_Movie-Land_
Having so much else to keep track of I has plumb forgot up till now to
set forth how comes it we gets ourselves interested in the movies. You
see, both Miss Pat and Miss Bill-Lee is in that line, although not
working at it very steady. In fact, practically all our crowd lets on to
be doing something or other for to earn a living when they can't think
of nothing else to do. It seems like Mr. Bellows sets himself up to be
one of these here interior decorators, which I don't know exactly what
that is, though I has my notions for I has seen him decorating.
Let somebody else provide the materials and he's right there with the
interior. Mrs. Gaylord she's an alimony-collector by profession and
doing right well at her trade, too, from all I can gather. And Mr.
Raynor he calls himself a broker. I hears Mrs. Gaylord saying once,
sort of joking, that being a broker is the present tense of being broke,
which I reckon that is not only grammar but facts, except when somebody
like Mr. Dallas comes along with ready cash on hand. But the two young
ladies has both been in theatricals for going on several years now,
first on the old-fashioned talking stage and more lately with the films;
so naturally there's a right smart talk about films and screens and all,
going on from time to time.
It seems like all hands amongst 'em agrees there's a heap of money in
the film business if only the right folks was to take hold of it and get
it away from the parties which is now trying to run it. It also seems
that if only Miss Bill-Lee could get the proper sort of a chance, which
she can't on account of jealousy and one thing and another, she'd be a
brightly shining star in no time. All she needs is for somebody to put
her out in a piece which'll suit her and then she'll be a sensational
success and all concerned will make more money than they'll know what to
do with. I hears her saying so more than once to Mr. Dallas, all the
time looking at him with them yearning big black eyes of hers. It seems
like that is the one thing which she requires for to make her perfectly
happy. And seeing as how that appears to be Mr. Dallas' chief aim in
life these times--making Miss Bill-Lee more happy--I says to myself that
first thing we know we'll be investing in a new line on the side. Mr.
Raynor, though, he ain't so favorable to the notion. I can tell that he
don't want Mr. Dallas to be spreading his play 'round so promiscuous. It
ain't so much what he says; it's by the way he looks when the subject
comes up that I can figure out what his private emotions is.
Anyhow, the upshot is that Mr. Dallas takes to spending considerable of
his spare time at a studio up-town where the two young ladies works,
getting pointers and so on. One evening--I should say, one afternoon--he
telephones down to the apartment for me to bring one of his heavy
overcoats up there to him because, what with late fall-time being here
now, the weather has turned off sort of cold; and that's how befalls
that I gets my look at the insides of one of these here studio places,
which I must say, alongside of the one I seen, a crazy-house is plumb
rational and abounding in restfulness.
From the outsides it looks to be like something suitable for a tobacco
stemmery or maybe a skating-rink, but once I gets past the watchman on
the outer door--_Who-ee!_ That's all--_Who-ee!_ I stops close by the
door and for a spell I watches what's going on and I thinks to myself
that whilst there may be a-plenty of money in the moving-picture
business, and doubtless is, the bulk of it is liable to stay in it
permanent. Never before in my whole life has I seen so many folks
letting on like they was fixing for to transact something important and
then not doing it. If they was all on piece-work they couldn't earn
enough to pay for half-soling the shoes which they wears out running
about getting in one another's way. But as I understands it, they mainly
is hired by the day and not by the job, and my heart certainly goes out
in sympathetical feelings for the man, whoever he may be, that's
footing the bills at the end of the week. If I was him I'd charge
general admittance for the public to come in and witness these here
carryings-on, and thereby get some part of my wastage back.
Almost the first thing which distracts my attention is a
pestered-looking man with a pair of these here high leather leggings on,
like he was fixing to go horse-back riding but in his frenzy has mislaid
the horse; which he is full of authority and dashing to and fro with a
big megaphone in one hand and in the other a bunch of wadded-up paper
with writing on it. He appears to be in sole charge; and if hollowing
loud was worth fifty cents a hollow he'd be a millionaire inside of a
month if his voice didn't give out on him. I finds out a little later
that he's what they calls the director. Well, he certainly does
directicate.
