ON LOCATION--EXPERIENCES PLEASANT AND OTHERWISE
Before the first winter drove us indoors there had been screened a
number of Mexican and Indian pictures. There was one thriller, “The
Greaser’s Gauntlet,” in which Wilfred Lucas, recruited from Kirke
La Shelle’s “Heir to the Hoorah” played the daring, handsome, and
righteous José. And Wilfred Lucas, by the way, was the first real
g-r-a-n-d actor, democratic enough to work in our movies. That had
happened through friendship for Mr. Griffith. They had been in a
production together.
For a mountain fastness of arid Mexico, we journeyed not far from
Edgewater, New Jersey. No need to go further. Up the Hudson along the
Palisades was sufficiently Mexico-ish for our needs. There were many
choice boulders for abductors to hide behind and lonely roads for
hold-ups. New Jersey near by was a fruitful land for movie landscape;
it didn’t take long to get there, and transportation was cheap. Small
wonder Fort Lee shortly grew to be the popular studio town it did.
In those days, movie conveyance for both actors and cargo was a bit
crude. We had no automobiles. When Jersey-bound, we’d dash from
wherever we lived to the nearest subway, never dreaming of spending
fifty cents on a taxi. We left our subway at the 125th Street station.
Down the escalator, three steps at a bound, we flew, and took up
another hike to the ferry building. And while we hiked this stretch we
wondered--for so far we had come breakfastless--if we would have time
for some nourishment before the 8:45 boat.
A block this side of the ferry building was “Murphy’s,” a nice clean
saloon with a family restaurant in the back, where members of the
company often gathered for an early morning bite. We stuffed ourselves
until the clock told us to be getting to our little ferry-boat. Who
knew when or where we might eat again that day?
“Ham,” Mr. Murphy’s best waiter, took care of us. As the hungry
breakfasters grew in number and regularity Mr. Murphy became
inquisitive. Mr. Murphy was right, we didn’t work on the railroad and
we didn’t drive trucks. So, who, inquired Mr. Murphy of Ham, might
these strange people be who ate so much and were so jolly in the early
morning?
And Ham answered, “Them is moving picture people.”
And Mr. Murphy replied, “Well, give them the best and lots of it.”
We needed “the best and lots of it.” We needed regular longshoremen’s
meals. Outdoor picture work with its long hours meant physical
endurance in equal measure with artistic outpourings.
Ham is still in Mr. Murphy’s service, but his job has grown rather dull
with the years. No more picture people to start the day off bright and
snappy. Now he only turns on the tap to draw a glass of Mr. Volstead’s
less than half of one per cent.
“But I want to ask you something,” said Ham as I started to leave.
“Yes?”
“Would you tell me”--hushed and awed the tone--“did Mary Pickford ever
come in here?”
“Oh, yes, Ham, she came sometimes.”
“I told the boss so, I told him Mary Pickford had come here with them
picture people.”
Whether Mary had or hadn’t, I didn’t remember, but I couldn’t deny Ham
that little bit of romance to cheer along his colorless to-days.
Ham’s breakfast disposed of, we would rush to the ferry, seek our nook
in the boat, and enjoy a short laze before reaching the Jersey side.
At one of the little inns along the Hudson we rented a couple of rooms
where we made up and dressed. Soon would appear old man Brown and his
son, each driving a two-seated buggy. And according to what scenes
we were slated for, we would be told to pile in, and off we would be
driven to “location.”
“Old Man Brown” was a garrulous, good-natured Irishman who regaled us
with tales of prominent persons who, in his younger days, had been his
patrons. How proud he was to tell of Lillian Russell’s weekly visit to
her daughter Dorothy who was attending a convent school up the Hudson!
Speaking of “Old Man Brown” brings to mind “Hughie.” Hughie’s job was
to drive the express wagon which transported costumes, properties,
cameras, and tripods. In the studio, on the night preceding a day in
the country, each actor packed his costume and make-up box and got
it ready for Hughie. For sometimes in the early morning darkness of
4 A. M. Hughie would have to whip up his horses in front of 11 East
Fourteenth Street so as to be on the spot in Jersey when the actors
arrived via their speedier locomotion.
