My appeal to Washington met with a response that has been a revelation
to me of American chivalry. We passed the border yesterday at dawn. I
faced it with some trepidation, but we received the greatest courtesy
and consideration. After reexamination of Dick (who is much better)
they retracted the verdict of trachoma.
Six weeks accumulation of mail has met me here. My head is buzzing with
taking it all in. The reading did not cheer me. From England, on all
sides gloomy accounts politically and privately. They ask me to return
to their gloom. Of course one has occasional moments of homesickness
when the desire to see one’s own world is overwhelming. But one is
happier away here. There is daylight instead of darkness. There is
air to breath. There’s life. Everything and everyone is young, vital,
active, hopeful.
We are resting for three or four days. The town has been badly
dilapidated by the recent floods. One goes in to a shop to ask for
something--and ever the same reply: “Our stock was washed away by the
flood--we cannot supply you.” We drove out to the Breckenridge Park and
beheld with amazement the impudent little stream that caused the havoc.
There is nothing to do in this semi-American, semi-Mexican town. But
the hotel is pure American, full of standardized American luxury. It
seems wonderful. I ring the bell of my bedroom and ask the room service
to send me a jug--(no a pitcher I have to call it, else they don’t
understand)--a pitcher of lemonade. I don’t always want the lemonade
but I love to see it when it comes. The glass jug is a real object of
beauty--a work of art. It is full of sliced oranges, carmine cherries,
ice and green leaved herb. It is a riot of color, a delight to the eye.
I might be drinking in a dream the sap of irridescent precious stones!
I am making use of those quiet days to try and tame Dick. At present he
is a savage. He keeps on hitching his trousers up as one unaccustomed
to wearing clothes. He exclaims: “Jesus!” when unduly stirred. He
learnt it from the Texas boys in camp. He is not sure what he may or
may not eat in his fingers and is very clumsy with his fork.
To counter-balance this he has acquired a useful knowledge of things.
For instance one of his games it to lay pipe lines--oil of course.
He knows something about locomotives, and what the very newest type
is like inside as compared with the old (the Baldwin locomotive
representative took a fancy to him). He has a smattering of knowledge
about gods and things you find in the earth. But he isn’t (at present)
fit to tea out at five o’clock in a drawing room with any of my
friends’ children.
OCTOBER 3, 1921. _Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles_.
I asked how long it would take me to get to Los Angeles. They said
three days. I had expected it to take ten hours. I cannot get used to
distances in this country.
So this is Los Angeles!
For two months, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, Mr. Washington B.
Vanderlip used to tell me, at Moscow, about Los Angeles. He would
not listen to anything about Russia. The Russians would have been
interested to hear about America, but he did not tell us about America,
he always talked about Los Angeles. No matter how remotely conversation
drifted onto other subjects, he always brought it back to Los Angeles.
Finally, one day at breakfast, about the end of the 5th week, I
suddenly realized I hated Los Angeles, and when he began again I put my
hand on his: “stop--” I said, “and let me say something about London.”
He could not bear it, and left the room. And now here I am, as I never
expected to be, actually in Los Angeles.
Mr. Goldwyn, whom I met in New York, has telegraphed to his studio
president, Mr. Lehr, and asked him to take care of me. Mr. Lehr has
placed a car at my disposal all day and every day. He has introduced me
to Gouverneur Morris and Rupert Hughes, but above all he has shown me a
new world of which I was totally ignorant.
My initiation into the realm of film production has been a revelation
to me. Possibly the great big world that pays its 25 cents to see a
“movie” show, understands all about it, knows what it costs to produce,
appreciates the toil and the thought and the plan involved. But I did
not know. Truth to tell I have seen very few films besides “The Birth
of a Nation” which taught me all I know of American History. I have
seen bits of plays being photographed out in the open “on location” in
film language, and I had gathered an idea that to be a film actress
meant that one had rather a lovely time, doing spectacular things in
beautiful and interesting surroundings. I saw their lovely photographs
in magazines. I knew that some of them became millionaires, and that
internationally known ones were mobbed through admiration if they
walked abroad. An easy path to fame, I thought, if one had the right
kind of face.
I really came to Los Angeles for no other reason than to have a glimpse
of its amusing play-land, and it has been a revelation to me.
My surprise grew as I followed Mr. Lehr from building to building.
