Merton of the Movies Part 26

This appeared to close the simple episode. The scenes, to be sure, had not been shot without delays and rehearsals, and a good two hours of the morning had elapsed before the actor was released from the glare of light and the need to remember that he was Harold Parmalee. His peeling of an egg, for example, had not at first been dainty enough to please the director, and the scene with the alb.u.m had required many rehearsals to secure the needed variety of expressions, but Baird had been helpful in his promptings, and always kind.

"Now, this one you've turned over--it's someone you love better than anybody. It might be your dear old mother that you haven't seen for years. It makes you kind of solemn as you show how fond you were of her.

You're affected deeply by her face. That's it, fine! Now the next one, you like it just as much, but it pleases you more. It's someone else you're fond of, but you're not so solemn.

"Now turn over another, but very slow--slow--but don't let go of it.

Stop a minute and turn back as if you had to have another peek at the last one, see what I mean? Take plenty of time. This is a great treat for you. It makes you feel kind of religious. Now you're getting it--that's the boy! All right--"

The scene where he showed humorous dismay at the quant.i.ty of his mail had needed but one rehearsal. He had here been Harold Parmalee without effort. Also he had not been asked to do again the Parmalee trick of lighting a cigarette nor of withdrawing the handkerchief from its cuff to twice touch his forehead in moments of amused perplexity. Baird had merely uttered a low "Fine!" at beholding these bits.

He drew a long breath of relief when released from the set. Seemingly he had met the test. Baird had said that morning, "Now we'll just run a little kind of test to find out a few things about you," and had followed with a general description of the scenes. It was to be of no great importance--a minor detail of the picture. Perhaps this had been why the wealthy actor breakfasted in rather a plainly furnished room on hard-boiled eggs and potato salad. Perhaps this had been why the costume given him had been not too well fitting, not too nice in detail. Perhaps this was why they had allowed the cross-eyed man to appear as his valet.

He was quite sure this man would not do as a valet in a high-cla.s.s picture. Anyway, however unimportant the scene, he felt that he had acquitted himself with credit.

The Montague girl, who had made him up that morning, with close attention to his eyebrows, watched him from back of the cameras, and she seized both his hands when he left the set. "You're going to land," she warmly a.s.sured him. "I can tell a trouper when I see one."

She was in costume. She was apparently doing the part of a society girl, though slightly overdressed, he thought.

"We're working on another set for this same picture," she explained, "but I simply had to catch you acting. You'll probably be over with us to-morrow. But you're through for the day, so beat it and have a good time."

"Couldn't I come over and watch you?"

"No, Baird doesn't like to have his actors watching things they ain't in; he told me specially that you weren't to be around except when you're working. You see, he's using you in kind of a special part in this multiple-reeler, and he's afraid you might get confused if you watched the other parts. I guess he'll start you to-morrow. You're to be in a good, wholesome heart play. You'll have a great chance in it."

"Well, I'll go see if I can find another Parmalee picture for this afternoon. Say, you don't think I was too much like him in that scene, do you? You know it's one thing if I look like him--I can't help that--but I shouldn't try to imitate him too closely, should I? I got to think about my own individuality, haven't I?"

"Sure, sure you have! But you were fine--your imitation wasn't a bit too close. You can think about your own individuality this afternoon when you're watching him."

Late that day in the projection room Baird and the Montague girl watched the "rush" of that morning's episode.

"The squirrel's done it," whispered the girl after the opening scene. It seemed to her that Merton Gill on the screen might overhear her comment.

Even Baird was low-toned. "Looks so," he agreed.

"If that ain't Parmalee then I'll eat all the hard-boiled eggs on the lot."

Baird rubbed his hands. "It's Parmalee plus," he corrected.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" murmured the girl while the screen revealed the actor studying his photographs.

"He handled all right in that spot," observed Baird.

"He'll handle right--don't worry. Ain't I told you he's a natural born trouper?"

The mail was abandoned in humorous despair. The cigarette lighted in a flawless Parmalee manner, the smoke idly brushed aside. "Poor, silly little girls," the actor was seen to say. The girl gripped Baird's arm until he winced. "There, old Pippin! There's your million, picked right up on the lot!"

"Maybe," a.s.sented the cooler Baird, as they left the projection room.

"And say," asked the girl, "did you notice all morning how he didn't even bat an eye when you spoke to him, if the camera was still turning?

Not like a beginner that'll nearly always look up and get out of the picture."

"What I bet," observed Baird, "I bet he'd 'a' done that alb.u.m stuff even better than he did if I'd actually put his own pictures in, the way I'm going to for the close-ups. I was afraid he'd see it was kidding if I did, or if I told him what pictures they were going to be. But I'm darned now if I don't think he'd have stood for it. I don't believe you'll ever be able to peeve that boy by telling him he's good."

The girl glanced up defensively as they walked.

"Now don't get the idea he's conceited, because he ain't. Not one bit."

"How do you know he ain't?"

She considered this, then explained brightly, "Because I wouldn't like him if he was. No, no--now you listen here" as Baird had grinned. "This lad believes in himself, that's all. That's different from conceit.

You can believe a whole lot in yourself, and still be as modest as a new--hatched chicken. That's what he reminds me of, too."

The following morning Baird halted him outside the set on which he would work that day. Again he had been made up by the Montague girl, with especial attention to the eyebrows so that they might show the Parmalee lift.