One minute he's yelling at a couple of the hands up in the loft
overhead, which their job is to handle some of the lights and then he's
yelling at the little fellow which is running the picture-taking
machinery, and then he's yelling at a bunch of men which has charge of
the scenery, only this crowd don't pay no attention to him but just goes
on doing their work very languid-like; so I judges they must belong
to a union and therefore can afford to be independent. But most in
general he devotes his yelling to a whole multitude of folks all dressed
up in acting clothes with their faces painted the curiousest ever I
seen. And, at that, I seen a sight of face-painting since I come to New
York! Under them funny lights their skins is an awful corpsy
greenish-yellowish-whitish and their lips is purple, like as if they has
been drownded nine days and has just now come to the top.
He herds all these people together and gets 'em set to act a piece. And
then something goes wrong. Either he ain't satisfied with the lights or
with their actions or else he remembers something important which has
been forgotten and he yells for somebody to fetch it, and six or eight
runs to get it and brings the wrong thing back, and he raves and cusses
under his breath and tells everybody to go back to their marks and start
in all over again.
And the next try is just the same as the first. And the third try is not
no more successful than the other two was. So then the director he
shooes the whole crowd back out of the way and walks up and down and
waves his arms and wildly states that he hopes he may be hanged if he's
going to go on until they learns how to rehearse. And I remarks to
myself that if I was them white folks I certainly would give him his
wish and hang him!
So then everybody loafs round a spell, whilst the director confabs with
a little thin nervoused-looking man called Mr. Simons, with glasses on.
And then the director announces that they won't try to shoot the mob
scene today and all the extras can go till nine o'clock tomorrow
morning, and in the meantime he trusts and prays that they may get a
little sense or something in their heads. So, accordingly, most of the
multitude departs leaving only about a dozen or more actor ladies and
gentlemen setting round on odds and ends and seemingly very grateful for
the peaceful lull.
By this time I has done localized Mr. Pulliam where he's standing over
in a corner talking with Miss Bill-Lee and a couple more ladies, and I
makes my way to him. Doing so, I has to pass behind some of the scenery.
On the other side it's just like a row of houses with roofs and porches
and all, but here on the behind-side of it there ain't nothing only
plastering laths and raggedy ends of burlaps and chicken-coop wire and
naked joists. It puts me right sharply in mind of some of these folks we
has been associating with up here--everything in stock devoted to making
a show for the front and nothing except the rubbish left over for the
backing. Well, I reckons it's always like that when you is
making-believe to be something you truly ain't, whether it's in a
moving-picture studio or out in the great world at large.
After I gives Mr. Dallas his coat he tells me to hang round if I wishes
to do so and watch 'em working. So I hangs round. But there ain't much
working done for quite a spell but, instead, a lot of general
speechifying and explaining betwixt this one and that one. Finally
though, the pestered man he yells out something about being ready to
shoot an interior. All hands rambles over to another part of the
building where there is more scenery which is fixed up to look like the
insides of a short-order restaurant. One of the young ladies and one of
the young gentlemen sets down at a table in front of the camera and lets
on to be eating a quick snack whilst a white man, which is dressed up
like a waiter and blacked up to look like he's colored, waits on 'em.
The two at the table appears to be giving satisfaction but the ruler of
the roost ain't pleased with the way the waiter acts out his part.
I ain't blaming him for not being pleased, neither. To start with, the
waiter is blacked up too much. He don't look like he's genuine colored;
he looks more like he's been shining up a cook stove and got most of the
polish rubbed off onto his face and hands. He don't act like he's
genuine colored, neither. I judges he must have studied the business of
acting like colored folks from watching nigger minstrel shows. He keeps
rolling his eyes up in his head and smacking his lips, the same as an
end-man does, which is all right, I reckon, when you is an end-man but
which does not fill the bill when you is letting on to be a sure-enough
black person; because for years past I ain't never seen scarsely no
minstrel man which really deported himself as though he had colored
feelings inside of him.
Still, I must say for him that he's doing his level best to oblige. But
what with him trying to remember to keep the eyes rolling and the lips
smacking, and the director yelling at him through that megaphome to do
the next step this-a-way or that-a-way, he's presently so muddled up in
his mind that it seems like he can't get nothing at all accomplished. It
makes me feel actually sorry for him; but I ain't sorry for the
director. One of 'em is ignorant and willing to admit it; the other one
is ignorant but is trying to cover it up by behaving bossified and
making loud sounds and laying the blame on somebody else. Leastwise,
that's how I figures it out. I says to myself, I says:
"It's all wrong frum who laid the rail. Yas suh, I'll tell the waitin'
world they don't neither one of 'em onderstan' the leas' particle 'bout
nigger actions an' nigger depotemint."
