AT THE STUDIO
This story must now take itself indoors. We are terribly excited over
Tolstoy’s “Resurrection.” So even though it be May, we must to the
studio where the carpenters and scene painters are fixing us a Siberia.
As the days went by we produced many works of literary
masters--Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare, Bret Harte, O. Henry, and Frank
Norris. We never bothered about “rights” for the little one-reel
versions of five-act plays and eight hundred page novels. Authors and
publishers were quite unaware of our existence.
Arthur Johnson, Owen Moore, and Florence Lawrence played the leading
parts in our “free adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Powerful Novel.” And
it so happened that just as Prince Demetri was ready to don his fur
robes, and the poor exiles their woolen slips, for the trudge over the
snow-clad steppes, a nice hot spell came our way, and we must have been
the hottest Russians that ever endured Siberia.
Owen Moore got so querulous with the heat--he was playing one of
those handsome, cruel officers who poke bayonets at the innocent and
well-behaved exiles--that he nearly killed us throwing tables and heavy
furniture at us. I objected to the realism. We were all a bit peevish,
what with the unseasonable heat and the last moment discovery that the
costumer had sent our wrapper-like dresses in sizes miles too large.
The scene being set and rehearsals finished, there were left just
the few moments while the property man added the finishing touches
to the salt and flour snow (we had graduated from sawdust), to make
the costumes wearable. So another girl and I grabbed the lot and
rushed into a little Polish tailor shop in the basement next door and
borrowed the Polish tailor’s sewing machines so that we could put in
the necessary hems and pleats. Zip went the sewing machines--there was
no time to lose--for we could not afford two days of Russian exiles at
three dollars per day.
Nine o’clock was the morning hour of bustle and busyness at 11 East
Fourteenth Street. But the actors in their eagerness to work were
on the job long before nine sometimes. They straggled along from
all directions. They even came by the horse-drawn surface car whose
obliging and curious conductors stopped directly in front of No. 11.
And so curious became one conductor that he was not able to stand the
strain, and he quit his job of jerking Bessie’s reins, and got himself
a job as “extra.” Although the conductor’s identity was never fully
established, we had strong suspicions that it was Henry Lehrman, an
extra who had managed in a very short time to get himself called Pathé,
which was good for an Austrian.
“Actors”--graduates from various trades and professions of uncertain
standing, and actors without acting jobs, lounged all over the place,
from the street steps where they basked on mild, sunny days, into
the shady hall where they kept cool on hot days; and had they made
acquaintance with studio life, they could be found in the privacy of
the men’s one dressing-room shooting craps--the pastime during the
waiting hours.
An especially busy hour 9 A.M. when we were to start on a new picture.
What kind of a picture was it to be? The air was full of expectancy.
Who would be cast for the leads? How keen we were to work! How we hoped
for a good part--then for any kind of a part--then for only a chance
to rehearse a part. In their eagerness to get a good part in a movie,
the actors behaved like hungry chickens being fed nice, yellow corn,
knocking and trampling each other in their mad scramble for the best
bits.
This Mr. Griffith did enjoy. He would draw his chair up center, and
leisurely, and in a rather teasing way, look the company over. And when
you were being looked at you thought, “Ah, it’s going to be me.” But
in a few minutes some one else would be looked at. “No, it was going
to be he.” A long look at Owen, a long look at Charlie, a long look
at Arthur, and then the director would speak: “Arthur, I’ll try you
first.” One by one, in the same way the company would be picked. There
would be a few rough rehearsals; some one wouldn’t suit; the chief
would decide the part was more in Owen’s line. Such nervousness until
we got all set!
Indeed, we put forth our best efforts. There was too much competition
and no one had a cinch on a line of good parts. When we did “The
Cricket on the Hearth,” Mr. Griffith rehearsed all his women in the
part of _Dot_, Marion Leonard, Florence Lawrence, Violet Merserau,
and then he was nice to me. Miss Merserau, however, portrayed
_May Plummer_--making her movie début. Herbert Pryor played _John
Perrybingle_, and Owen Moore, _Edward Plummer_.