"I just want to give you the general dope of the piece before you go on," said Baird, in the shelter of high canvas backing. "You're the only son of a widowed mother and both you and she are toiling to pay off the mortgage on the little home. You're the cashier of this business establishment, and in love with the proprietor's daughter, only she's a society girl and kind of looks down on you at first. Then, there's her brother, the proprietor's only son. He's the clerk in this place. He doesn't want to work, but his father has made him learn the business, see? He's kind of a no-good; dissipated; wears flashy clothes and plays the races and shoots c.r.a.ps and drinks. You try to reform him because he's idolized by his sister that you're in love with.

"But you can't do a thing with him. He keeps on and gets in with a rough crowd, and finally he steals a lot of money out of the safe, and just when they are about to discover that he's the thief you see it would break his sister's heart so you take the crime on your own shoulders.

After that, just before you're going to be arrested, you make a getaway--because, after all, you're not guilty--and you go out West to start all over again--"

"Out there in the big open s.p.a.ces?" suggested Merton, who had listened attentively.

"Exactly," a.s.sented Baird, with one of those nervous spasms that would now and again twitch his lips and chin. "Out there in the big open s.p.a.ces where men are men--that's the idea. And you build up a little gray home in the West for yourself and your poor old mother who never lost faith in you. There'll be a lot of good Western stuff in this--Buck Benson stuff, you know, that you can do so well--and the girl will get out there some way and tell you that her brother finally confessed his crime, and everything'll be Jake, see what I mean?"

"Yes, sir; it sounds fine, Mr. Baird. And I certainly will give the best that is in me to this part." He had an impulse to tell the manager, too, how gratified he was that one who had been content with the low humour of the Buckeye comedies should at last have been won over to the better form of photodrama. But Baird was leading him on to the set; there was no time for this congratulatory episode.

Indeed the impulse was swept from his mind in the novelty of the set now exposed, and in the thought that his personality was to dominate it. The scene of the little drama's unfolding was a delicatessen shop. Counters and shelves were arrayed with cooked foods, salads, cheeses, the latter under gla.s.s or wire protectors. At the back was a cashier's desk, an open safe beside it. He took his place there at Baird's direction and began to write in a ledger.

"Now your old mother's coming to mop up the place," called Baird. "Come on, Mother! You look up and see her, and rush over to her. She puts down her bucket and mop, and takes you in her arms. She's weeping; you try to comfort her; you want her to give up mopping, and tell her you can make enough to support two, but she won't listen because there's the mortgage on the little flat to be paid off. So you go back to the desk, stopping to give her a sad look as she gets down on the floor. Now, try it."

A very old, bent, feeble woman with a pail of water and cloths tottered on. Her dress was ragged, her white hair hung about her sad old face in disorderly strands. She set down her bucket and raised her torn ap.r.o.n to her eyes.

"Look up and see her," called Baird. "A glad light comes into her eyes.

Rush forward--say 'Mother' distinctly, so it'll show. Now the clench.

You're crying on his shoulder, Mother, and he's looking down at you first, then off, about at me. He's near crying himself. Now he's telling you to give up mopping places, and you're telling him every little helps.

"All right, break. Get to mopping, Mother, but keep on crying. He stops for a long look at you. He seems to be saying that some day he will take you out of such work. Now he's back at his desk. All right. But we'll do it once more. And a little more pathos, Merton, when you take the old lady in your arms. You can broaden it. You don't actually break down, but you nearly do."

The scene was rehea.r.s.ed again, to Baird's satisfaction, and the cameras ground. Merton Gill gave the best that was in him. His glad look at first beholding the old lady, the yearning of his eyes when his arms opened to enfold her, the tenderness of his embrace as he murmured soothing words, the lingering touch of his hand as he left her, the manly determination of the last look in which he showed a fresh resolve to release her from this toil, all were eloquent of the deepest filial devotion and earnestness of purpose.

Back at his desk he was genuinely pitying the old lady. Very lately, it was evident, she had been compelled to play in a cabaret scene, for she smelled strongly of cigarettes, and he could not suppose that she, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with anguished mother love, could have relished these.

He was glad when it presently developed that his own was not to be a smoking part.

"Now the dissipated brother's coming on," explained Baird. "He'll breeze in, hang up his hat, offer you a cigarette, which you refuse, and show you some money that he won on the third race yesterday. You follow him a little way from the desk, telling him he shouldn't smoke cigarettes, and that money he gets by gambling will never do him any good. He laughs at you, but you don't mind. On your way back to the desk you stop by your mother, and she gets up and embraces you again.

"Take your time about it--she's your mother, remember."

The brother entered. He was indeed dissipated appearing, loudly dressed, and already smoking a cigarette as he swaggered the length of the shop to offer Merton one. Merton refused in a kindly but firm manner. The flashy brother now pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and pointed to his winning horse in a racing extra. The line in large type was there for the close-up--"Pianola Romps Home in Third Race."

Followed the scene in which Merton sought to show this youth that cigarettes and gambling would harm him. The youth remained obdurate. He seized a duster and, with ribald action, began to dust off the rows of cooked food on the counters. Again the son stopped to embrace his mother, who again wept as she enfolded him. The scene was shot.

Step by step, under the patient coaching of Baird, the simple drama unfolded. It was hot beneath the lights, delays were frequent and the rehearsals tedious, yet Merton Gill continued to give the best that was in him. As the day wore on, the dissipated son went from bad to worse.