CUDDEBACKVILLE
I was not one of the select few who made the first trip to
Cuddebackville, New York. I had been slated for a visit to my husband’s
folks in Louisville, Kentucky, and while there this alluring adventure
was slipped over on me.
A new picture was being started out at Greenwich, Connecticut, at
Commodore Benedict’s, the day I was leaving, and as I was taking a late
train, I was invited out on a farewell visit, as it were.
The picture was “The Golden Supper,” taken from Tennyson’s “Lover’s
Tale.” I arrived just in time for the Princess’s royal funeral. Down
the majestic stairway of the Commodore’s palatial home, the cortège
took its way, escorting on a flower-bedecked stretcher, in all her
pallid beauty, the earthly remains of the dead little princess.
Now in the movies, if anywhere, a princess must be beautiful. I knew
not who was playing this fair royal child until the actors put the bier
down, and the princess sat up, when I was quite dumbfounded to see our
own little Dorothy West come to life.
Dorothy had done nicely times before as a little child of the ghetto
and as frail Italian maids of the peasant class, and now here she was a
full-fledged princess. So, in my amazement, I said to my husband, for
it was a sincere, impersonal interest in the matter that I felt: “Is
Dorothy West playing the Princess? Aren’t you taking a chance?” With
great assurance he answered, “Oh, with the photography we now have, I
can make them all beautiful.”
Next day, as the lovely Shenandoah Valley spread out before me, I kept
hearing those startling words, “Oh, with the photography we now have, I
can make them all beautiful.”
“The Mended Lute” was perhaps the first picture produced with the
inspiring background of Cuddebackville scenery. Florence Lawrence,
Owen Moore, and Jim Kirkwood the leading actors. David wrote me to
Louisville on his return to New York:
DEAR LINDA:
Well, I am back in New York. Got back at twelve o’clock last
night.... I have accounts to make out for eight days, imagine that
job, can you?
Haven’t had my talk with Mr. Kennedy as yet, as I have been away,
but expect to on Tuesday or Wednesday as soon as I can see him.
Lost six pounds up in the country, hard work, if you please....
And then I want to go back to that place again and take you
this time because it’s very fine up there. I am saving a great
automobile ride for you--if I stay....
“If I stay”--always that “if.” A year had now rolled by and in August
Mr. Griffith would sign his second contract--_if_ he stayed.
The hegira to Cuddebackville had been undertaken to show Biograph
officials what could be done by just forgetting the old stamping
grounds adjacent to Fort Lee. Contract-signing time approaching, Mr.
Griffith wanted to splurge. A number of scripts had collected that
called for wild mountainous country, among them “The Mended Lute.”
Mr. Kennedy and our secretary, Mr. R. H. Hammer; Mr. Griffith and
his photographer, Mr. Bitzer, sitting in conference had decided upon
a place up in the Orange Mountains called Cuddebackville. It had
scenic possibilities, housing facilities, and lacked summer boarders.
Through an engineering job--the construction of a dam at one end of
the old D. L. and W. Canal, on whose placid waters in days gone by the
elder Vanderbilt had towed coal to New York--Mr. Kennedy had become
acquainted with Cuddebackville.
Unsuspecting sleepy little village, with your one small inn, your
general store, and your few stray farms! How famous on the map of movie
locations you were to become! How famous in many lands your soft, green
mountains, your gently purling streams, your fields of corn!
“The Mended Lute” would be Mr. Griffith’s catch-penny. The beauties he
had crowded in the little one-reeler should suffice to bowl over any
unsuspecting President. So this “Cuddebackville Special,” along with
several others that had collected awaiting Mr. Kennedy’s pleasure, was
projected for the authorities. And David signed up for another year at
an increase in salary and a doubling of his percentage. And he could go
to Cuddebackville whenever he so desired.
Of course, the next time _she_ went, and she had that “great automobile
ride” that he was saving for her.
Joy, but didn’t they become delirious, the actors slated for a
Cuddebackville week. A week in the mountains in August, with no hotel
bill, and pay checks every day! Few there were so ultra modern that
they would take no joy in the bleating of the lambs but would prefer
their city third floor back.
Much preparation for such a week. We had to see that our best blouse
was back from the laundry and our dotted swiss in order for evening,
our costumes right, and grease-paint complete, for any of us might be
asked to double up for Indians before the week was over.
