Across the way unsightly tenements grinned like a company of draggletail
crones who had heard a rare lot about the goings-on of picture actors
and, through this happy accident of propinquity, were in a position to
tell the world it didn't know the half of it. Children liberally
embellished with local colour swarmed on sidewalks where ash and
garbage-cans flourished in subtropical luxuriance, and disputed the
roadway with the ramshackle wagons and push-carts of peddlers,
horse-drawn drays, and grinding, gargantuan motor-trucks that snarled
ferociously at the aliens, the frail, pretty pleasure cars from Fifth
avenue. Apparently an abattoir was languishing nearby, discouraged in
its yearning to lose consciousness of self in the world's oblivion. At
the end of the street the Hudson ran, a glimpse of incredible blue
furrowed by snowy wakes.
Such the nursery in which what Mr. Culp (or his press agent) had
brilliantly imaged as the youngest, fairest sister of the plastic arts
was fostering the finest flower of its expression, to wit, the artistry
of Alma Daley....
"Like a lily springing from the mire," Fanny Lontaine murmured.
Lucinda laughed and gave Fanny's arm a mock-pinch, grateful for any
gleam of wit to lighten life's dull firmament. The temper in which she
had left Bel at the Ritz had been quick to cool; and though its cooling
had not affected her determination to brook no longer his misconduct,
she was beginning to experience premonitions of that debacle whose event
was certain if this breach, so lately opened, were to widen.
If it should come to a break asunder, what would become of her? of the
home she loved so well? and what of Bel, whom she loved best of all?
In the eyes of Dobbin, as he waited for her at the main entrance to the
building, she read too shrewd a question; and understanding that she had
for a moment let fall her mask, she hastily resumed that show of
debonair amusement which was her heart's sole shield against the tearing
beaks and talons of envy, malice and all manner of uncharitableness.
Fortunately there was something to jog her sense of humour in the utter
absence of preparations to receive them, such as Lontaine had
confidently promised.
A sense of hostility made itself felt even in the bare antechamber, a
vestibule with makeshift walls of match-boarding, and for all features a
wooden bench, a card-board sign, NO CASTING TODAY, a door of woven iron
wire at the mouth of a forbidding tunnel, and a window which framed the
head of a man with gimlet eyes, a permanent scowl, and a cauliflower
ear.
Interviewed by Lontaine, this one grunted skeptically but consented to
pass on the name and message to some person unseen, then resumed his
louring and distrustful watch, while beyond the partition the
professional sing-song of a telephone operator made itself heard:
"Lis'n, sweetheart. Mista Fountain's here with a party, says he's got
'nappointmunt with Mista Culp.... Wha' say?... Oh, a'right, dearie. Say,
Sam: tell that party Mista Culp's into a conf'rince, but they kin go up
to the stage if they wanta an' stick around till he's dis'ngaged."
With every symptom of disgust the faithful watchdog pressed a button on
the window ledge, a latch clicked, the wire door swung back, the party
filed through and in twilight stumbled up two flights of creaking steps
to a tiny landing upon which a number of doors stood all closed, and
each sternly stencilled: PRIVATE.
After a moment of doubt during which even Lontaine began to show signs
of failing patience, one of the doors opened hastily and ejected a
well-groomed, nervously ingratiating young man, who introduced himself
as Mr. Lane, secretary to Mr. Culp, and said he had been delegated to do
the honours. A public-spirited soul, he shook each visitor warmly by the
hand, protested that he was genuinely pleased to meet them all, then
threw wide another of the PRIVATE doors.
"This is the main stage, ladies. Miss Daley is working on one of the
sets now, making the final scenes for her latest picture, 'The Girl in
the Dark'; so if you'll be kind enough not to talk out loud while she's
before the camera.... Miss Daley is very, er, temperamental,
y'understand...."
Reverently the barbarians obeyed a persuasive wave of Mr. Lane's hand
and tiptoed into the studio, to huddle in a considerately awe-stricken
group on one side of an immense loft with a high roof of glass.