Sometimes after rehearsing a story all day our director would chuck
it as “no good” and begin on another. He never used a script and
he rehearsed in sequence the scenes of every story until each scene
dovetailed smoothly, and the acting was O. K. He worked out his story
using his actors as chessmen. He knew what he wanted and the camera
never began to grind until every little detail satisfied him.
There was some incentive for an actor to do his best. More was asked of
us than to be just a “type,” and the women couldn’t get by with just
“pretty looks.” We worked hard, but we liked it. With equal grace we
all played leads one day and decorated the back drop the next. On a day
when there would be no work whatever for you, you’d reluctantly depart.
Sometimes Mr. Griffith almost had to drive the non-working actors out
of the studio. The place was small and he needed room.
Sometimes when rehearsing a picture he liked a lot, it would be as
late as 3 P.M. before a fainting, lunchless lot of actors would hear
those welcome words, “All right, everybody, get your lunches and make
up.” Then Bobbie Harron would circulate the Childs’ menu card and the
thirty-cent allotment would be checked off. Roast beef or a ham-and-egg
sandwich, pie, tea, coffee, or milk usually nourished us. And it was
a funny thing, that no matter how rich one was, or how one might have
longed for something different, even might have been ill and needed
something special, none of us ever dreamed of spending a nickel of his
own.
While the actors ate and made up, and the carpenters were getting the
set ready, Mr. Griffith, accompanied by three or four or five or six
actors not on the working list that afternoon, would depart for a
restaurant near by. But no woman was ever invited to these parties.
This social arrangement obtained only on days when a new picture was
to be got under way. David Griffith was a generous host, but he always
got a good return on his investment. For while being strengthened on
luscious steak, steins of Pilsener, and fluffy German pancakes all done
up in gobs of melted butter, lemon juice, and powdered sugar, ideas
would sprout, and comments and suggestions come freely from the Knights
of Lüchow’s Round Table, and when the party was over they returned to
the studio all happy, and the director ready for a big day’s work.
But the other actors, now made up and costumed but fed only on
sandwiches, were wearing expressions of envy and reproach which made
the returning jolly dogs feel a trifle uncomfortable.
“Well, let’s get busy around here--wasting a hell of a lot of time--six
o’clock already--have to work all night now--now come on, we’ll run
through it--show me what you can do--Bitzer, where do you want them?
Come in and watch this, Doc.” Mr. Griffith was back on the job all
right.
One such rehearsal usually sufficed. Then Johnny Mahr with his
five-foot board would get the focus and mark little chalk crosses
on the floor, usually four, two for the foreground and two for the
background. Then Johnny would hammer a nail into each cross and with
his ball of twine, tying it from nail to nail, enclose the set. Now
a rehearsal for “lines.” And when Bitzer would say it was O. K. and
Doc beamed his round Irish smile, we would take the picture, and God
help the actor who looked at the camera or at the director when he was
shouting instructions while the scene was being photographed.
The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the
introduction of the close-up, switchback, light effects, and screen
acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct.
Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the
U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a
commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to
judge our ever-increasing popularity.
The Biograph Company readily acknowledged its young director’s
achievements, and the other companies soon took cognizance of a new and
keen competitor. The first metropolitan showings began a rivalry with
the other companies. Once in the race, we were there to win--and we
did. Biograph pictures came to mean something just a little different
from what had been. There was a sure artistic touch to them; the fine
shadings were there that mark the line between talent and genius.
David Griffith had found his place; found it long before he knew it.
In ways, it was a congenial berth. Mr. Marvin, once he saw how the
wind blew, seldom came into the studio. He was willing to let the new
producer work things out his own way. An occasional conference there
was, necessarily--a friendly chat as to how things were coming along.
Mr. Marvin was tall and dark, quite a handsome man--so approachable.
The actors felt quite at ease with him. Had he not been one of us?
Had he not directed even Mr. Griffith in a penny-in-the-slot movie?
Years later I recalled the incident to Mr. Marvin. He had forgotten it
completely, but with a hearty laugh said: “No did I really? Well, God
forgive me.”
“God forgive us all,” I answered.
