Compiled and edited by Elias Lönnrot - "The Kalevala"

Sir Richard Francis Burton - "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah & Meccah"

Ralph D. Paine - "The Old Merchant Marine, A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors"

Aristotle - "The Poetics"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Merton of the Movies

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




Merton Gill looked. These would be hired dancers to entertain the
pleasure-mad throng, a young girl with vine leaves in her hair and a
dark young man of barbaric appearance. The girl was clad in a mere
whisp of a girdle and shining breast plates, while the man was
arrayed chiefly in a coating of dark stain. They swirled over the
dance floor to the broken rhythm of the orchestra, now clinging, now
apart, working to a climax in which the man poised with his partner
perched upon one shoulder. Through the megaphone came instructions
to applaud the couple, and Broadway applauded--all but Merton Gill,
who stared moodily into his coffee cup or lifted bored eyes to the
scene of revelry. He was not bored, but his various emotions
combined to produce this effect very plausibly. He was dismayed at
this sudden revelation of art in the dance so near him. Imogene
Pulver had once done an art dance back in Simsbury, at the cantata
of Esther in the vestry of the Methodist church, and had been not a
little criticised for her daring; but Imogene had been abundantly
clad, and her gestures much more restrained. He was trying now to
picture how Gashwiler would take a thing like this, or Mrs.
Gashwiler, for that matter! One glimpse of those practically unclad
bodies skipping and bounding there would probably throw them into a
panic. They couldn't have sat it through. And here he was, right up
in front of them, and not turning a hair.

This reflection permitted something of the contemptuous to show in
the random glances with which he swept the dancers? He could not
look at them steadily, not when they were close, as they often were.
Also, he loathed the cigarette he was smoking. The tolerant scorn
for the Gashwilers and his feeling for the cigarette brought him
again into favourable notice. He heard Henshaw, but did not look up.

"Get another flash here, Paul. He's rather a good little bit."
Henshaw now stood beside him. "Hold that," he said. "No, wait." He
spoke to Merton's companion. "You change seats a minute with Miss
Montague, as if you'd got tired of him--see what I mean? Miss
Montague--Miss Montague." The Spanish girl arose, seeming not wholly
pleased at this bit of directing. The Montague girl came to the
table. She was a blithesome sprite in a salmon-pink dancing frock.
Her blonde curls fell low over one eye which she now cocked
inquiringly at the director.

"You're trying to liven him up," explained Henshaw. "That's all--
baby-vamp him. He'll do the rest. He's quite a good little bit."

The Montague girl flopped into the chair, leaned roguishly toward
Merton Gill, placed a small hand upon the sleeve of his coat and
peered archly at him through beaded lashes, one eye almost hidden by
its thatch of curls. Merton Gill sunk low in his chair, cynically
tapped the ash from his tenth cigarette into the coffee cup and
raised bored eyes to hers. "That's it--shoot it, Paul, just a
flash."

The camera was being wheeled toward them. The Montague girl, with
her hand still on his arm, continued her wheedling, though now she
spoke.

"Why, look who's here. Kid, I didn't know you in your stepping-out
clothes. Say, listen, why do you always upstage me? I never done a
thing to you, did I? Go on, now, give me the fishy eye again. How'd
you ace yourself into this first row, anyway? Did you have to fight
for it? Say, your friend'll be mad at me putting her out of here,
won't she? Well, blame it on the gelatin master. I never suggested
it. Say, you got Henshaw going. He likes that blighted look of
yours."

He made no reply to this chatter. He must keep in the picture. He
merely favoured her with a glance of fatigued indifference. The
camera was focused.

"All ready, you people. Do like I said, now. Lights, camera!"

Merton Gill drew upon his cigarette with the utmost disrelish,
raised the cold eyes of a disillusioned man to the face of the
leering Montague girl, turned aside from her with every sign of
apathy, and wearily exhaled the smoke. There seemed to be but this
one pleasure left to him.

"Cut!" said Henshaw, and somewhere lights jarred off. "Just stick
there a bit, Miss Montague. We'll have a couple more shots when the
dancing begins."

Merton resented this change. He preferred the other girl. She lured
him but not in so pronounced, so flagrant a manner. The blight of
Broadway became more apparent than ever upon his face. The girl's
hand still fluttered upon his sleeve as the music came and dancers
shuffled by them.

"Say, you're the actin' kid, all right." She was tapping the floor
with the heel of a satin slipper. He wished above all things that
she wouldn't call him "Kid." He meditated putting a little of
Broadway's blight upon her by saying in a dignified way that his
real name was Clifford Armytage. Still, this might not blight her--
you couldn't tell about the girl.