Stage, as the layman understands that term, there was none; but the
floor space as a whole was rather elaborately cluttered with what
Lucinda was to learn were technically known as "sets," in various stages
of completion and demolition; a set being anything set up to be
photographed, from a single "side" or "flat" with a simple window or
door, or an "angle" formed of two such sides joined to show the corner
of a room, up to the solid and pretentious piece of construction which
occupied fully one-half of the loft and reproduced the Palm Room at the
Ritz-Carlton, not without discrepancies to be noted by the captious, but
by no means without fair illusion.
On a modest set near at hand, apparently a bedchamber in a home of
humble fortunes, a bored chambermaid in checked shirt and overalls, with
a cigarette stuck behind his ear, was making up the bed.
In another quarter a number of workmen were noisily if languidly engaged
in knocking down a built wall of real brick and lugging away sections of
a sidewalk which had bordered it, light frames of wood painted to
resemble stone.
At the far end of the room a substantial set represented a living-room
that matched up with the bedchamber nearer at hand, or seemed to, for a
good part of it was masked from Lucinda's view by a number of massive
but portable metal screens or stands arranged in two converging ranks,
at whose apex stood a heavy tripod supporting a small black box. To
these stands lines of insulated cable wandered over the floor from every
quarter of the room. Just back of the tripod several men were lounging,
gazing off at the set with an air of listless curiosity. The spaces
between the screens afforded glimpses of figures moving to and fro with,
at that distance, neither apparent purpose nor animation.
Elsewhere about the studio, in knots, by twos and singly, some
twenty-five or thirty men and women, mostly in grease-paint and more or
less convincing afternoon dress, were lounging, gossiping, reading
newspapers, or simply and beautifully existing.
An enervating atmosphere of apathy pervaded the place, as if nothing of
much moment to anybody present was either happening or expected to
happen. An effect to which considerable contribution was made by the
lugubrious strains of a three-piece orchestra, piano, violin, and
'cello, stationed to one side of the living-room set.
At first sight this trio intrigued Lucinda's interest. To her its
presence in a motion-picture studio seemed unaccountable, but not more
so than patience with its rendition of plaintive and tremulous melodies
of a bygone period, tunes which one more familiar with the cant of the
theatre would unhesitatingly have classified as "sob stuff," and to
which nobody appeared to be paying any attention whatever.
Mystified to the point of fascination, she studied the musicians
individually.
The pianist, perched sideways on his stool and fingering the keyboard of
an antique upright without once looking at the music on its rack, as
often as not played with one hand only, using the other to manipulate a
cigarette which he was smoking in open defiance of the many posted
notices that forbade this practice.
The violinist, stretched out with ankles crossed, occupied a common
kitchen chair which his body touched at two places only, with the end of
his spine and the nape of his neck. His eyes were half-shut, his bowing
suggested the performance of a somnambulist.
The 'cellist, too, seemed to be saved from falling forward from his
chair solely by the instrument which his knees embraced. His head
drowsily nodding to the time, the fingers of his left hand automatically
stopped the strings at which his right arm sawed methodically. An honest
soul, a journeyman who for a set wage had contracted to saw so many
chords of music before the whistle blew and was honestly bent on doing
his stint....
Mr. Lane, having excused himself for a moment, returned from consulting
some member of the group round the tripod.
"'Sall right," he announced with a happy smile. "They won't begin
shooting a while yet. You can come closer if you want, I'll show you
where to stay so's you won't be in the way."
Guided by him, the exotics gingerly picked their way across the banks,
coils, loops and strands of electric cable that ran in snaky confusion
all over the floor, like exposed viscera of the cinema; and Lucinda
presently found herself on the side lines of the living-room, between it
and the dogged orchestra, and well out of range of the camera.
She could now see three people on the set, two men with a girl whom,
thanks to the wide circulation of the lady's photographs, she had no
difficulty in identifying as Alma Daley herself--a prepossessing young
person with bobbed hair, a boldly featured face, comely in the flesh
rather than pretty, and a slight little body whose emaciation told a
tale of too-rigorous dieting and which she used not unpleasingly but
with a rather fetching effect of youthful gaucherie. Her make-up for the
camera was much lighter and more deftly applied than seemed to be the
rule. Gowned effectively if elaborately in a street dress hall-marked by
the rue de la Paix, she was leaning against a table and lending close if
fatigued attention to the quiet conversation of the two men.
