzzling how Hoffmeyer should have been
ruined by his son's mad act, when it would have been shown that the
money was returned to him. But Baird explained carefully that the
old man had been ruined some other way, and was demented, like the
poor old mother who had gone over the hills after her children had
left the home nest. And assuredly in Merton's own action he found
nothing that was not deeply earnest as well as strikingly dramatic.
There was the tense moment when a faithful cowboy broke upon the
festivities with word that a New York detective was coming to search
for the man who had robbed the Hoffmeyer establishment. His friends
gathered loyally about Merton and swore he would never be taken from
them alive. He was induced to don a false mustache until the
detective had gone. It was a long, heavy black mustache with curling
tips, and in this disguise he stood aloof from his companions when
the detective entered.

The detective was the cross-eyed man, himself now disguised as
Sherlock Holmes, with a fore-and-aft cloth cap and drooping blond
mustache. He smoked a pipe as he examined those present. Merton was
unable to overlook this scene, as he had been directed to stand with
his back to the detective. Later it was shown that he observed in a
mirror the Mexican whom he had punished creeping forward to inform
the detective of his man's whereabouts. The coward's treachery cost
him dearly. The hero, still with his back turned, drew his revolver
and took careful aim by means of the mirror.

This had been a spot where for a moment he was troubled. Instead of
pointing the weapon over his shoulder, aiming by the mirror, he was
directed to point it at the Mexican's reflection in the glass, and
to fire at this reflection. "It's all right," Baird assured him.
"It's a camera trick, see? It may look now as if you were shooting
into the mirror but it comes perfectly right on the film. You'll
see. Go on, aim carefully, right smack at that looking-glass--fire!"
Still somewhat doubting, Merton fired. The mirror was shattered, but
a dozen feet back of him the treacherous Mexican threw up his arms
and fell lifeless, a bullet through his cowardly heart. It was a
puzzling bit of trick-work, he thought, but Baird of course would
know what was right, so the puzzle was dismissed. Buck Benson,
silent man of the open, had got the scoundrel who would have played
him false.

A thrilling struggle ensued between Merton and the hellhound of
justice. Perceiving who had slain his would-be informant, the
detective came to confront Merton. Snatching off his cap and
mustache he stood revealed as the man who had not dared to arrest
him at the scene of his crime. With another swift movement he
snatched away the mustache that had disguised his quarry. Buck
Benson, at bay, sprang like a tiger upon his antagonist. They
struggled while the excited cowboys surged about them. The detective
proved to be no match for Benson. He was borne to earth, then raised
aloft and hurled over the adjacent tables.

This bit of acting had involved a trick which was not obscure to
Merton like his shot into the mirror that brought down a man back of
him. Moreover, it was a trick of which he approved. When he bore the
detective to earth the cameras halted their grinding while a dummy
in the striking likeness of the detective was substituted. It was a
light affair, and he easily raised it for the final toss of triumph.

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