"You certainly are the actin'est kid on this set, I'll tell the lot
that. Of course these close-ups won't mean much, just about one
second, or half that maybe. Or some hick in the cuttin' room may
kill 'em dead. Come on, give me the fish-eye again. That's it. Say,
I'm glad I didn't have to smoke cigarettes in this scene. They
wouldn't do for my type, standin' where the brook and river meet up.
I hate a cigarette worse'n anything. You--I bet you'd give up food
first."

"I hate 'em, too," he muttered grudgingly, glad to be able to say
this, even though only to one whose attentions he meant to
discourage. "If I have to smoke one more it'll finish me."

"Now, ain't that the limit? Too bad, Kid!"

"I didn't even have any of my own. That Spanish girl gave me these."

The Montague girl glanced over his shoulder at the young woman whose
place she had usurped. "Spanish, eh? If she's Spanish I'm a Swede
right out of Switzerland. Any-way, I never could like to smoke. I
started to learn one summer when I was eight. Pa and Ma and I was
out with a tent Tom-show, me doing Little Eva, and between acts I
had to put on pants and come out and do a smoking song, all about a
kid learning to smoke his first cigar and not doin' well with it,
see? But they had to cut it out. Gosh, what us artists suffer at
times! Pa had me try it a couple of years later when I was doin'
Louise the blind girl in the Two Orphans, playin' thirty cents top.
It was a good song, all right, with lots of funny gags. I'd 'a' been
the laughing hit of the bill if I could 'a' learned not to swallow.
We had to cut it out again after the second night. Talk about
entering into your part. Me? I was too good."

If the distant camera glanced this way it caught merely the
persistent efforts of a beautiful debutante who had not yet felt the
blight of Broadway to melt the cynicism of one who suffered it more
and more acutely each moment. Her hand fluttered on his sleeve and
her left eye continuously beguiled him from under the overhanging
curl. As often as he thought it desirable he put the bored glance
upon her, though mostly he stared in dejection at the coffee cup or
the empty wine glass. He was sorry that she had had that trouble
with the cigar, but one who as Little Eva or poor persecuted Louise,
the blind girl, had to do a song and dance between the acts must
surely come from a low plane of art. He was relieved when, at
megaphoned directions, an elderly fop came to whirl her off in the
dance. Her last speech was: "That poor Henshaw--the gelatin
master'll have megaphone-lip by to-night."

He was left alone at his table. He wondered if they might want a
close-up of him this way, uncompanioned, jaded, tired of it all, as
if he would be saying: "There's always the river!" But nothing of
this sort happened. There was more dancing, more close-ups of Muriel
Mercer being stricken with her vision of tenement misery under the
foul glare of a middle-aged roue inflamed with wine. And there was a
shot of Muriel perceiving at last the blight of Broadway and going
to a table at which sat a pale, noble-looking young man with a high
forehead, who presently led her out into the night to the real life
of the worthy poor. Later the deserted admirer became again a roue
inflamed with wine and submitted to a close-up that would depict his
baffled rage. He clenched his hands in this and seemed to convey,
with a snarling lift of his lip, that the girl would yet be his.
Merton Gill had ceased to smoke. He had sounded on Broadway even the
shallow pleasure of cigarettes. He was thoroughly blighted.

At last a megaphoned announcement from the assistant director
dismissing the extras, keeping the star, the lead, and a few small-
part people, to clean up medium shots, "dramatics," and other work
requiring no crowd. "All you extra people here to-morrow morning,
eight-thirty, same clothes and make-up." There was a quick breaking
up of the revelry. The Broadway pleasure-seekers threw off the
blight and stormed the assistant director for slips of paper which
he was now issuing. Merton Gill received one, labelled "Talent
check." There was fine print upon it which he took no pains to read,
beyond gathering its general effect that the Victor Film-art Company
had the full right to use any photographs of him that its agents
might that day have obtained. What engrossed him to the exclusion of
this legal formality was the item that he would now be paid seven
dollars and fifty cents for his day's work--and once he had been
forced to toil half a week for this sum! Emerging from the stage
into the sunlight he encountered the Montague girl who hailed him as
he would have turned to avoid her.

"Say, trouper, I thought I'd tell you in case you didn't know--we
don't take our slips to that dame in that outside cafeteria any
more. She always pinches off a quarter or may be four bits. They got
it fixed now so the cash is always on tap in the office. I just
thought I'd tell you."

