Books: Merton of the Movies

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

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He thanked her profusely for her courtesy of the day before. He had
seen wonderful things. He had learned a lot. And he wanted to ask
her something, assuring himself that he was alone in the waiting
room. It was this: did she happen to know--was Miss Beulah Baxter
married?

The little woman sighed in a tired manner. "Baxter married? Let me
see." She tapped her teeth with the end of a pencil, frowning into
her vast knowledge of the people beyond the gate. "Now, let me
think." But this appeared to be without result. "Oh, I really don't
know; I forget. I suppose so. Why not? She often is."

He would have asked more questions, but the telephone rang and she
listened a long time, contributing a "yes, yes," of understanding at
brief intervals. This talk ended, she briskly demanded a number and
began to talk in her turn. Merton Gill saw that for the time he had
passed from her life. She was calling an agency. She wanted people
for a diplomatic reception in Washington. She must have a Bulgarian
general, a Serbian diplomat, two French colonels, and a Belgian
captain, all in uniform and all good types. She didn't want just
anybody, but types that would stand out. Holden studios on Stage
Number Two. Before noon, if possible. All right, then. Another bell
rang, almost before she had hung up. "Hello, Grace. Nothing to-day,
dear. They're out on location, down toward Venice, getting some
desert stuff. Yes, I'll let you know."

Merton Gill had now to make way at the window for a youngish, weary-
looking woman who had once been prettier, who led an elaborately
dressed little girl of five. She lifted the child to the window.
"Say good-morning to the beautiful lady, Toots. Good-morning,
Countess. I'm sure you got something for Toots and me to-day because
it's our birthday--both born on the same day--what do you think of
that? Any little thing will help us out a lot--how about it?"

He went outside before the end of this colloquy, but presently saw
the woman and her child emerge and walk on disconsolately toward the
next studio. Thus began another period of waiting from which much of
the glamour had gone. It was not so easy now to be excited by those
glimpses of the street beyond the gate. A certain haze had vanished,
leaving all too apparent the circumstance that others were working
beyond the gate while Merton Gill loitered outside, his talent, his
training, ignored. His early air of careless confidence had changed
to one not at all careless or confident. He was looking rather
desperate and rather unbelieving. And it daily grew easier to count
his savings. He made no mistakes now. His hoard no longer enjoyed
the addition of fifteen dollars a week. Only subtractions were made.

There came a morning when but one bill remained. It was a ten-dollar
bill, bearing at its centre a steel-engraved portrait of Andrew
Jackson. He studied it in consternation, though still permitting
himself to notice that Jackson would have made a good motion-picture
type--the long, narrow, severe face, the stiff uncomprising mane of
gray hair; probably they would have cast him for a feuding
mountaineer, deadly with his rifle, or perhaps as an inventor whose
device was stolen on his death-bed by his wicked Wall Street
partner, thus leaving his motherless daughter at the mercy of
Society's wolves.

But this was not the part that Jackson played in the gripping drama
of Merton Gill. His face merely stared from the last money brought
from Simsbury, Illinois, and the stare was not reassuring. It seemed
to say that there was no other money in all the world. Decidedly
things must take a turn. Merton Gill had a quite definite feeling
that he had already struggled and sacrificed enough to give the
public something better and finer. It was time the public realized
this.

Still he waited, not even again reaching the heart of things, for
his friend beyond the window had suffered no relapse. He came to
resent a certain inconsequence in the woman. She might have had
those headaches oftener. He had been led to suppose that she would,
and now she continued to be weary but entirely well.

More waiting and the ten-dollar bill went for a five and some
silver. He was illogically not sorry to be rid of Andrew Jackson,
who had looked so tragically skeptical. The five-dollar bill was
much more cheerful. It bore the portrait of Benjamin Harrison, a
smooth, cheerful face adorned with whiskers that radiated success.
They were little short of smug with success. He would almost rather
have had Benjamin Harrison on five dollars than the grim-faced
Jackson on ten. Still, facts were facts. You couldn't wait as long
on five dollars as you could on ten.