Liking Mr. Marvin as we did, we did not quite understand or approve the
sudden, unexpected intrusion of Mr. J. J. Kennedy, one day.
“Oh, our _president_? Why, do you suppose,” the anxious actors queried,
“he’s become suddenly so interested?” What could poor movie actors be
expected to know of politics and high finance? Everything had been so
pleasant, we couldn’t understand it. We were rather awed by Mr. Kennedy
at first. Red-headed, pugnacious Irish Jeremiah--why, he never gave an
actor a smile or the faintest recognition, and feeling ourselves such
poor worms, as a result, we became nothing less than Sphinxes whenever
his rare but awe-inspiring presence graced the studio.
But we soon learned that “fighting J. J.” was of some importance in
this movie business. And other things about him we learned: that he was
a big man in the world of engineering--a millionaire who lived in a
lovely brownstone in Brooklyn. We soon discovered he was human, too.
It seemed Mr. Kennedy had had his affairs all settled to retire from
the world of business activities, when, in the critical days resulting
from the 1907 panic, he stepped into the breach and saved from
impending disaster the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
The little A. M. and B. Co. would have been terribly surprised had she
been told that she was to become the organization that would develop
some of the greatest of motion picture directors and stars--the
Augustin Daly stock company of the movies. For while there is never the
grind of its preposterous old camera to be heard in the length of the
land to-day, while for years (at the time of writing this, nearly ten)
all its wheels of activity have been silent, “The Old Biograph” remains
as the most romantic memory, the most vital force in the early history
of the American motion picture.
The association with these two scholarly gentlemen Messrs. Kennedy
and Marvin, unusual then as to-day in the picture business, helped to
soften the crudities of the work, and tone down the apparent rough
edges of our job. So considerate of our tender feelings were both Mr.
Marvin and Mr. Kennedy, that when either desired to visit or bring
interested friends into the studio, they would ask Mr. Griffith for
a propitious moment, and then stand off in the background as though
apologizing for the intrusion.
Mr. Griffith, but not by way of retaliation, had reason to make
intrusions on his bosses. He went pleading the cause of better screen
stories. For that was the ticklish point--to raise our artistic
standard--not to depart too rapidly from the accepted--and to keep our
product commercial.
David Griffith began feeling his wings. He dared to consider a
production of Browning’s “Pippa Passes.” If just once he could do
something radical to make the indifferent legitimate actors, critics,
writers, and a better class of public take cognizance of us! So there
resulted long discussions with the Biograph executives as to the
advisability of Browning in moving pictures, and after much persuasion
consent was eventually granted.
There was no question in our minds as to whether “Pippa Passes” would
be an artistic success. Had this classic writer fashioned his famous
poem directly for the movies he couldn’t have turned out a better
screen subject. But might not the bare idea of the high-brow Robert
scare away the moving picture public?
In those days there were several kinds of motion picture publics. In
sections of New York City, there was the dirty, dark little store,
a sheet at one end and the projection machine at the other. It took
courage to sit through a show in such a place, for one seldom escaped
without some weary soul finding a shoulder the while he indulged in
forty winks. Besides this there were the better-known Keith and Proctor
Theatres on Fourteenth Street, Twenty-third, and 125th Street, the
Fourteenth Street Theatre, and the old Academy of Music.
In the smaller American cities, the motion picture public was of
middle-class homey folks who washed their own supper dishes in a hurry
so as to see the new movie, and to meet their neighbors who, like
themselves, dashed hatless to the nickelodeon, dragging along with them
the children and the dog.
Things like this happened, when dinner hour was approaching, and mother
was anxiously awaiting her child: the neighborhood policeman would
casually saunter over to the picture house, poke his head in at the
door, spy the wanted child, tap her little shoulder, gently reproving:
“Jennie, your mother wants you”--whereupon Jennie would reluctantly
tear herself away so that the family could all sit down together to
their pot-roast and noodles.
Yes, Browning would need courage.
“Pippa Passes” being ever in Mr. Griffith’s mind these days, he scanned
each new face in the studio as he mulled over the needed characters.
The cast would be the best possible one he could get together.