Of these one was tall and dark, with a thick mane of wavy black hair, a
wide and mobile mouth, and great, melancholy eyes. His well-tailored
morning-coat displayed to admiration a splendid torso. The other was a
smaller, indeed an undersized man, who wore a braided smoking-jacket but
no paint on his pinched, weather-worn face of an actor. His manner was
intense and all his observations (and he was doing most of the talking)
were illustrated by gesticulation almost Latin in its freedom and
vividness.
"King Laughlin," Mr. Culp's secretary informed Lucinda--"man in the
smoking-jacket, he always wears one when he's working--greatest
emotional director in the business, nobody can touch him. Why, alongside
him, Griffith's a joke in a back number of Judge. You wouldn't guess
what he gets: thirty-five hundred."
"That's almost a thousand a week, isn't it?"
"Thousand a _week_!" Mr. Lane suspiciously inspected Lucinda's profile.
Could it be possible that this well-born lady was trying to kid him? But
no; he could see she was quite guileless. In accents of some compassion
he corrected: "Three-thousand five-hundred every week's what King
Laughlin drags down in the little old pay en_vel_ope. But that's Mr.
Culp all over; expense's no object when he's making an Alma Daley
picture, nothing's too good."
"I'm sure...." Lucinda agreed vaguely.
Out of the corner of an eye the director had become aware of a new
audience and one worthy of his mettle, and he was already preparing to
play up to it. Dropping the easy, semi-confidential manner in which he
had been advising the younger and taller man, with surprising animation
Mr. King Laughlin snatched a silk hat and stick from the other's
unresisting hands.
"Right-O, Tommy!" he said in the nasal tone of the English Midlands. "I
think you've got me now, but just to make sure I'll walk through it with
Alma." He turned graciously to the woman: "Now, Alma dear...."
Miss Daley, herself not unconscious of a fashionable gallery, shrugged
slightly to signify that she didn't mind if Mr. Laughlin thought it
really worth while, it was all in the day's drudgery, and made a
leisurely exit from the set by way of a door in its right-hand wall. At
the same time Mr. Laughlin walked off by a door approximately opposite,
and the young man in the morning-coat strolled down to the front of the
set and settled himself to observe and absorb the impending lesson.
Mr. Laughlin then re-entered in character as a degage gentleman with an
uneasy conscience, indicating this last by stealthily opening and
peering round the edge of the door before coming in and closing it with
caution, and gentility by holding hat and stick in one hand and
carelessly trailing the ferrule of the stick behind him. Relieved to
find the room untenanted, he moved up to the table, placed the hat on it
crown-down, propped the stick against it, turned and gave the door in
the right-hand wall a hard look, then bent over the table and pulled out
and began to ransack one of its drawers. Thus engaged, he said clearly:
"_All right, Alma!_" and immediately gave a start, whereby it appeared
that he had heard footfalls off, and slammed the drawer. At this Miss
Daley entered, a listless little figure so preoccupied with secret woe
that she quite failed at first to see Mr. Laughlin, and when she did
gave a start even more violent than his had been, clasping both hands to
her bosom and crying out in a thrilling voice: "_Egbert!_"
Mr. Laughlin kept his temper admirably under the sting of this epithet;
all the same, anyone could see he didn't fancy it a bit. However, first
and always the gentleman, he offered Miss Daley a magnanimous gesture of
outstretched hands. Instantly the poor girl's face brightened with a
joyous smile, a happy cry trembled upon her lips as she ran to his arms.
He enfolded her, with a fond hand ground her features into the shoulder
of his smoking-jacket, and turned his own toward the camera, working
them into a cast of bitter anguish.
Gently rescuing herself, Miss Daley discovered _Egbert's_ hat and stick,
turned to him and looked him up and down with dawning horror, audibly
protesting: "_But Egbert! you are going out!_" He attempted a
disclaimer, but it wouldn't wash, the evidence of the top hat and the
smoking-jacket was too damning; and in the end he had to give in and
admit that, well, yes, he was going out, and what of it.