"Thanks," he said, still with the jaded air of the disillusioned. He
had only the vaguest notion of her meaning, but her intention had
been kindly. "Thank you very much."

"Oh, don't mention it. I just thought I'd tell you." She glanced
after him shrewdly.

Nearing the office he observed a long line of Broadway revellers
waiting to cash their slips. Its head was lost inside the building
and it trailed far outside. No longer was any blight to be
perceived. The slips were ready in hand. Instead of joining the line
Merton decided upon luncheon. It was two o'clock, and though waiters
with trays had been abundant in the gilded cabaret, the best screen
art had not seemed to demand a serving of actual food. Further, he
would eat in the cafeteria in evening dress, his make-up still on,
like a real actor. The other time he had felt conspicuous because
nothing had identified him with the ordinary clientele of the place.

The room was not crowded now. Only a table here and there held late
comers, and the choice of foods when he reached the serving counter
at the back was limited. He permitted himself to complain of this in
a practised manner, but made a selection and bore his tray to the
centre of the room. He had chosen a table and was about to sit, when
he detected Henshaw farther down the room, and promptly took the one
next him. It was probable that Henshaw would recall him and praise
the work he had done. But the director merely rolled unseeing eyes
over him as he seated himself, and continued his speech to the man
Merton had before seen him with, the grizzled dark man with the
stubby gray mustache whom he called Governor. Merton wondered if he
could be the governor of California, but decided not. Perhaps an ex-
governor.

"She's working out well," he was saying. "I consider it one of the
best continuities Belmore has done. Not a line of smut in it, but to
make up for that we'll have over thirty changes of costume."

Merton Gill coughed violently, then stared moodily at his plate of
baked beans. He hoped that this, at least, would recall him to
Henshaw who might fix an eye on him to say: "And, by the way, here
is a young actor that was of great help to me this morning." But
neither man even glanced up. Seemingly this young actor could choke
to death without exciting their notice. He stared less moodily at
the baked beans. Henshaw would notice him sometime, and you couldn't
do everything at once.

The men had finished their luncheon and were smoking. The animated
Henshaw continued his talk. "And about that other thing we were
discussing, Governor, I want to go into that with you. I tell you if
we can do Robinson Crusoe, and do it right, a regular five-thousand-
foot program feature, the thing ought to gross a million. A good,
clean, censor-proof picture--great kid show, run forever. Shipwreck
stuff, loading the raft, island stuff, hut stuff, goats, finding the
footprint, cannibals, the man Friday--can't you see it?"

The Governor seemed to see it. "Fine--that's so!" He stared above
the director's head for the space of two inhalations from his
cigarette, imbuing Merton Gill with gratitude that he need not smoke
again that day. "But say, look here, how about your love interest?"

Henshaw waved this aside with his own cigarette and began to make
marks on the back of an envelope. "Easy enough--Belmore can fix that
up. We talked over one or two ways. How about having Friday's sister
brought over with him to this island? The cannibals are going to eat
her, too. Then the cannibals run to their canoes when they hear the
gun, just the same as in the book. And Crusoe rescues the two. And
when he cuts the girl's bonds he finds she can't be Friday's real
sister, because she's white--see what I mean? Well, we work it out
later that she's the daughter of an English Earl that was wrecked
near the cannibal island, and they rescued her, and Friday's mother
brought her up as her own child. She's saved the papers that came
ashore, and she has the Earl's coat-of-arms tattooed on her shoulder
blade, and finally, after Crusoe has fallen in love with her, and
she's remembered a good deal of her past, along comes the old Earl,
her father, in a ship and rescues them all. How about that?"
Henshaw, brightly expectant, awaited the verdict of his chief.

" Well--I don't know." The other considered. "Where's your conflict,
after the girl is saved from the savages? And Crusoe in the book
wears a long beard. How about that? He won't look like anything--
sort of hairy, and that's all."

Henshaw from the envelope on which he drew squares and oblongs
appeared to gain fresh inspiration. He looked up with new light in
his eyes. "I got it--got the whole thing. Modernize it. This chap is
a rich young New Yorker, cruising on his yacht, and he's wrecked on
this island and gets a lot of stuff ashore and his valet is saved,
too--say there's some good comedy, see what I mean?--valet is one of
these stiff English lads, never been wrecked on an island before and
complains all the time about the lack of conveniences. I can see a
lot of good gags for him, having to milk the goats, and getting
scared of the other animals, and no place to press his master's
clothes--things like that, you know. Well, the young fellow explores
the island and finds another party that's been wrecked on the other
side, and it's the girl and the man that got her father into his
power and got all of his estate and is going to make beggars of them
if the girl won't marry him, and she comes on the young fellow under
some palms and they fall in love and fix it up to double-cross the
villain--Belmore can work it out from there. How about that? And
say, we can use a lot of trims from that South Sea piece we did last
year, all that yacht and island stuff--see what I mean?"