Then on the afternoon of a day that promised to end as other days
had ended, a wave of animation swept through the waiting room and
the casting office. "Swell cabaret stuff" was the phrase that
brought the applicants to a lively swarm about the little window.
Evening clothes, glad wraps, cigarette cases, vanity-boxes--the
Victor people doing The Blight of Broadway with Muriel Mercer--Stage
Number Four at 8:30 to-morrow morning. There seemed no limit to the
people desired. Merton Gill joined the throng about the window.
Engagements were rapidly made, both through the window and over the
telephone that was now ringing those people who had so long been
told that there was nothing to-day. He did not push ahead of the
women as some of the other men did. He even stood out of the line
for the Montague girl who had suddenly appeared and who from the
rear had been exclaiming: "Women and children first!"

"Thanks, old dear," she acknowledged the courtesy and beamed through
the window. "Hullo, Countess!" The woman nodded briefly. "All right,
Flips; I was just going to telephone you. Henshaw wants you for some
baby-vamp stuff in the cabaret scene and in the gambling hell.
Better wear that salmon-pink chiffon and the yellow curls. Eight-
thirty, Stage Four. Goo'-by."

"Thanks, Countess! Me for the jumping tintypes at the hour named.
I'm glad enough to be doing even third business. How about Ma?"

"Sure! Tell her grand-dame stuff, chaperone or something, the gray
georgette and all her pearls and the cigarette case."

"I'll tell her. She'll be glad there's something doing once more on
the perpendicular stage. Goo'-by."

She stepped aside with "You're next, brother!" Merton Gill
acknowledged this with a haughty inclination of the head. He must
not encourage this hoyden. He glanced expectantly through the little
window. His friend held a telephone receiver at her ear. She smiled
wearily. "All right, son. You got evening clothes, haven't you? Of
course, I remember now. Stage Four at 8:30. Goo'-by."

" I want to thank you for this opportunity--" he began, but was
pushed aside by an athletic young woman who spoke from under a broad
hat. "Hullo, dearie! How about me and Ella?"

"Hullo, Maizie. All right. Stage Four, at 8:30, in your swellest
evening stuff."

At the door the Montague girl called to an approaching group who
seemed to have heard by wireless or occult means the report of new
activity in the casting office. "Hurry, you troupers. You can eat
to-morrow night, maybe!" They hurried. She turned to Merton Gill.
"Seems like old times," she observed.

"Does it?" he replied coldly. Would this chit never understand that
he disapproved of her trifling ways?

He went on, rejoicing that he had not been compelled to part, even
temporarily, with a first-class full-dress suit, hitherto worn only
in the privacy of Lowell Hardy's studio. It would have been awkward,
he thought, if the demand for it had been much longer delayed. He
would surely have let that go before sacrificing his Buck Benson
outfit. He had traversed the eucalyptus avenue in this ecstasy, and
was on a busier thoroughfare. Before a motion-picture theatre he
paused to study the billing of Muriel Mercer in Hearts Aflame. The
beauteous girl, in an alarming gown, was at the mercy of a fiend in
evening dress whose hellish purpose was all too plainly read in his
fevered eyes. The girl writhed in his grasp. Doubtless he was
demanding her hand in marriage. It was a tense bit. And to-morrow he
would act with this petted idol of the screen. And under the
direction of that Mr. Henshaw who seemed to take screen art with
proper seriousness. He wondered if by any chance Mr. Henshaw would
call upon him to do a quadruple transition, hate, fear, love,
despair. He practised a few transitions as he went on to press his
evening clothes in the Patterson kitchen, and to dream, that night,
that he rode his good old pal, Pinto, into the gilded cabaret to
carry off Muriel Mercer, Broadway's pampered society pet, to the
clean life out there in the open spaces where men are men.

At eight the following morning he was made up in a large dressing
room by a grumbling extra who said that it was a dog's life
plastering grease paint over the maps of dubs. He was presently on
Stage Four in the prescribed evening regalia for gentlemen. He found
the cabaret set, a gilded haunt of pleasure with small tables set
about an oblong of dancing floor. Back of these on three sides were
raised platforms with other tables, and above these discreet boxes,
half masked by drapery, for the seclusion of more retiring merry-
makers. The scene was deserted as yet, but presently he was joined
by another early comer, a beautiful young woman of Spanish type with
a thin face and eager, dark eyes. Her gown was glistening black set
low about her polished shoulders, and she carried a red rose. So
exotic did she appear he was surprised when she addressed him in the
purest English.

"Say, listen here, old timer! Let's pick a good table right on the
edge before the mob scene starts. Lemme see--" She glanced up and
down the rows of tables. "The cam'ras'll be back there, so we can
set a little closer, but not too close, or we'll be moved over. How
'bout this here? Let's try it." She sat, motioning him to the other
chair. Even so early in his picture career did he detect that in
facing this girl his back would be to the camera. He hitched his
chair about.

