MARKING TIME
The serious students of the motion picture, for they had arrived, were
at this time writing many and various articles in the trade papers.
Epes Winthrop Sargent was a-saying this:
_The Moving Picture World_ more than advocates the ten cent
theatre. It looks forward to the time when the dollar photoplay
theatre will be an established institution following the advance in
quality of the films. But there will always be five cent theatres
in localities that will not support the ten cent houses and ten
cent houses for those who cannot afford fifty cents or a dollar. It
is the entertainment for the whole family.
And W. Stephen Bush, the reviewer, this, of a Biograph:
“The Battle” is a perfect picture in a splendid frame. I cannot
close without a well-deserved word of praise regarding the
women’s dresses and coiffures of the wartime period. It is in the
elaboration of such details that the master hand often betrays
itself as it does here to the last chignon on the young girls’
heads.
And an unsigned article is headlined:
Will Moving Pictures Save Madison Square Garden?
And the late Louis Reeves Harrison in his “Studio Saunterings” in _The
Moving Picture World_:
I did not meet the mighty Griffith until after I had had an
opportunity to study some examples of his marvelous work--he is the
greatest of them all when he tries--but I found him to be keenly
alive to the future possibilities of the new art to which he has so
materially contributed.... His productions show lofty inspirations
mixed with a desire to help the world along, a trend of thought
that is poetic, idealistic with a purifying and revivifying
influence upon the audience that can best be excited through
tragedy.
The inquiry department of magazines published replies of this sort
almost every week:
Since the lady is in the Biograph, we premise her name is Jane Doe.
’Tis the best we can do.
Or this:
No, John Bunny is not dead, report to the contrary notwithstanding.
Miss Turner, Miss Lawrence, Miss Pickford, Miss Gauntier, and Miss
Joyce are all alive, and there have been no funerals for Messrs.
Costello, Delaney, Johnson, Moore, or others.
Or this:
Questions about tall, thin girls two years old are barred. Keep up
to date.
Or this:
All Biograph players are either John or Jane Doe.
So while Biograph players were still nameless, Vitagraph, Lubin, Kalem,
Edison, Essanay, Melies, and Selig not only gave out players’ names but
offered exhibitors trade photos at twenty cents each, and stereoptican
slides of all players. Ambitious actors were getting out post-cards
with their photos to send the fans.
The flow of Biograph players into the ranks of the Independents left
the Biograph Company temporarily weakened. So much so that when “His
Daughter” was released in the spring of 1911 a critic said:
The picture has something of the spirit and character of the _old_
Biograph stock company’s work.
And another speaking for an open market said:
The best argument that I can offer for an open market is the
well-known fact that when Biograph was supreme, a mere sign of
“Biograph to-day” would draw the crowd. Yes, folks would rather pay
a ten cent admission and be satisfied with only two reels as long
as there was a Biograph than to visit the neighbor house with three
reels and four vaudeville acts and no Biograph. Everybody knows
what a magnet was the word “Biograph.”
But other good actors were coming to the front and the loss of the old
ones made but a brief and shallow dent in the prestige of Biograph.
On a June day in 1912 arrived little Gertrude Bambrick. She came on
pretty sister Elsie’s invitation--just to look. Sister Elsie liked the
movies, liked it at Biograph, but to get Gertrude down to the place had
required considerable coaxing. Gertrude didn’t like the place when she
finally got there. “How terrible,” said she; “why, they haven’t even
chairs, what an awful place!” She was almost ready to beat it before
she had had a good look around.
A tall, angular man had noticed the pretty little girl, and he kept
passing and repassing before her, giving her a searching look each
time. Then, one time, when directly in front of her he made an abrupt
stop and a significant beckoning of his right forefinger plainly said,
“Youngster, I would speak with thee.”
But Gertrude paid no attention to the beckoning finger. She only
thought what a funny thing for any one to do. If the man wanted to
speak to her, why didn’t he speak? Sister Elsie gave her a poke and
whispered to her secretly that it was the “great Griffith” who was
beckoning, and when he beckoned the thing to do was to follow. So,
somewhat in a daze, Gertrude started off and as she did so the actors
and others in the studio cleared a way for her much as they might for a
queen.
Mr. Griffith led the way into the ladies’ dressing-room, which, when
the actresses were out on the stage, was the only place of privacy
in the studio. There his eagle eye scrutinized the girl some more.