The other considered profoundly. "Yes, you got a story there, but it
won't be Robinson Crusoe, don't you see?"

Again Henshaw glanced up from his envelope with the light of
inspiration. "Well, how about this? Call it Robinson Crusoe, Junior!
There you are. We get the value of the name and do the story the way
we want it, the young fellow being shaved every day by the valet,
and he can invite the other party over to dine with him and receive
them in evening dress and everything. Can't you see it? If that
story wouldn't gross big then I don't know a story. And all easy
stuff. We can use the trims for the long shots, and use that inlet,
toward the other end of Catalina for the hut and the beach; sure-
fire stuff, Governor--and Robinson Crusoe, Junior is a cinch title."

"Well, give Belmore as much dope as you've got, and see what he can
work out."

They arose and stood by the counter to pay their checks.

"If you want to see the rushes of that stuff we shot this morning be
over to the projection room at five," said Henshaw as they went out.
Neither had observed the rising young screen actor, Clifford
Armytage, though he had coughed violently again as they left. He had
coughed most plausibly, moreover, because of the cigarettes.

At the cashier's window, no longer obstructed, he received his
money, another five-dollar bill adorned with the cheerfully
prosperous face of Benjamin Harrison and half that amount in silver
coin. Then, although loath to do this, he went to the dressing room
and removed his make-up. That grease paint had given him a world of
confidence.

At the casting office he stopped to tell his friend of the day's
camera triumph, how the director had seemed to single him out from a
hundred or so revellers to portray facially the deadly effect of
Broadway's night life.

"Good work!" she applauded. "Before long you'll be having jobs
oftener. And don't forget, you're called again to-morrow morning for
the gambling-house scene."

She was a funny woman; always afraid he would forget something he
could not possibly forget. Once more in the Patterson kitchen he
pressed his suit and dreamt of new eminences in his chosen art.

The following morning he was again the first to reach the long
dressing room, the first to be made up by the grumbling extra, the
first to reach the big stage. The cabaret of yesterday had overnight
been transformed into a palatial gambling hell. Along the sides of
the room and at its centre were tables equipped for strange games of
chance which only his picture knowledge enabled him to recognize. He
might tarry at these tables, he thought, but he must remember to
look bored in the near presence of Henshaw. The Spanish girl of
yesterday appeared and he greeted her warmly. "I got some cigarettes
this time," he said, "so let me pay you back all those I smoked of
yours yesterday." Together they filled the golden case that hung
from her girdle.

"It's swell, all right," said the girl, gazing about the vast room
now filling with richly clad gamblers.

"But I thought it was all over except the tenement-house scenes
where Vera Vanderpool has gone to relieve the poor," he said.

The girl explained. "This scene comes before the one we did
yesterday. It's where the rich old boy first sees Vera playing
roulette, and she loses a lot of money and is going to leave her
string of pearls, but he says it's a mere trifle and let him pay her
gambling losses, so in a weak moment she does, and that's how he
starts to get her into his power. You'll see how it works out. Say,
they spent some money on this set, all right."

It was indeed a rich set, as the girl had said. It seemed to Merton
Gill that it would be called on the screen "One of those Plague
Spots that Eat like a Cancer at the Heart of New York." He lighted a
cigarette and leaned nonchalantly against a pillar to smile a tired
little smile at the pleasure-mad victims of this life who were now
grouping around the roulette and faro tables. He must try for his
jaded look.

"Some swell shack!" The speaker was back of him, but he knew her for
the Montague girl, and was instantly enabled to increase the
blighted look for which he had been trying. "One natty little hovel,
I'll tell the world," the girl continued. "Say, this puts it all
over the Grand Central station, don't it? Must be right smack at the
corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Well, start the little ball
rolling, so I can make a killing." He turned his head slightly and
saw her dance off to one of the roulette tables, accompanied by the
middle-aged fop who had been her companion yesterday.

Henshaw and his assistant now appeared and began grouping the
players at the various tables. Merton Gill remained leaning wearily
against his massive pillar, trying to appear blase under the chatter
of the Spanish girl. The groups were arranged to the liking of
Henshaw, though only after many trials. The roulette ball was
twirled and the lively rattle of chips could be heard. Scanning his
scene, he noted Merton and his companion.