Evidently Miss Daley knew any number of reasons why he ought to stay in,
but she made the grave mistake of trying to hold him with affection's
bonds, throwing herself upon his neck and winding her arms tightly round
it. And that was too much: _Egbert_ made it clear that, while he'd stand
a lot from a woman to whom he was Everything, there was such a thing as
piling it on too thick. And against her frenzied resistance he grasped
her frail young wrists, brutally broke her embrace, and flung her from
him. She fell against the table, threw back her head to show the pretty
line of her throat, clutched convulsively at her collar-bone, and
subsided upon the floor in a fit of heart-broken sobbing; while _Egbert_
callously took his hat, clapped it on his head, and marched out by a
door in the rear wall, his dignity but slightly impaired by the fact
that the hat was several sizes too large and would have extinguished him
completely if it hadn't been for his noble ears.
Without pause Mr. Laughlin doubled round to the front of the set, threw
the waiting actor a brusque "See, Tommy? Get what I mean?" and
encouraged Miss Daley with "That's wonderful, Alma dear. Now go on,
right through the scene."
Miss Daley, lying in complete collapse, with her head to the camera,
writhed up on an elbow, planted her hands upon the floor and by main
strength pushed her heaving shoulders away from it, keeping a tortured
face turned to the camera throughout. Then she got her second wind,
caught hold of the edge of the table, pulled herself up, looked around
wildly, realized that she was a deserted woman, saw her hat by Tappe
hanging on the back of a morris-chair by Ludwig Baumann, seized it,
rushed to the door by which _Egbert_ had escaped, and threw herself out
in pursuit.
Mr. Laughlin clapped gleeful hands.
"Fine, Alma, wonderful! You're simply marvelous today, dear. Now Tommy,
run through it just once with Alma, and then we'll shoot."
Mr. Lane bustled about and found chairs for Lucinda and her friends,
upon which they composed themselves to watch Tommy interpret Mr. King
Laughlin's tuition in the art of acting for the screen.
To the best of Lucinda's judgment, however, the greater part of Mr.
Laughlin's efforts had meant to Tommy precisely nothing at all. Beyond
the rudimentary mechanics of the physical action sketched in by the
director, Tommy made no perceptible attempt to follow pattern, and
disregarding entirely its conventional but effective business,
embellished the scene instead with business which was, such as it was,
all his own, or more accurately that of a dead era of the speaking
stage.
Like a wraith of histrionism recalled from the theatre of _East Lynne_
and _The Silver King_, Tommy carved out his effects with flowing, florid
gestures, and revived the melodramatic stride and heroic attitudinizing;
and though he wilfully made faces at the camera throughout, he
demonstrated the deep veneration in which he really held it by never
once showing it his back, until, having duly spurned the clinging
caresses of Miss Daley, he was obliged to march to the door, and even
then he made occasion to pause with a hand on the knob and, throwing out
his chest and fretfully tossing rebellious black locks from tragic
brows, granted the camera the boon of one last, long look at him ere
making his exit.
And when Mr. Laughlin tranquilly approved this performance and announced
that they would forthwith "shoot it," Lucinda began to wonder if there
were possibly something wrong with her own powers of observation.
"But," she protested to Mr. Lane, who had coolly elected himself her
special squire and placed his chair close to hers--"that man they call
Tommy--he didn't play the scene as Mr. Laughlin did."
"Oh, Tommy Shannon!" said Mr. Lane equably--"Tommy's all right, he knows
what he's doing--best leading man in the movin' picture business, bar
none. King Laughlin knows he can trust Tommy to put it over his own
way. All you got to do is to let Tommy Shannon alone and he'll ring the
gong every shot."
"But if that's the case, why did Mr. Laughlin take so much trouble to
show him----?"
"Well, you see, it's this way," Mr. Lane explained: "King's all right,
and Tommy's all right, too, both stars in their line; but if Tommy don't
see a scene the way King shows him, and King starts to bawl him out,
why, Tommy'll just walk off the lot. And then where are you? You can't
finish your picture without your leading man, can you? And there's maybe
a hundred-and-fifty or two-hundred thousand dollars invested in this
production already. One of the first things a director's got to learn in
this game is how to handle actors. That's where King Laughlin's so
wonderful, he never had an actor quit on him yet."