It was a five-hour trip--a pretty one along the Hudson to West
Point--then through the Orange Mountains. Our journey ended at a little
station set in a valley sweet with tasseled corn and blossoming white
buckwheat. In the distance--mountains; near by--beckoning roads lined
with maples. It was the longest stop that an Ontario and Western train
had ever made at Cuddebackville. Such excitement and such a jam on
the little platform! No chance to slink in unnoticed as on the first
unpretentious visit.
“Were we sure it was the right place?” the conductor kept asking.
“Oh, yes, quite so.”
Damned if he could make it out. For we didn’t look like farmers come
to settle in the country; nor like fishermen come to cast for trout in
the Neversink--we had nothing with us that resembled expensive fishing
rods and boots; nor did we look like a strange religious sect come to
worship in our own way. No, nor might we have been one of a lost tribe
of Cuddebacks who after years of vain searching had at last discovered
the remote little spot where the first Monsieur Caudebec had pitched
his tent so far from his own dear France. As the train steamed on its
way, from the rear platform the conductor was still gazing, and I
thought he threw us a rather dirty look.
[Illustration: The most artistic fireside glow of the early days. From
“The Drunkard’s Reformation,” with Linda Griffith, Arthur Johnson and
Adele De Garde.
(_See p. 128_)
]
[Illustration: The famous “light effect.” From “Pippa Passes,” with
Gertrude Robinson.
(_See p. 97_)
]
An express wagon was waiting for our load of stuff--big wads of
canvas for the teepees, cameras, and costume baskets. A man in a red
automobile was also waiting--Mr. Predmore, who owned Caudebec Inn where
we were to stop. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Bitzer and a few other of the
important personages took their places in the automobile--the second
in the county--the “Red Devil” we afterwards called it. The actors
straggled along.
[Illustration: From “The Mills of the Gods,” with Linda Griffith and
Arthur Johnson.
(_See p. 49_)
]
[Illustration: Biograph’s first Western studio. Scene from “The
Converts,” with Linda Griffith, Arthur Johnson and Marion Leonard.
(_See p. 150_)
]
Caudebec Inn was no towering edifice--just a comfy place three stories
high, with one bathroom, a tiny parlor, rag-rugged, and a generously
sized dining-room whose cheerful windows looked upon apple orchards.
It was neat and spotlessly clean. On two sides were broad piazzas. The
inn faced the basin at the head of the old D. L. and W. Canal, and the
canal took its pretty way alongside for a mile or more until it spilled
itself over a busted dam (Mr. Kennedy’s I opined--it was the only one
about), making lovely rapids which later we used in many a thriller.
It was extremely fortunate that we were the only guests. We filled the
place. Such a thing as an actor having a room to himself, let alone a
bed, was as yet unheard of in those vagrant days. Mr. Powell doubled
and sometimes tripled them. Some actors got awfully Ritzy, resenting
especially the tripling, and at night would sneak downstairs hoping to
find a nice vacant hammock on the porch. But that had all been looked
into. The hammock would be occupied by some lucky devil whose snores
were being gently wafted on the soft summer breezes. Three in a bed,
two in a cot, or two in a hammock--the stringy old-fashioned kind of
hammock--which would offer the better comfort?
Immediately after lunch, the boss and Billy Bitzer, with Mr. Predmore
at the wheel, would depart in “The Red Devil” on a location hunt. The
carpenters must get right to work on their stockade. The actors were
soon busy digging out costumes and grease paint boxes, and getting made
up and costumed; for as soon as the chief returned, he would want to
grab a couple of scenes if the light still held. The making up was not
a quiet process. As the actors acquired brown grease paint and leather
trappings, animal skins and tomahawks--what a pow-wow!
When the Cuddeback farmer first met the Biograph Indian, “Gad,” thought
he, “what was the world coming to anyhow? Moving picture people? Smart
folks to have found their Cuddebackville. Who’d have believed it? New
York City actors riding up and down their roads, and stopping off to do
wicked stage acting right in front of their best apple tree.”
“Hey there, Hiram, how’ll five bucks suit you?”
Hiram was a bit deaf.
“No? Ten? All right, here she is.”