"Oh, there you are, you two. Sister, you go and stand back of that
crowd around the faro table. Keep craning to look over their
shoulders, and give us your side view. I want to use this man alone.
Here." He led Merton to a round table on which were a deck of cards
and some neatly stacked chips. "Sit here, facing the camera. Keep
one hand on the cards, sort of toying with 'em, see what I mean?"

He scattered the piled chips loosely about the table, and called to
a black waiter: "Here, George, put one of those wine glasses on his
left."

The wine glass was placed. "Now kind of slump down in your chair,
like you saw the hollowness of it all--see what I mean?"

Merton Gill thought he saw. He exhaled smoke, toyed contemptuously
with the cards at his right hand and, with a gesture of repulsion,
pushed the wine glass farther away. He saw the hollowness of it all.
The spirit of wine sang in his glass but to deaf ears. Chance could
no longer entice him. It might again have been suspected that
cigarettes were ceasing to allure.

"Good work! Keep it up," said Henshaw and went back to his cameras.

The lights jarred on; desperate gaming was filmed. "More life at the
roulette tables," megaphoned Henshaw. "Crowd closer around that
left-hand faro table. You're playing for big stakes." The gaming
became more feverish. The mad light of pleasure was in every eye,
yet one felt that the blight of Broadway was real.

The camera was wheeled forward and Merton Gill joyously quit smoking
while Henshaw secured flashes of various groups, chiefly of losers
who were seeing the hollowness of it all. He did not, however,
disdain a bit of comedy.

"Miss Montague."

"Yes, Mr. Henshaw." The Montague girl paused in the act of
sprinkling chips over a roulette lay-out.

"Your escort has lost all his chips and you've lost all he bought
for you--"

The girl and her escort passed to other players the chips before
them, and waited.

"Your escort takes out his wallet, shows it to you empty, and shrugs
his shoulders. You shrug, too, but turn your back on him, facing the
camera, and take some bills out of your stocking--see what I mean?
Give her some bills, someone."

"Never mind, Mr. Henshaw; I already got some there." The pantomime
was done, the girl turned, stooped, withdrew flattened bills from
one of the salmon-pink stockings and flourished them at her escort
who achieved a transition from gloom to joy. Merton Gill, observing
this shameless procedure, plumbed the nether depths of disgust for
Broadway's night life.

The camera was now wheeled toward him and he wearily lighted another
cigarette. "Get a flash of this chap," Henshaw was saying. The
subject leaned forward in his chair, gazing with cynical eyes at the
fevered throng. Wine, women, song, all had palled. Gambling had no
charm--he looked with disrelish at the cigarette he had but just
lighted.

"All right, Paul, that's good. Now get that bunch over at the crap
table."

Merton Gill lost no time in relinquishing his cigarette. He dropped
it into the wine glass which became a symbol of Broadway's dead-sea
fruit. Thereafter he smoked only when he was in the picture. He felt
that he was becoming screen wise. And Henshaw had remembered him.
The cast of The Blight of Broadway might not be jewelled with his
name, but his work would stand out. He had given the best that was
in him.

He watched the entrance of Muriel Mercer, maddest of all the mad
throng, accompanied by the two young men and the girl who was not so
beautiful. He watched her lose steadily, and saw her string of
pearls saved by the elderly scoundrel who had long watched the
beautiful girl as only the Wolf of Wall Street could watch one so
fair. He saw her leave upon his arm, perhaps for further unwholesome
adventure along Broadway. The lights were out, the revelry done.

Merton Gill beyond a doubt preferred Western stuff, some heart-
gripping tale of the open spaces, or perhaps of the frozen north,
where he could be the hard-riding, straight-shooting, two-fisted
wonder-man, and not have to smoke so many cigarettes--only one now
and then, which he would roll himself and toss away after a few
puffs. Still, he had shown above the mob of extra people, he
thought. Henshaw had noticed him. He was coming on.

The Montague girl hailed him as he left the set. "Hullo, old
trouper. I caught you actin' again to-day, right out before the
white folks. Well, so far so good. But say, I'm glad all that
roulette and stuff was for the up-and-down stage and not on the
level. I'd certainly have lost everything but my make-up. So long,
Kid!" She danced off to join a group of other women who were
leaving. He felt a kindly pity for the child. There could be little
future in this difficult art for one who took it so lightly; who
talked so frankly to strangers without being introduced.