"That's right," said the girl, "I wasn't meaning to hog it. Say, we
was just in time, wasn't we?"

Ladies and gentlemen in evening dress were already entering. They
looked inquiringly about and chose tables. Those next to the dancing
space were quickly filled. Many of the ladies permitted costly wraps
of fur or brocade to spill across the backs of their chairs. Many of
the gentlemen lighted cigarettes from gleaming metal cases. There
was a lively interchange of talk.

"We better light up, too," said the dark girl. Merton Gill had
neglected cigarettes and confessed this with some embarrassment. The
girl presented an open case of gold attached to a chain pendent from
her girdle. They both smoked. On their table were small plates, two
wine glasses half filled with a pale liquid, and small coffee-cups.
Spirals of smoke ascended over a finished repast. Of course if the
part called for cigarettes you must smoke whether you had quit or
not.

The places back of the prized first row were now filling up with the
later comers. One of these, a masterful-looking man of middle age--
he would surely be a wealthy club-man accustomed to command tables--
regarded the filled row around the dancing space with frank
irritation, and paused significantly at Merton's side. He seemed
about to voice a demand, but the young actor glanced slowly up at
him, achieving a superb transition--surprise, annoyance, and, as the
invader turned quickly away, pitying contempt.

"Atta boy!" said his companion, who was, with the aid of a tiny
gold-backed mirror suspended with the cigarette case, heightening
the crimson of her full lips.

Two cameras were now in view, and men were sighting through them.
Merton saw Henshaw, plump but worried looking, scan the scene from
the rear. He gave hurried direction to an assistant who came down
the line of tables with a running glance at their occupants. He made
changes. A couple here and a couple there would be moved from the
first row and other couples would come to take their places. Under
the eyes of this assistant the Spanish girl had become coquettish.
With veiled glances, with flashing smiles from the red lips, with a
small gloved hand upon Merton Gill's sleeve, she allured him. The
assistant paused before them. The Spanish girl continued to allure.
Merton Gill stared moodily at the half-empty wine glass, then
exhaled smoke as he glanced up at his companion in profound ennui.
If it was The Blight of Broadway probably they would want him to
look bored.

"You two stay where you are," said the assistant, and passed on.

"Good work," said the girl. "I knew you was a type the minute I made
you."

Red-coated musicians entered an orchestra loft far down the set. The
voice of Henshaw came through a megaphone: "Everybody that's near
the floor fox-trot." In a moment the space was thronged with
dancers. Another voice called "Kick it!" and a glare of light came
on.

"You an' me both!" said the Spanish girl, rising.

Merton Gill remained seated. "Can't," he said. "Sprained ankle." How
was he to tell her that there had been no chance to learn this dance
back in Simsbury, Illinois, where such things were frowned upon by
pulpit and press? The girl resumed her seat, at first with
annoyance, then brightened. "All right at that," she said. "I bet we
get more footage this way." She again became coquettish, luring with
her wiles one who remained sunk in ennui.

A whistle blew, a voice called "Save it!" and the lights jarred off.
Henshaw came trippingly down the line. "You people didn't dance.
What's the matter?" Merton Gill glanced up, doing a double
transition, from dignified surprise to smiling chagrin. "Sprained
ankle," he said, and fell into the bored look that had served him
with the assistant. He exhaled smoke and raised his tired eyes to
the still luring Spanish girl. Weariness of the world and women was
in his look. Henshaw scanned him closely.

"All right, stay there--keep just that way--it's what I want." He
continued down the line, which had become hushed. "Now, people. I
want some flashes along here, between dances--see what I mean?
You're talking, but you're bored with it all. The hollowness of this
night life is getting you; not all of you--most of you girls can
keep on smiling--but The Blight of Broadway shows on many. You're
beginning to wonder if this is all life has to offer--see what I
mean?" He continued down the line.

From the table back of Merton Gill came a voice in speech to the
retreating back of Henshaw: "All right, old top, but it'll take a
good lens to catch any blight on this bunch--most of 'em haven't
worked a lick in six weeks, and they're tickled pink." He knew
without turning that this was the Montague girl trying to be funny
at the expense of Henshaw who was safely beyond hearing. He thought
she would be a disturbing element in the scene, but in this he was
wrong, for he bent upon the wine glass a look more than ever fraught
with jaded world-weariness. The babble of Broadway was resumed as
Henshaw went back to the cameras.