Gertrude now figured, being in the studio and having no business there,
she was in for a call-down, and quick on the defensive she let it be
known she was only visiting her sister--she didn’t want to work in the
pictures--she had a good job as a dancer in vaudeville with Gertrude
Hoffman--dancing was what she loved most of all, and, well----
“Well, who are _you_?” asked Gertrude.
“I’m the director down here, I’m Mr. Griffith.”
As far as Gertrude was concerned, Mr. Griffith was entirely without
honor even in a picture studio.
“So you dance,” said he, “and you don’t want to work in pictures. Well,
come down to-morrow anyhow, I want to make a test of you. And I am
going over to-night to see your show.”
“Well, all right,” said Gertrude with tolerance, “but I must get on
home now. I have to have dinner with my family.” (If one so young could
be bored, Gertrude Bambrick was just that thing.)
“I’ll send you home in my car,” said Mr. Griffith, which frightened
little Gertrude almost to pieces and which would have frightened her
more had she known that the car was a gorgeous white Packard lined with
red leather. But in she hopped, nevertheless, and when she arrived
home, and her mother opened the door, and saw a huge touring car of
colors white and red, in the days when any kind of a touring car
was a conspicuous vehicle, mother said, “Now don’t you ever do that
again--come home here in a car like that for all the neighbors to talk
about.” Gertrude promised she wouldn’t.
That evening she went to her show like a good little girl and did her
bit, and Mr. Griffith and Eddie Dillon sat out front. To show how much
he liked her work, D. W. Griffith’s big white touring car next morning,
entirely unexpected, drove up again to the Bambrick home. Gertrude had
to forego her morning sleep that day--the neighbors must not see that
rakish motor car outside the house again any longer than was necessary.
“What kind of girls will the neighbors think I have, anyhow?” said Mrs.
Bambrick, very much annoyed at the insistent person who had sent the
car.
To such extremes Mr. Griffith went to land a new
personality--particularly if that personality was so wholly indifferent
to him and his movies as Miss Gertie was. But Gertie was pretty and
graceful, and pictures were just arriving at the place where it was
thought dancing could be photographed fairly well and cabaret scenes
might be introduced to liven things up, now that picture production was
advancing toward the spectacle.
The next day little Gertrude had her “test” and sat around, and looked
on, and felt lonesome, until she suddenly spied an old friend who had
been with her in Gertrude Hoffman’s dancing chorus. Gertrude called
out, “Oh, hello, Sarah.” But Sarah Sweet, since become Blanche Sweet,
only looked blankly at the new girl. Oh, the fear that gripped at
the possibility of a new rival! Mr. Griffith was “getting it,” and he
wasn’t going to stand for it, so emphatically he spoke, “Blanche, you
know Gertie Bambrick,” at which Blanche capitulated.
“Little Mary” returned to Biograph. From “Imp,” in the fall of 1911
she had gone over to the Majestic, where she and Owen put in a brief
season. Then back to Biograph she came, but without Owen. He went to
Victor with Florence Lawrence.
Mary Pickford was now so firmly entrenched that she had no fear of
bringing other little girls to the studio. And so, on her invitation,
one day came a-visiting two sisters, one, decidedly demure; the other,
decidedly not. Things were quiet in the theatre and Mary saw no reason
why, when they could find a ready use for the money, her little friends
shouldn’t make five dollars now and then as well as the other extra
people.
Mr. Griffith rather liked the kids that Mary had brought--they were
little and slinky. He liked the elder the better of the two, she was
quiet and reserved. Dorothy was too forward. She even dared call the
big director “a hook-nosed kike,” disregarding completely his pure
Welsh descent.
The little Gish sisters looked none too prosperous in mama’s home-made
dresses.
I’ll say for the stage mamas of the little Biograph girls that they
did their bit. Mrs. Smith would sometimes make her child a new dress
overnight, and Mary would walk in on a bright morning sporting a new
pink frock of Hearn’s best gingham, only to make Gertrude Robinson feel
so orphaned, her mama seemingly the only one who had no acquaintance
with a needle.
Lillian and Dorothy Gish just melted right into the studio atmosphere
without causing a ripple. For quite a long time they merely extra-ed in
and out of the pictures. Especially Dorothy--Mr. Griffith paid her no
attention whatever, and she cried because he wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t,
so she just kept on crying and trailed along.
But she let out an awful howl when Gertie Bambrick was put on a
guaranty and she wasn’t. Their introduction to Biograph had happened
the very same day. Lillian didn’t mind so much, as she was still full
of stage ambitions. When the company left for California, Lillian went
back to the stage as a fairy in “The Good Little Devil” with Mary
Pickford. Dorothy paid her own fare to the coast. That was how popular
she was just then.