I must've said it out loud without thinking, because right alongside me
somebody speaks up and says:
"What do you know about this business?"
I turns my head and looks, and it's that there quiet little man with the
big glasses on, name of Mr. Simons.
I says to him, I says:
"I don't know nothin' 'bout this yere bus'ness, but I does know
somethin' 'bout bein' cullid, seein' ez I is one myse'f."
He sort of squints up his eyes like he's got an idea. He says:
"Could you take the director's place there and show that man how to get
through with his scene?"
"Who, boss, me?" I says. "No suit! I mebbe mout could tek his place
pervidin' w'ite folkses didn't mind havin' me th'owin' awders at 'em,
but even so, I couldn't never plant the right idees in 'at other
gen'elman's mind."
"Why not?" he says.
"'Cause it's plain to me," I says, "'at in the fust place he ain't got
no notion ez to how a black boy would carry hisse'f whilst waitin' on a
table. 'Scuse me fur sayin' so ef he's a friend of yours, but tha's the
facts of the case, boss--the feelin's ain't thar."
"All right," he says, "then could you play the waiter's part yourself?"
"Well suh," I says, "mebbe I could ef they wouldn't 'spect me to act lak
a actor but just 'lowed me to act lak a human bein'. I ain't never done
no actin'," I says, "but I been a human bein' fur ez fur back ez I kin
remember."
"You've got it!" he says. "What this business needs in it is fewer
people trying to act and more people willing to behave like human
beings. How would you like to put on the jacket and the apron that man
is wearing and see if you could get away with the job he's trying to
do?"
"Ef 'twould be a favor to you--yas, suh," I says. "But I'm' skeered the
directin' gen'elman mout object."
"I think possibly I could fix that," he says. "I happen to be the owner
of this plant. I'll go speak to him."
"Hole on," I says, "ef you please, suh. The onliest way I could do it,"
I says, "would be fur you to tell me jest whut you wanted done an' 'en
you'd have to mek all hands stand back an' keep quiet whilst I wuz
tryin' to do it. It sho'," I says, "would git me all razzle-dazzled to
have some gen'elman yellin' at me th'ough 'at megaphome ever' half
secont or so."
"There's another idea that's worth experimenting with," he says. "I've
thought the same thing myself before now. You stay right here a minute."
Well, to make a long story no longer, he goes over and whispers
something to the director and first-off the director he shakes his head
like he's dead set against the proposition but Mr. Simons keeps on
arguing with him and after a little bit the director flings up both
hands sort of despairful and goes over and sets down at a little table,
looking very sulky. Then, Mr. Simons he tells the blacked-up man to take
off his apron and his jacket and tells me to put 'em on me and then he
tells me very slow just what he wants me to do, but he says I'm to do it
my own way and if, as I goes along, I thinks of anything else which a
real colored waiter would do under such-like circumstances, why, I'm to
stick that in, too.
"Try to forget that it's all pretending," he says, "and try to forget
that there's a camera grinding in front of you. Just remember that
you're a waiter in a cheap dump serving a couple of young people that
have run away from home to be married and are in a hurry to get
something to eat. Try to register your expectations of getting a nice
big tip from the young fellow. And when you slip the girl the note
that'll tip her off to the fact that her old sweetheart is waiting
outside and wants to see her, you want to make sure that the man at the
table with her can't see you, but that people sitting out in the
audience watching the show will see the note pass. Get me? We won't have
any rehearsals--too much preliminary stuff might make you
self-conscious. I'll have 'em start shooting just as soon as you come
on. Now go to it!"
Which I does it all according to orders. I must've gave utter
satisfaction, too, because when we gets through, everybody setting round
claps their hands and applauses me same as if they was at a regular
show--that is, everybody does so except the director; which he continues
to act peevish. This here Mr. Simons he goes yet farther than
applausing; he comes over to me and he says I has put him under
obligations to me by helping him out and if ever I feels like doing some
more moving-picture work just to call on him either down at his office
or up here at the studios, because he says there ain't no telling when
he may have another show with a part in it for a smart spry colored
person. And with that he slips his card into my hand and along with it a
ten dollar bill, which that is more money than ever I has earned before
in my whole life for a light job, let alone just acting natural for
about five or six minutes.