Presently a camera was pushed forward. Merton Gill hardly dared look
up, but he knew it was halted at no great distance from him. "Now,
here's rather a good little bit," Henshaw was saying. "You, there,
the girl in black, go on--tease him the way you were, and he's to
give you that same look. Got that cigarette going? All ready.
Lights! Camera!" Merton was achieving his first close-up. Under the
hum of the lights he was thinking that he had been a fool not to
learn dancing, no matter how the Reverend Otto Carmichael denounced
it as a survival from the barbaric Congo. He was also thinking that
the Montague girl ought to be kept away from people who were trying
to do really creative things, and he was bitterly regretting that he
had no silver cigarette case. The gloom of his young face was honest
gloom. He was aware that his companion leaned vivaciously toward him
with gay chatter and gestures. Very slowly he inhaled from a
cigarette that was already distasteful--adding no little to the
desired effect--and very slowly he exhaled as he raised to hers the
bored eyes of a soul quite disillusioned. Here, indeed, was the
blight of Broadway.

"All right, first rate!" called Henshaw. "Now get this bunch down
here." The camera was pushed on.

"Gee, that was luck!" said the girl. "Of course it'll be cut to a
flash, but I bet we stand out, at that." She was excited now, no
longer needing to act.

From the table back of Merton came the voice of the Montague girl:
"Yes, one must suffer for one's art. Here I got to be a baby-vamp
when I'd rather be simple little Madelon, beloved by all in the
village."

He restrained an impulse to look around at her. She was not serious
and should not be encouraged. Farther down the set Henshaw was
beseeching a table of six revellers to give him a little hollow
gayety. "You're simply forcing yourselves to have a good time," he
was saying; "remember that. Your hearts aren't in it. You know this
night life is a mockery. Still, you're playing the game. Now, two of
you raise your glasses to drink. You at the end stand up and hold
your glass aloft. The girl next to you there, stand up by him and
raise your face to his--turn sideways more. That's it. Put your hand
up to his shoulder. You're slightly lit, you know, and you're
inviting him to kiss you over his glass. You others, you're drinking
gay enough, but see if you can get over that it's only half-hearted.
You at the other end there--you're staring at your wine glass, then
you look slowly up at your partner but without any life. You're
feeling the blight, see? A chap down the line here just did it
perfectly. All ready, now! Lights! Camera! You blonde girl, stand
up, face raised to him, hand up to his shoulder. You others,
drinking, laughing. You at the end, look up slowly at the girl, look
away--about there--bored, weary of it all--cut! All right. Not so
bad. Now this next bunch, Paul."

Merton Gill was beginning to loathe cigarettes. He wondered if Mr.
Henshaw would mind if he didn't smoke so much, except, of course, in
the close-ups. His throat was dry and rough, his voice husky. His
companion had evidently played more smoking parts and seemed not to
mind it.

Henshaw was now opposite them across the dancing floor, warning his
people to be gay but not too gay. The glamour of this night life
must be a little dulled.

"Now, Paul, get about three medium shots along here. There's a good
table--get that bunch. And not quite so solemn, people; don't overdo
it. You think you're having a good time, even if it does turn to
ashes in your mouth--now, ready; lights! Camera!"

"I like Western stuff better," confided Merton to his companion. She
considered this, though retaining her arch manner. "Well, I don't
know. I done a Carmencita part in a dance-hall scene last month over
to the Bigart, and right in the mi'st of the fight I get a glass of
somethin' all over my gown that practically rooned it. I guess I
rather do this refined cabaret stuff--at least you ain't so li'ble
to roon a gown. Still and all, after you been warmin' the extra
bench for a month one can't be choosy. Say, there's the princ'ples
comin' on the set."

He looked around. There, indeed, was the beautiful Muriel Mercer,
radiant in an evening frock of silver. At the moment she was putting
a few last touches to her perfect face from a make-up box held by a
maid. Standing with her was another young woman, not nearly so
beautiful, and three men. Henshaw was instructing these. Presently
he called through his megaphone: "You people are excited by the
entrance of the famous Vera Vanderpool and her friends. You stop
drinking, break off your talk, stare at her--see what I mean?--she
makes a sensation. Music, lights, camera!"