It was going to be a “big time” for Gertie Bambrick and Dorothy Gish
in Los Angeles, away from home and mothers. They ducked to the Angelus
Hotel to be by themselves, and not to be bothered by elders and
fuss-budgets. They had an idol they would emulate, and wanted to be
alone where they could practice. The idol was Mabel Normand. Could they
be like Mabel Normand, well, then they would be satisfied with life.
So bright, so merry, so pretty; oh, could they just become like Mabel!
Perhaps cigarettes would help. They bought a box. And at a grocery
store, they bought--shush--a bottle of gin. Almost they would have
swallowed poison if it would have helped them to realize their youthful
ambition. But their light had led them only as far as gin, and this
they swallowed as a before-dinner cocktail, a whole teaspoonful which
they drank right out of the teaspoon.
[Illustration: A corner of Biograph’s stylish Bronx studio. A scene
from “The Fair Rebel,” with Clara T. Bracy, Linda Griffith, Charles
Perley, Dorothy Gish and Charles West.
(_See p. 225_)
]
Yes, Mabel Normand was the most wonderful girl in the world, the most
beautiful, and the best sport. Others have thought of Mabel Normand as
these two youngsters did. Daring, reckless, and generous-hearted to
a fault, she was like a frisky young colt that would brook no bridle.
The quiet and seemingly demure little thing is the one who generally
gets away with things.
[Illustration: The beginning of the Griffith régime at 4500 Sunset
Boulevard. A tense moment in comedy. From left to right: D. W.
Griffith, Teddy Lampson, Mae Marsh, Donald Crisp, W. E. Lawrence and
Dorothy Gish.
(_See p. 248_)
]
The gay life of Dorothy and Gertrude was short-lived. Their first night
of revelry on Los Angeles’ Gay White Way was their last. Up in their
room, the night of arrival, they had planned their evening: dinner in
the grill, the movies afterward, the grill again as a finish. They put
up their hair, they slipped their skirts to the hip, the jacket just
covering the lowered waistline, and the lengthened skirt the legs. So
they sallied forth.
Their program was well-nigh fulfilled; they finished with two-thirds of
it. As they were leaving Clune’s big movie palace they were apprehended
by two men, David Griffith and Dell Henderson, who, having been out
scouting for the youngsters all evening, were just beginning to get
seriously worried over their disappearance.
Mr. Griffith had made Mr. and Mrs. Henderson responsible for the girls,
and at his suggestion they had already found an apartment for them,
not only in the same house with themselves but on the same floor,
and--adjoining. All the fun was gone out of life. This arrangement
would be worse than boarding school.
But it got worse still. Sister Lillian, at Mary Pickford’s suggestion,
decided she’d return to the movies, and so she and mother came on to
Los Angeles. That meant Dorothy and Gertrude would be transferred to
Mother Gish’s care, where their bubbling spirits and love of noisy
innocent fun would be frowned upon by the non-approving eyes of the
more sober elder sister.
Things became more complicated when Marshall Neilan began paying
ardent attentions to little Gertrude. Marshall had fallen in love with
Gertrude from seeing her on the screen, and he told Allan Dwan with
whom he had worked at the American Film Company in Santa Barbara that
he was going to marry the cute little kid.
* * * * *
In the fall of 1912 the funny little hop-skip girl had arrived on the
scene in New York. When he got back to the City, Mr. Griffith had found
need for her, and he fussed; and finally Mr. Hammer told him to send
for her. Two tickets were accordingly rushed west to Los Angeles, one
for Mae and one for Mae’s mama. In due time two members of the Marsh
family arrived. The day they reached the East the company was working
outside at some place with a meaningful name like “Millville,” where
we took small country-town stuff. The two Marshes were so excited when
they got off the train in New York and dashed to the studio at 11 East
Fourteenth Street and found the company working outdoors that they
departed immediately for “Millville.” They must get right on location.
So to “location” they hied. And when they had fluttered on to the
scene, and Mr. Griffith looked up and saw his Mae, and not his Mae’s
mama, but the fair Margaret, Mae’s sister, he was pretty mad about it.
Margaret Loveridge, as soon as sister Mae’s star began to rise in the
movie heavens, changed her name to “Marguerite Marsh”; but to her
intimates she became “Lovey Marsh.”