Arrived on location, Johnny Mahr and Bobbie Harron would climb the
wagon, get out the costumes, and bring them to the actor. And if your
particular bundle did not arrive in double-quick time and you were in
the first or second scene, out you dashed and did a mad scramble on
to the wagon where you frantically searched. Suppose it had been left
behind!
Hughie had a tough time of it trucking by two horsepower when winter
came along. So I was very happy some few years later, when calling on
Mr. Hugh Ford at the Famous Players’ old studio in West Fifty-sixth
Street, N. Y., now torn down, to find Hughie there with a comfortable
job “on the door.”
* * * * *
David Griffith was always overly fastidious about “location.” His
feeling for charming landscapes and his use of them in the movies was
a significant factor in the success of his early pictures. So we had
a “location” woman, Gene Gauntier, who dug up “locations” and wrote
scenarios for the princely wage of twenty-five dollars weekly. Miss
Gauntier will be eternally remembered as the discoverer of Shadyside.
Shades of Shadyside! with never a tree, a spot of green grass, or a
clinging vine; only sand, rocks, and quarries from which the baked heat
oozed unmercifully.
Miss Gauntier’s aptitude along the location line, however, did
not satisfy her soaring ambition, so she left Biograph for Kalem.
Under Sidney Olcott’s direction, she played _Mary_ in his important
production “From the Manger to the Cross,” and was the heroine of some
charming Irish stories he produced in Ireland.
* * * * *
“The Redman and the Child” was the second picture Biograph’s new
director produced, and his first Indian picture. Charles Inslee was the
big-hearted Indian chief in the story and little Johnny Tansy played
the child. The picture made little Johnny famous. He had as much honor
as the movies of those days could give a child. Jackie Coogan was the
lucky kid to arrive in the world when he did.
When the New Theatre (now the Century), sponsoring high-class
uncommercial drama opened, Johnny Tansy was the child wonder of the
company. Here he fell under the observant eye of George Foster Platt
and became his protégé. And so our Johnny was lost to the movies.
We went to Little Falls, New Jersey, for “The Redman and the Child,”
which, at the time, was claimed to be “the very acme of photographic
art.” I’ll say we worked over that Passaic River. Mr. Griffith made it
yield its utmost. As there was so little money for anything pretentious
in the way of a studio set, we became a bit intoxicated with the
rivers, flowers, fields, and rocks that a munificent nature spread
before us, asking no price.
My memories of working outdoors that first summer are not so pleasant.
We thought we were going to get cool, fresh air in the country, but the
muggy atmosphere that hung over the Hudson on humid August days didn’t
thrill us much. I could have survived the day better in the studio with
the breeze from our one electric fan.
On Jersey days, work finished, back to our little Inn in a mad rush to
remove make-up, dress, and catch the next ferry. Our toilet was often
no more than a lick and a promise with finishing touches added as we
journeyed ferrywards along the river road in old man Brown’s buggy.
[Illustration: Caudebec Inn at Cuddebackville.
(_See p. 119_)
]
[Illustration: From “The Mended Lute,” made at Cuddebackville, with
Florence Lawrence, Owen Moore and Jim Kirkwood.
(_See p. 116_)
]
[Illustration: Frank Powell, Mr. Griffith’s first $10-a-day actor, with
Marion Leonard in “Fools of Fate,” made at Cuddebackville.
(_See p. 108_)
]
[Illustration: Richard Barthelmess as _Arno_, the youngest son, with
Nazimova in “War Brides,” a Herbert Brennon production. The part that
put Dicky over.
(_See p. 136_)
]
Were we ever going anywhere but Fort Lee and Edgewater and Shadyside?
I do believe that first summer I was made love to on every rock and
boulder for twenty miles up and down the Hudson.