"I see," said Lucinda thoughtfully. "The way to handle an actor is to
let him have his own way."
"You got the idea," Mr. Lane approved without a smile.
"But suppose," she persisted--"suppose the leading man insists on doing
something that doesn't suit the part he's supposed to play, I mean
something so utterly out of character that it spoils the story?"
"Sure, that happens sometimes, too."
"What do you do then?"
"That's easy. What's your continuity writer for?"
"I don't know, Mr. Lane. You see, I don't even know what a continuity
writer is."
"Why, he's the bird dopes out the continuity the director works
from--you know, the scenes in a picture, the way they come out on the
screen: Scene One, Scene Two, and all like that."
"You mean the playwright?"
"Well, yes; only in pictures he's called a continuity writer."
"But that doesn't tell me what you do when an actor insists on doing
something that spoils the story."
"That's just what I'm trying to tell you, Mrs. Druce. You get your
continuity writer, of course, and have him make the change."
"You mean you change the story to please the actor?"
"Sure: it's the only thing to do when you got maybe a hundred-and-fifty
or two-hundred thousand dollars hung up in a picture."
"But doesn't that frequently spoil the story?"
"Oh, what's a story?" Mr. Lane argued reasonably. "People don't go to
see a story when they take in an Alma Daley picture. They go because
they know they get their money's worth when they see a Ben Culp
production that's taken from some big Broadway success and costs a
hundred-and-fifty or maybe two-hundred thousand dollars. But princip'ly,
of course, they go to see Alma Daley, because she's the most pop'lar
actress on the screen, and makes more money than Mary Pickford, and
wears the swellest clothes that cost sometimes as much as twenty
thousand dollars for each picture; and besides she's the grandest little
woman that ever looked into a lens, and there's never been no scandal
about her private life, and an Alma Daley picture's sure to be clean.
Why, Mr. Culp wouldn't let Miss Daley act in any picture where she had
to be wronged or anything like that. When he buys a play for her and the
heroine's got a past in it or anything, he just has the story changed
so's there's never any stain upon her honour or anything anybody could
get hold of. That's one thing Mr. Culp's very partic'lar about; he says
no wife of his shall ever go before the public in a shady part."
"Has he many?"
Mr. Lane looked hurt, but was mollified by the mischief in Lucinda's
smile.
"Well, you know what I mean. But we better stop talking, if it's all
the same to you, Mrs. Druce, or Miss Daley'll get upset. They're going
to shoot now."
The warning was coincident with the sudden deluging of the set with
waves of artificial light of a weird violet tint, falling from great
metal troughs overhead and beating in horizontally from the metal stands
or screens, which were now seen to be banks of incandescent tubes
burning with a blinding glare.
Nor was this all: shafts and floods of light of normal hue were likewise
trained upon the scene from a dozen different points, until the blended
rays lent almost lifelike colouring to the faces of the actors, whose
make-up had theretofore seemed ghastly and unnatural to uninitiate eyes.
Stationed just beyond the edge of the area of most intense illumination,
the audience sat in a sort of violet penumbra whose effect was hideously
unflattering. In it every face assumed a deathly glow, resembling the
phosphorescence of corruption, the red of cheeks and lips became purple,
and every hint of facial defect stood out, a purple smudge. So that
Lucinda, reviewing the libelled countenances of her companions, breathed
silent thanks to whatever gods there were for their gift of a complexion
transparent and immaculate.
"Camera!"
The command came from King Laughlin. Lucinda could just hear a muffled
clicking, and seeking its source discovered a youngish man, with a keen
face and intelligent eyes, standing behind the tripod and turning in
measured tempo a crank attached to the black box.
Coached by Mr. Laughlin, who danced nervously upon the side lines, the
scene was enacted.
"Now, Tommy, come on--slowly--hold the door--look around, make sure the
room is empty--hold it--now shut the door--up to the table--don't forget
where to put your hat--'sright, splendid! Now you look at the other
door--listen--show me that you don't hear anything--good! Open the
drawer--easy now, remember you're trying not to make a noise--look for
the papers--show me you can't find them. _My God! where can they be!_
That's it. Now you hear a noise off--(_Ready, Alma!_)--shut the
drawer--start to pick up your hat--too late--! Come on, Alma--_come on_!