Hiram we won completely. He hoped we’d come often. And the Big Farmer’s
“help” were with us heart and soul. We sometimes used them for
“extras” and paid them five dollars. Back to the farm at five per week
after that? No, they’d wait and loaf until the “picture people” came
again. The picture people nearly demoralized the farming business in
Cuddebackville and environs--got the labor situation in a terrible mess.
* * * * *
There was need for a stone house in “1776” or “The Hessian Renegades,”
and for “Leather Stocking”--a genuine pre-revolutionary stone house.
Three saddle horses were also needed. For the moment we were stumped.
Toward late afternoon when the light began to fail us, we would utilize
the time hunting the morrow’s locations. This fading hour found Billy
Bitzer, David, and myself (myself still in Janice Meredith costume and
curls of “1776”) enjoying the physical luxury of the “Red Devil,” but
mentally disturbed over the stone house and horses. We happened to
turn into a pretty road; we spied a beautiful gateway and beyond the
gateway, grassy slopes and wonderful trees and pools of quiet water.
“Let’s stop here a minute,” said Mr. Griffith. “Whose place is this?”
“I’d never go in there, if I were you,” answered Mr. Predmore. “That
place belongs to Mr. Goddefroy, he’s the wealthiest man around here;
won’t have an automobile on his place and is down on anybody who rides
in one; has fine stables and the automobiles are just beginning to
interfere with his horseback rides. I don’t know just how he’d receive
you. Anyhow I can’t drive you in in this car of mine.” So we parked
outside in the roadway.
“We’ve got to work in here, that’s all there is to it,” said David,
looking about. But where did anybody live? The road wound up and up.
Sheep nibbling on the velvet grass were mixed in with a few prize pigs
taking their siestas beneath beautiful copper beeches. “Certainly is
some place,” he continued. We had sauntered up the gravel road quite
to the hilltop before we saw coming towards us across the lawn, a
bright-eyed, pink-cheeked woman in simple gingham dress. She greeted us
pleasantly. The situation was explained and the lady replied, “Well,
that is very interesting, and as far as I am concerned you are quite
welcome to take some pictures here, but you must ask the boss first.”
Over by his stables we found the “Boss.”
“We’d like to take some pictures, please, on your beautiful place.”
Stone houses and horses we had quite forgotten for the moment in the
wealth of moving picture backgrounds the estate provided. “We’re
stopping up at the Inn for a week--doing some Fenimore Cooper stories,
and we are looking primarily for a stone house and some horses.”
“Have you seen the old stone house down below?”
“Stone house?” I repeated to myself; then to be sure, whispered to
Bitzer, “Did he say a _stone_ house?”
Bitzer replied, “Yes, he said a stone house.” Mr. Griffith managed to
pull himself together, but his answer came rather halting, “Why, why,
no.”
“Come along and I’ll show you. Maybe you can use it.”
Weak-kneed and still struggling for breath we trailed along--and when
we saw it--
Just built for us was the old stone house that had been on the place so
long that no one knew when it had been built. But we hesitated. “We’ll
have to bring horses, because the party leaves on horseback, and that
would mess up your place too much.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot, you haven’t your horses yet. I wonder if some
of ours would do,” said Mrs. Goddefroy, who was none other than the
gingham-clad lady.
Back to the stable we went, emotionally upset by now, but trying to
appear calm. We’d been quite reconciled to take a stab at it with the
rough work-horses of the Cuddebackville farmer; had thought to groom
them up a bit and let it go at that. But here were gentlemen’s horses.
Yes, gentlemen’s horses, but neither Miss Leonard nor myself rode, and
these spirited prancing creatures of the Goddefroy stables filled us
with alarm. I would look for something “gentle,” and not too young and
peppy, but with the characteristics of good breeding and training.
And that is how “Mother” and I met.
“Mother” is one of the treasured memories of my motion picture life.
What a gentle old mother she was! healthy, so lazy, and so safe. How
relieved I was--how at ease on her broad back. “Mother” ambled on the
scene and “Mother” ambled off; she ate the grasses and the flowers on
the canal bank; she was not a bit concerned over having her picture
taken. I have always felt the credit was wholly hers that my uncle, my
sister, and I made our journey safely until the bad Indians surprised
us going through the woods.
* * * * *
It was lots of fun being invited on these location-hunting expeditions.
An automobile ride was luxury. These were the first and we were getting
them for nothing. No, the picture business was not so bad after all.