Little Mae Marsh back on the job, did a lot of extra work before she
got a part. Mr. Griffith worked hard with her, especially when a scene
called for a sudden transition from tranquillity to terrible alarm. But
a bright idea came to him. He had noticed in battle scenes that young
Mae became terribly frightened; so when he didn’t have war’s aid to get
the needed expression of fright, without her knowledge he would have a
double-barreled shotgun popped off a few feet from her head, and the
resultant exhibition of fear would quite satisfy the exacting director.
Mae Marsh’s first hit was in “Sands O’ Dee,” a part that Mary Pickford
had been scheduled to play, and there was quite a to-do over the change
in cast. But it was the epochal “Man’s Genesis” that brought her well
to the front, as it did also Bobby Harron. In the parts of _Lilly
White_ and _Weakhands_ their great possibilities were discerned, with
no shadow of doubt.
“Man’s Genesis” was produced under the title “Primitive Man,” and
Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dougherty had an awful time because Doc said he
couldn’t see the title and he couldn’t see the story as a serious
one--as a comedy, yes! But Mr. Griffith was determined it should be a
serious story; and he did it as such, although he changed the animal
skin clothing of the actors to clothes made of grasses. For if the
picture were to show the accidental discovery of man’s first weapon,
then the animal skins would have had to be torn off the animal’s body
by hand, and that was a bit impossible. So Mae and Bobby dressed in
grasses knotted into a sort of fabric.
“Man’s Genesis” wrote another chapter in picture history. It _was_
taken seriously by the public, as was meant, and every picture company
started right off on a movie having some version of the beginning of
man. For Mr. Griffith it was the biggest thing he had yet done, and one
of the most daring steps so far made in picture production.
Again, against great opposition David had put it over, not only on his
studio associates, but on the entire motion picture world. Besides
“Man’s Genesis,” our most talked of picture of the winter--our biggest
spectacle--was “The Massacre.”
It was taken at San Fernando. There were engaged for it several hundred
cavalry men and twice as many Indians. A city of tents, as well as
the two large ones, similar to the ones of the year before, was built
outside the borders of the town.
There was so much preparation, due to the magnitude of the production,
that the secrecy usually attending a Biograph picture did not hold in
this case, and the village of San Fernando, two miles away from the
place of the picture, declared a holiday.
The townspeople having found out just when the raid on the Indian
village and the slaughter of the men and women of the tribe was to take
place, closed up shop and school, and swarmed out to within a safe
distance of the riding and shooting incidental to Custer’s Last Fight,
and spent the day in the enjoyment of new thrills.
There was a two weeks’ fight over a sub-title in “The Massacre”--the
scrappers Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dougherty.
David never used a script, and a sub-title never was written until
he was convinced that one was necessary to elucidate a situation. A
picture finished, at its first running we would watch for places where
the meaning seemed not sufficiently clear; where we doubted if the
audience would “get” it. And in such a place in the film, a title would
be inserted. So “The Massacre” finished, and being projected, this
scene was reached:
Horses with riders dashing madly down the foreground, the enemy
in pursuit, then the riders dismounting and using the horses as a
barricade, shooting over them.
Here arose the disagreement about the sub-title. Mr. Griffith wanted to
insert a caption “Dismounting for Defense.” Mr. Dougherty said, “The
audience will know that is what they are doing.” But Mr. Griffith was
not so sure about it, so he said: “Now I think, I’d just like to have
the title; they may not know what I am trying to show.”
“Yes, they will,” said Doc.
Even Mr. Kennedy was swept into the debate. As the argument continued
his morning greeting became, “Well, are you still at it, you Kilkenny
cats?”
The title went in. How it would improve some pictures in these days to
have two weeks of conversation over a sub-title. How a good old row
with the whole force would perk things up for some directors, for too
many of them, poor things, have had their pictures yes-ed to death by
the fulsome praise of their assistants; the “yes-sirs” who, grouped in
friendly intimacy about their director, have only one answer when he
says: “Do you like that scene?”
“Oh, yes, sir, the scene is wonderful.”
“Do you like that title?”
“Oh, yes, sir, the title is great.”
But that is how the “yes-sirs” hold their jobs!
* * * * *
Before the year 1912 ended, Lionel Barrymore had been acquired. His
plunge movie-ward was inauspicious.
“Who’s the new man?”
“That’s John Barrymore’s brother.”
“Never heard of him--is he an actor?”
“No, he’s an artist, just back from Paris, been studying painting,”
answered the wise guys.
* * * * *
On the return trip east this winter, a stop-over was made at
Albuquerque to secure legitimate backgrounds for some Hopi Indian
pictures. One, especially atmospheric, was “A Pueblo Legend” with Mary
Pickford.