Well, we did branch out a bit. We did a picture in Greenwich,
Connecticut. Driving to the station, our picture day finished, we
passed a magnificent property, hemmed in by high fences and protected
with beautiful iron gates. Signs read “Private Property. Keep Out.”
We heeded them not. In our nervous excitement (we were not calm about
this deed of valor) we kept away from the residence proper, and drove
to the outbuildings and the Superintendent’s office. Told him we’d been
working in the country near by and would appreciate it much if we could
come on the morrow and take some scenes; slipped him a twenty, and that
did the trick.
There was nothing we had missed driving around Millbank, which, we
learned later, was the home of Mrs. A. A. Anderson, the well-known
philanthropist who passed away some few years ago. So on the morrow,
bright and early, we dropped anchor there, made up in one of the barns,
and were rehearsing nicely, being very quiet and circumspect, when down
the pathway coming directly toward us, with blood in her eye, marched
the irate Mrs. Anderson. Trembling and weak-kneed we looked about us.
Could we be hearing aright? Was she really saying those dreadful things
to us? Weakly we protested our innocence. Vain our explanation. And so
we folded our tents and meekly and shamefacedly slunk away.
Before the summer was over we went to Seagate and Atlantic Highlands.
It wasn’t very pleasant at Atlantic Highlands, for here we encountered
the summer boarder. As they had nothing better to do, they would
see what we were going to do. We were generally being lovers, of
course, and strolling in pairs beneath a sunshade until we reached
the foreground, where we were to make a graceful flop onto the sandy
beach and play our parts beneath the flirtatious parasol. Before we
were ready to take the scene we had to put ropes up to keep back the
uninvited audience which giggled and tee-heed and commented loudly
throughout. We felt like monkeys in a zoo--as if we’d gone back to the
day when the populace jeered the old strolling players of Stratford
town.
Mr. Griffith got badly annoyed when we had such experiences. His job
worried him, the nasty publicity of doing our work in the street, like
ditch diggers. So he had to pick on some one and I was handy. How
could _I_ stand for it? Why was _I_ willing to endure it? He _had_ to,
of course. So thinking to frighten me and make me a good girl who’d
stay home, he said: “Something has occurred to me; it’s probable this
business might get kind of public--some day, you know, you may get in
the subway and have all the people stare at you while they whisper to
each other, ‘That’s that girl we saw in the movie the other night.’
_And how would you like that?_”
One saving grace the Highlands had for us. We could get a swim
sometimes. And we discovered Galilee, a fishing village about twenty
miles down the coast, the locale of that first version of Enoch
Arden--“After Many Years.”
But when winter came, though we lost the spectators we acquired other
discomforts. Our make-up would be frozen, and the dreary, cold, damp
rooms in the country hotels made us shivery and miserable. We’d
hurriedly climb into our costumes, drag on our coats, and then light
our little alcohol stove or candle to get the make-up sufficiently
smeary. When made up, out into the cold, crisp day. One of the men
would have a camp-fire going where we’d huddle between scenes and keep
limber enough to act. Then when ready for the scene Billy Bitzer would
have to light the little lamp that he attached to the camera on cold
days to warm the film so it wouldn’t be streaked with “lightning.”
While that was going on we stood at attention, ready to do our bit when
the film was.
We weren’t so keen on playing leads on such days as those, for when you
are half frozen it isn’t so easy to look as if you were calmly dying
of joy, for which emotional state the script might be asking. What we
liked best in the winter was to follow Mack Sennett in the chases which
he always led, and which he made so much of, later, when he became the
big man in Keystone films. The chase warmed us up, for Mack Sennett
led us on some merry jaunts, over stone walls, down gulleys, a-top of
fences--whatever looked good and hard to do.
Somehow we found it difficult to be always working with the weather.
Though we watched carefully it seemed there always were “summer”
stories to be finished, almost up to snow time; and “winter” stories in
the works when June roses were in bud. Pink swiss on a bleak November
day ’neath the leafless maple didn’t feel so good; nor did velvet and
fur and heavy wool in the studio in humid August.
But such were the things that happened. We accepted them with a good
grace.