You don't see him, you look out of the window and sigh--let's see you
sigh, Alma--beautiful! beautiful! Now, Tommy, you move--she sees
you--see him, Alma. Slowly--hold it--wonderful! Now call to him,
Alma--_Egbert! Egbert!!_"
The little man's voice cracked with the heart-rending pathos he infused
into that cry; but he did not pause, he continued to dance and bark
directions at star and leading-man till the door closed behind Miss
Daley's frantic exit; when all at once he went out of action and,
drawing a silk bandanna from his cuff to mop the sweat of genius on his
brows, turned mild, enquiring eyes to the cameraman.
"Got it," that one uttered laconically.
"Think we want to take it over, Eddie?" The cameraman shook his head.
"Good! Now we'll shoot the close-up. No, Tommy, not you--the only
close-up I want for this scene is Alma where she gets up. We must get
those tears in, she cries so pretty."
There was some delay. The camera had to be brought forward and trained
at short range on the spot where Miss Daley had fallen; several stands
of banked lights likewise needed to be advanced and adjusted. And then
Miss Daley had to be given time to go to her dressing-room and repair
the ravages her complexion had suffered in _Egbert's_ embrace. But all
these matters were at length adjusted to the satisfaction of director;
the actress lay in a broken heap with her face buried on her arms, the
camera once more began to click, Mr. King Laughlin squatting by its
side, prepared to pull the young woman through the scene by sheer force
of his inspired art.
But now the passion which before had kept him hopping and screaming had
passed into a subdued and plaintive phase; Mr. Laughlin was suffering
for and with the heroine whose woes were to be projected before the eyes
and into the hearts of half the world. He did not actually cry, but his
features were knotted with the anguish that wrung his heart, and his
voice was thick with sobs.
"Now, dear, you're coming to--you just lift your head and look up,
dazed. You don't realize what's happened yet, you hardly know where you
are. _Where am I, my God! where am I?_ That's it--beautiful. Now it
begins to come to you--you remember what's happened, you get it. He has
cast you off--_O my God! he has deserted you._ Fine--couldn't be
better--you're great, dear, simply great. Now go on--begin to cry, let
the big tears well up from your broken heart and trickle down your
cheeks. Fine! Cry harder, dear--you must cry harder, this scene will go
all flooey if you can't cry any harder than that. Think what he was to
you--and now he has left you--_who knows?--perhaps for-ev-er!_ Your
heart is breaking, dear, it's breaking, and nobody cares. Can't you cry
harder? Listen to the music and.... Good God! how d'you expect _any_body
to cry to music like that?"
The last was a shriek of utter exasperation; and bounding to his feet
the little man darted furiously at the musicians, stopping in front of
the trio and beginning to beat time with an imaginary baton.
"Follow me, please--get this, the way _I_ feel it. So--slowly--draw it
out--hold it--get a little heart-break into it!"
And strangely enough he did manage to infuse a little of his fine
fervour into the three. They abandoned their lethargic postures, sat up,
and began to play with some approach to feeling; while posing before
them, swaying from the toes of one foot to the toes of the other, his
hands weaving rhythms of emotion in the air, the absurd creature threw
back his head, shut his eyes, and wreathed his thin lips with a beatific
smile.
Throughout, on the floor, before the camera, under that cruel glare of
lights, Alma Daley strained her face toward the lens and cried as if her
heart must surely break, real tears streaming down her face--but cried
with fine judgment, never forgetting that woman must be lovely even in
woe.
And while Lucinda watched, looking from one to the other, herself
threatened with that laughter which is akin to tears, a strange voice
saluted her.
"Saw me coming," it observed, "and had to show off. He's a great little
actor, that boy, and no mistake--never misses a chance. Look't him now:
you'd never guess he wasn't thinking about anything but whether I'm
falling for this new stunt of his, would you?"
Lucinda looked around. Mr. Lane had mysteriously effaced himself. In his
place sat a stout man of middle-age with a sanguine countenance of
Semitic type, shrewd and hard but good-humoured.
"How d'you do?" he said genially. "Mrs. Druce, ain't it? Culp's my name,
Ben Culp."