Back at the Inn the Indians would be changing from leather fringes and
feathered head dresses to their bathing suits. And when the location
party returned, they’d have reached the green slopes of the Big Basin
where, soap in hand, they would be sudsing off the brown bolamenia
from legs and arms before the plunge into the cool waters of the Big
Basin--a rinse and a swim “to onct.”
The girls who “did” Indians had the privacy of the one bathroom for
their cleaning up. So they were usually “pretty” again, lounging in
the hammocks or enjoying the porch rockers; a few would be over in the
spring house freshening up on healthful spring water; a few at the
General Store buying picture post-cards.
And then came dinner and in ones, twos, and threes, the company
strolled in--a hungry lot. Frail little Mrs. Predmore wondered would
she ever get the actors fed up. It took her the week usually, she
afterwards confided. When the cook would let her, she’d go into the
kitchen and make us lemon meringue pies. The actors were always hoping
the cook would leave, or get sick, or die, so Mrs. Predmore could cook
all the dinner.
Sometimes we were very merry at dinner. When Arthur Johnson would
arrive bowing himself gallantly in, in a manner bred of youthful
days as a Shakespearean actor with the Owen Dramatic Company, loud
and hearty applause would greet him, which he’d accept with all the
smiling, gracious salaams of the old-time ten, twenty, and thirty
tragedian.
* * * * *
Evening at Cuddebackville!
The biggest thrill would be an automobile ride to Middletown, nine
miles away. If Mr. Predmore weren’t busy after dinner, he’d take us.
It was a joyful ride over the mountains to Middletown, quite the most
priceless fun of an evening. Every one was eager for it except the
little groups of twos, who, sentimentally inclined, were paddling a
canoe out on the basin or down the canal. There would be Mary Pickford
and Owen Moore, and James Kirkwood and Gertrude Robinson, and Stanner
E. V. Taylor and Marion Leonard, experiencing tense moments in the
silence broken only by the drip, drip of the paddle beneath the mellow
moon. Romance got well under way at Cuddebackville.
The evening divertisements became more complex as we became better
acquainted. “Wally” Walthall, Arthur Johnson, and Mack Sennett became
our principal parlor entertainers. “Wally” rendered old southern
ditties as only a true southern gentleman from Alabama could.
Arthur Johnson and Mack Sennett did good team-work; they were our Van
and Schenck. Arthur, who presided at the piano, had a sentimental
turn; he liked “The Little Grey Home in the West” kind of song, but the
future producer of movie comedies was not so sentimentally disposed. As
long as harmony reigned in the camp of Johnson and Sennett, there were
tuneful evenings for the musically inclined. But every now and then
Sennett would get miffed about something and never a do-re-mi would
be got out of him, and when Arthur’s nerves could stand the strain no
longer, he’d burst forth to the assemblage, “I wouldn’t mind if he’d
fuss with me, but this silence thing gets my goat.”
Those who cared not for the Song Festival could join Jeanie Macpherson
who, out in the dining-room, would be supervising stunts in the world
of black magic. Here Tony O’Sullivan could always be found. He told
hair-raising ghost stories and wound up the evening’s fun by personally
conducting a tour through the cemetery. The cemetery lay just beyond
the apple orchard, and along the canal bank to the back of the Inn.
Now were the moon bright, the touring party might get a glint of
lovers paddling by. Arrived back at the Inn, they might greet the “Red
Devil” returning with a small exclusive party from the Goddefroys--Mr.
Griffith and Miss Arvidson, Mr. Powell and Miss Hicks.
There was just one little touch of sin. Secluded in an outbuilding some
of the boys played craps, sometimes losing all their salary before they
got it. One of the men finally brought this wicked state of affairs to
Mr. Griffith’s attention, and there were no more crap games.
* * * * *
In front of Caudebec Inn the “Red Devil” is snorting and getting
impatient to be started on her way to the station, for the actors are
strolling down the road ahead of her. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Predmore
are just finishing the final “settling up” of the board bill. Little
Mrs. Predmore looking tinier than ever--she seemed to shrivel during
our strenuous weeks--is gratefully sighing as she bids us farewell. She
was glad to see us come, and she was glad to see us go.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, out in Hollywood, the Japs are still raising carnations,
and a few bungalow apartment houses are just beginning to sprout on
the Boulevard; but otherwise the foothills continue their, as yet,
undisturbed sleep beneath the California sunshine.