I took them there copy book Maxims too seriously. You know the stuff I
mean. About—“Two bits saved is a jitney earned,” and “Save the pennies
and the dollars will draw four per cent.”
Well, here I’ve been in the fillum flurry a dozen years little one,
before the truth dawned on me. They shoulda put silencers on them Maxims
or else handed them to you with interpretations and reservations. Chief
of which same is this here: “Nothing in these articles shall be
construed as referring to THE BOSS’S MONEY.”
His bankroll is made to be shot; he isn’t happy unless it’s riddled. He
won’t say “Good Morning” to you unless you caused him to say “Good
Night, Mr. Receiver,” the day before.
I’m starting on a new picture now, Liz, and to tell the truth if I hired
an oil promoter for property man I don’t think I could spend more than
fifty thousand dollars making it a good picture. But I’ve learned the
secret—and if I break a leg doing it I am going to take more time on
this picture than George Loane Tucker needs; I’m going to spend more
money than Von Stroheim; I’m going to build more sets and tear ’em down
faster than Mickey Neilan at his best; I’m going to have a bigger
hospital bill than a Holubar production.
If I don’t spend more than two hundred and fifty thousand on this
picture I’ll be willing to take a job making LoKo comedies. Of course,
two hundred and fifty thousand doesn’t put me in the class with the big
boys but it’s a pretty fair start for a guy with wrong upbringing.
It was this nut Stroheim that give me the idea. You know, Liz, when this
Von got through serving the time in the army that all them Heinies has
to, he came here and first broke into the United States histories in the
packing room of a department store. He studied stagecraft wrapping
planks around “This Side Up” signs.
He musta come to Los in one of his own shipping cases for when I first
saw him hanging around the studios looking for extra parts he didn’t
look as though he’d ever possessed Mister Santa Fe’s price. The boys
gave him a rough deal in those days—you know it wasn’t a popular time
for gents with the “Von” handle on their monickers. But we had so many
beastly Berlin pictures that we all had to use him. He played more
German captains than there were in the Kaiser’s army.
Then one day he negotiates a ten minute loan of Carl Laemmle’s ear and
comes out of the office with the title “Director.” He earned the
brackets by guaranteeing to make a picture for twenty thousand, and
faithfully fulfilled his promise by spending not a cent more than fifty.
What’s more it was a good picture.
Universal foolishly thought the gink would be grateful for the
opportunity they gave him so they turned loose the noisiest advertising
and publicity they could. That queered it. He started going loco then
and he’s three laps ahead of a flea-bitten coyote ever since.
Stroheim spends more money now on his own clothes than he guaranteed to
make that first picture for. Out here where every director has to look
like a Hartschaffner ad touched up by a futurist painter he manages to
hold the jazz record. What a swath he cuts with the extra girls!
As for his pictures—if he reaches a cent less than five hundred thousand
on this “Foolish Wives” he’s making now he’ll probably be so peeved
he’ll try hari-kari. Why, do you know, Liz, he’s spent enough money
building Monte Carlo’s up at Monterey to relieve the housing shortage in
six states!
Do I blame him? Not a bit. If he didn’t toss the coin that way people
wouldn’t believe he was one of the biggest directors. His company would
probably fire him for getting old-fashioned. Then they’d bail Ponzi and
put him on the payroll.
Once you hadda put a close-up in every ten feet to be ranked an
up-to-date director; now you have to find new ways for filling up the
Home for Incurably Insane Cashiers.
Another fellow whose boss has to make the money with a machine is this
here fellow Holubar. I think that Holubar and Stroheim musta formed some
sorta grudge when they hung out together on the Universal lot. Now they
take it out on the boss by racing neck and neck on the Expenditure
Extravaganza.
Holubar’s just finished his first independent feature starring his wife,
Dorothy Phillips. “Man, Woman and Marriage” they calls it. Al Kaufman,
who supplied the money, must agree that this married life is expensive.
Here’s one way they ran head-long into the subtreasury, Liz:
Holubar decides that a little prehistoric stuff showing a battle of the
Amazons with the Male Brutes would be good stuff. So five hundred horses
and five hundred dames are hired and turned loose for the action. The
janes are in the near-nude, and beside you can’t expect that many girls
in one city to know how to handle horses, so quite a few of them take a
tumble when the battle reaches the rough stage. The first thing you know
the ambulances are chasing to the Holubar lot as though they belonged in
the story.
Continuity calls for the women losing the battle for the obvious reason
disclosed when a later scene shows three hundred of them nursing babies.
A hurry call is sent out for three hundred infants willing to yawl a few
hours for the movies. How that assistant director got ’em I don’t know—
but he did.
“Shucks,” says someone then. “Now we gotta get three hundred women to
nurse the infantry.” That was a tough assignment—but some miracle worker
produced the women.
Do you know what happened then, Liz? The kids went on strike! They might
be of the nursing age but hang it, they were particular where and when
they nursed And they had no sympathy for the battery of cameras anxious
to grind.
All was at a standstill. What could be done? Then a clever chap who
deserves a Croix de Gerry Society had an idea. A few whispered words,
hurried telephone call, truck load of honey arrives. Honey applied to
the proper spot, youngsters start to work with a will. Cameras click.
Isn’t it a great life in the West, Liz?—Your own ex-chauffeur friend,
Bill.
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