He starts on away then but suddenly he turns round like a notion had
just hit him between the eyes and he comes back to me and says he wants
to speak to me a minute and I follows him back around a corner where
nobody won't be liable to hear us.
"I want to ask you about something," he says, when we arrives there.
"You seem to be a person who keeps his eyes and his ears open; besides,
you're colored yourself and what I need here, I think, is somebody who
can look at a proposition from a colored man's slant rather than from a
white man's. And finally, my guess is that you haven't been away from
your own part of the country very long and that probably means you
haven't lost your perspective. Do you get my drift?"
I wouldn't know a perspective if I met up with one in the big road but I
ain't aiming to expose my ignorance before this strange gentleman. I
tries to look like I'm mighty glad that I've been so careful as not to
lose it and I tells him yes, sir, I gets his drift.
"Good," he says. "Well, making it snappy, the idea is just this: New
York City is full of colored actors--not merely singers and dancers but
real artists, some of 'em, who can act and are especially strong in
comedy. That's point number one. In nearly every good-sized town in this
country, North and South, there's at least one moving-picture house
catering to your people. That's point number two. But day after day and
night after night those patrons see nothing but pictures written by
white people, directed by white men, and acted by white people. That's
point number three. Now, I've been carrying round a scheme in my head
for quite awhile--a scheme to try the experiment of turning out a line
of two-reelers, say, done by colored casts, and selling them, if I can,
to these three or four thousand houses run by colored people and playing
to colored people. I've got the studio right here--I've got the
organization and the equipment. And at any time I need it I can put my
hand on plenty of acting material--colored people, I mean--who'll only
need a little training to make 'em fit for my purposes. Some of 'em have
already had some training--as extras around the local plants. As I dope
it out, if I can produce pictures which will appeal particularly to your
people I'll have a steady market through the big exchanges; because, if
I know anything about the tastes of the general public, white people
will enjoy all-colored comedies--if they're done right--almost as much
as colored people will. And that's point number four. Now then, give me
your idea of the value of the notion?"
"Mister," I says, "I kin only tell you how one cullid pusson feels,
w'ich 'at one is me: The way I looks at it, you ain't needin' to bother
much 'bout fancy scenery an' special fixin's--wid a crowd of niggers the
mainest p'int will be the actin'. The actin' part is whar you can't fool
'em. An'," I says, "ef you kin git holt of a crowd of cullid actors
w'ich is willin' to ack lak the sho'-nuff ole-time cullid an' not lak
onbleached imitations of w'ite folks, it seems lak to me the rest of it
oughter be plum' easy. Mostly I'd mek the pitchers comical, ef I wuz
you. You kin do 'at an' still not hurt nobody's feelin's, w'ite nur
black. Ef you wants to perduce a piece showin' a lot of niggers gittin'
skinned, let it be another nigger w'ich skins 'em. Then," I says, "w'en,
at the last, they gits even wid him it'll still be nigger ag'inst
nigger. An' ef, once't in awhile, you meks a kind of a serious-lak
pitcher, showin', mebbe, how the race is a-strivin' to git ahaid in the
world, 'at ought to fetch these yere new-issue cullid folks w'ich," I
says, "is seemin'ly become so plentiful up Nawth. But mainly I'd stick
to the laffin' line ef I wuz you--niggers is one kind of folks in 'is
country w'ich they ain't afeard to laff. An' whutever else you does," I
says, "don't mess wid no race problem. We gits mouty tired, sometimes,
of bein' treated the way we of'en is. Tek my own case," I says. "I ain't
no problem, I's a pusson. I craves to be so reguarded. An' tha's the way
I alluz is been reguarded by my own kind of w'ite folks down whar I
comes frum," I says.
"Say," he says, when I gets through saying this, "I think you've earned
another ten-spot." And with that he shoves one more of them desirable
bills at me; which he don't have no real struggle inducing me to take
it. Because I'm a powerful easy person to control in such matters. And
always has been, from a child up.
"I was practically convinced all along that the proposition was worth
trying," he says. "What you say helps to confirm a judgment I already
had. Well, don't forget about coming to see me if you want work in my
line--there may be plenty of it if this thing pans out." And he shakes
hands with me again and walks off.
Right after that a young white gentleman he comes looking for me to take
down my full entitlements and he says I will be honorably mentioned by
name on the program of the picture which they now is making, when it's
done. And Mr. Dallas he tells me I can take the rest of the day off for
to celebrate having broke into the movies.