Down the set, escorted by a deferential head-waiter, came Muriel
Mercer on the arm of a middle-aged man who was elaborately garnished
but whose thin dyed mustaches, partially bald head, and heavy eyes,
proclaimed him to Merton Gill as one who meant the girl no good.
They were followed by the girl who was not so beautiful and the
other two men. These were young chaps of pleasing exterior who made
the progress laughingly. The five were seated at a table next the
dancing space at the far end. They chatted gayly as the older man
ordered importantly from the head-waiter. Muriel Mercer tapped one
of the younger men with her plumed fan and they danced. Three other
selected couples danced at the same time, though taking care not to
come between the star and the grinding camera. The older man leered
at the star and nervously lighted a gold-tipped cigarette which he
immediately discarded after one savage bite at it. It could be seen
that Vera Vanderpool was the gayest of all that gay throng. Upon her
as yet had come no blight of Broadway, though she shrank perceptibly
when the partially bald one laid his hand on her slender wrist as
she resumed her seat. Food and wine were brought. Vera Vanderpool
drank, with a pretty flourish of her glass.

Now the two cameras were moved forward for close-ups. The older man
was caught leering at Vera. It would surely be seen that he was not
one to trust. Vera was caught with the mad light of pleasure in her
beautiful eyes. Henshaw was now speaking in low tones to the group,
and presently Vera Vanderpool did a transition. The mad light of
pleasure died from her eyes and the smile froze on her beautiful
mouth. A look almost of terror came into her eyes, followed by a
pathetic lift of the upper lip. She stared intently above the
camera. She was beholding some evil thing far from that palace of
revels.

"Now they'll cut back to the tenement-house stuff they shot last
week," explained the Spanish girl.

"Tenement house?" queried Merton. "But I thought the story would be
that she falls in love with a man from the great wind-swept spaces
out West, and goes out there to live a clean open life with him--
that's the way I thought it would be--out there where she could
forget the blight of Broadway."

"No, Mercer never does Western stuff. I got a little girl friend
workin' with her and she told me about this story. Mercer gets into
this tenement house down on the east side, and she's a careless
society butterfly; but all at once she sees what a lot of sorrow
there is in this world when she sees these people in the tenement
house, starving to death, and sick kids and everything, and this
little friend of mine does an Italian girl with a baby and this old
man here, he's a rich swell and prominent in Wall Street and belongs
to all the clubs, but he's the father of this girl's child, only
Mercer don't know that yet. But she gets aroused in her better
nature by the sight of all this trouble, and she almost falls in
love with another gentleman who devotes all his time to relieving
the poor in these tenements--it was him who took her there--but
still she likes a good time as well as anybody, and she's stickin'
around Broadway and around this old guy who's pretty good company in
spite of his faults. But just now she got a shock at remembering the
horrible sights she has seen; she can't get it out of her mind. And
pretty soon she'll see this other gentleman that she nearly fell in
love with, the one who hangs around these tenements doing good--
he'll be over at one of them tables and she'll leave her party and
go over to his table and say, 'Take me from this heartless Broadway
to your tenements where I can relieve their suffering,' so she goes
out and gets in a taxi with him, leaving the old guy with not a
thing to do but pay the check. Of course he's mad, and he follows
her down to the tenements where she's relieving the poor--just in a
plain black dress--and she finds out he's the real father of this
little friend of mine's child, and tells him to go back to Broadway
while she has chosen the better part and must live her life with
these real people. But he sends her a note that's supposed to be
from a poor woman dying of something, to come and bring her some
medicine, and she goes off alone to this dive in another street, and
it's the old guy himself who has sent the note, and he has her there
in this cellar in his power. But the other gentleman has found the
note and has follered her, and breaks in the door and puts up a
swell fight with the old guy and some toughs he has hired, and gets
her off safe and sound, and so they're married and live the real
life far away from the blight of Broadway. It's a swell story, all
right, but Mercer can't act it. This little friend of mine can act
all around her. She'd be a star if only she was better lookin'. You
bet Mercer don't allow any lookers on the same set with her. Do you
make that one at the table with her now? Just got looks enough to
show Mercer off. Mercer's swell-lookin', I'll give her that, but for
actin'--say, all they need in a piece for her is just some stuff to
go in between her close-ups. Don't make much difference what it is.
Oh, look! There comes the dancers. It's Luzon and Mario."

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