There were departments of dress-making and store-rooms full of lovely
frocks and materials, some of the finest cloth of gold and brocades of
Italian weaving. There were cassones containing real sables and other
furs, tailors, hair-dressers, manicurists, carpenters and barbers were
all part of the organization, and a canteen that recalled to my mind
the Communist restaurants of Moscow, but where, unlike Moscow, I was
able to get an ice cream soda at almost any time of the day! There were
a bewilderment of storehouses, a sort of dreamland full of everything
and anything that anyone could want in a hurry. Tin tacks and paste,
Florentine shrines and Henry II chairs (so efficiently home-made as
to perplex an antiquary!), canary birds in cages, Buddhas, invalid
crutches and Persian carpets. Stores and stores full of what they
called “props” which I would gladly have looted. As for the “Studios”
there were three or more and they looked like the familiar “orangerie”
of some old country estate, amid trim lawns, such as I thought only
England could boast.
I was surprised that in the midst of this great industry there should
have been found time and thought to spend on abstract decoration and
beauty. The garden was full of flowers, and stone urns cast long
shadows on the grass. Strange figures passed me by; a pirate, and then
some Russian refugees and Russian children turned joyful somersaults
upon the grass. And then--the village! So quaint and old world, so
exactly like our village at home. It enchanted me, I thought it would
be a lovely place to live. I asked questions and they told me it was a
sham. I could not believe this until I had walked all round it. Such a
splendid solid sham it was, with such an unflinching front.
Then I began to wonder what was real and what was mere illusion. I
seemed to go to Russia and then to China. I looked for my Romeo in
Venice, and then felt sadly transplanted to an East Side slum. I looked
at the ground to be sure I was walking on real grass, and up at the sky
to see if I was still in the world, and then I pinched myself and it
was still me.
But in this bewildering land of make-believe I found realities. I
lingered and looked at some plays being staged in opposite parts of the
studios. I marvelled at the patience and the effort that each small
scene demanded. Patience and good temper on the part of the director,
the camera men, the electricians, the carpenters--endless, endless
patience, amazing good humor. I watched one small and--as it seemed to
me--insignificant scene being repeated three or four times, and each
time seemed to me exactly like the last, and each time, when it was
over, the director said to the actress: “That’s good, dear, that’s very
good!” But he explained to me that whereas the first “shot” was 45
feet long, the last one was reduced to 25 feet and the important thing
was condensation. I realized the necessity of co-operation between
the workers, beginning with the author’s effort, and the “continuity
writers,” right through the details to the end. What immense individual
effort, and thought and work each film scene necessitates! Here too,
as everywhere, are the heartbreaks, the dreams and ambitions, the
triumphs, the disappointments, the never ending dramas and tragedies of
human endeavor.
[Illustration: THE “RUSSIAN CASTLE” IN THE “LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE”
(Photograph by Goldwyn Pictures Corporation)
]
It is a new world to me, and I have to admit a great admiration and a
great respect for it.
I dined, a small party, at the house of Gouverneur Morris. We had a
Chinese dinner, especially prepared by his Chinese cook. All through
dinner the conversation was of Charlie Chaplin, his looks, his
individuality, incidents in their friendship, and what I had missed.
Never a word of criticism did I hear, everyone talked of him with
appreciation and affection, almost with pride. He had talked of me,
they said. He had distributed “Mayfair to Moscow” among his friends,
and most people thought we knew one another intimately. Finally I found
myself too calling him “Charlie.” From all accounts he is cultured,
thoughtful and attractive, and I wonder to myself whether I am never
to know but the mirror’d reflection. I feel like one who does not
personally know the great, but know someone who does and writes
home about it! After dinner we left the men, and went on a voyage
of exploration round the house, which is bungalow in type, and very
attractive and then in the bathroom we paused to powder our noses. In
the bathroom we remained, three of us, perched on the baths’ edge,
forgot the men, and drifted into conversation which was all absorbing.
One girl was a film actress with bobbed straight glossy henna hair.
Her face was much made up, her mouth might have been of any other
design than the painted one. She was decorative and futuristic and I
liked looking at her. She intrigued me. The other girl was a vivacious
and restless continuity-writer. Both were very young. They talked
unreservedly about their love affairs, and I listened enraptured, as to
a story of de Maupassant. In the end we were agreed that marriage would
spoil everything and then the men, impatient of our absence, came and
banged upon the bathroom door.