The Hohenzollerns in America Part 17

Stop a minute, this is a little hard. Fired. How can we show Christopher "fired." We can't. Perhaps he'll be fired if the film is no good, but we must omit it just now.

"He sets out."

One second only for this. Monastery door (double cardboard with iron across it)-Christopher leaving-carries a wallet to mean distance. Fra Giacomo blessing him-fade out.

"...For eighteen years Columbus vainly travelled through the world on foot offering his discovery at the courts of Europe, in vain, though asking nothing in return for it except a fleet of ships, two hundred men and provisions for two years."

To anybody not used to scenarios this looks a large order. Eighteen years seems difficult to put on the screen. In reality this is exactly where the trained movie man sees his chance. Here he can put in anything and everything that he likes, bringing in, in a slightly mediaeval form, all his favourite movie scenes.

Thus, for example, here we have first the good old midnight cabaret supper scene-thinly disguised as the court of the King of Sardinia. To turn a cabaret into a court the movie men merely exchange their Fifth Avenue evening dress for short coats and knee breeches, heavily wadded and quilted, and wear large wigs. Quilted pants and wigs register courtiers, the courtiers of anybody-Charlemagne, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great, Louis Quatorze, anybody and everybody who ever had courtiers. Just as men with bare legs mean Romans, men in pea-jackets mean detectives, and young men drunk in evening dress Harvard graduates.

The ladies at the court of Sardinia wear huge paper frills round their necks. Otherwise it is the cabaret scene with the familiar little tables, and the ukaleles going like mad in one corner, and black sarsaparilla being poured foaming into the gla.s.ses.

In this scene Columbus moves up and down, twirling his little globe and looking appealingly in their faces. All laugh at him. His part is just the same as that of the poor little girl trying to sell up-state violets in the midnight cabaret.

The Court of Sardinia fades and the film shows Columbus vainly soliciting financial aid from Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Stop one minute, please.

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT... Mr. L. Evans

This scene again is old and familiar. It is the well-known interior representing the Grinding Capitalist, or the Bitter Banker refusing aid to the boy genius who has invented a patent pea-rake. The only change is that Lorenzo wears a huge wig, has no telephone, and handles a large quill pen (to register Middle Ages) which he wiggles furiously up and down on a piece of parchment.

So the eighteen years, with scenes of this sort turn out the easiest part of the whole show.

But let us to the book again.

"...After eighteen years Columbus, now past the prime of life, is presented at the Court of Queen Isabella of Spain."

Just half a moment.

QUEEN ISABELLA.. Miss Janet Briggs

There will be very probably at this point a slight applause from the back of the hall. Miss Briggs was here last week, or her astral body was-as Maggie of the Cattle Ranges. The impression that she made is pa.s.sed on to Isabella.

"The Queen and her consort, King Ferdinand of Aragon..."

Stop, stick him on the film.

FERDINAND OF ARAGON.. Mr. Edward Giles

(Large wig, flat velvet cap and square whiskers-same make-up as for Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Ferdinand of Bohemia, or any of the Ferdinands.)

"...were immediately seized with enthusiasm for the marvellous discovery of the Genoese adventurer."

Picture. Columbus hands his globe to Isabella and his compa.s.ses to Ferdinand. They register delight and astonishment. The Queen turns the globe round and round and holds it up to Ferdinand. Both indicate with their faces, well-what-do-you-know-about-this. Ferdinand makes a circle with the compa.s.ses on a table-the courtiers, fickle creatures, crowd around. They are still dressed as in Sardinia eighteen years ago. In fact, one recognises quite a lot of them. When Ferdinand draws the circle they fall back in wild astonishment, gesticulating frantically. What they mean is, "It's a circle, it's a circle."

"The King and Queen at once place three ships at the disposal of Columbus."

On with the picture. The harbour of the port of Palos- ships bobbing up and down (it is really the oyster boats in Baltimore Bay but it looks just like Palos, or near enough). Notice Queen Isabella on the right, at the top of a flight of steps, extending her hand and looking at Columbus. Her gesture means, "Pick a ship, any ship you like, any colour." Just as if she were saying, "Pick a card, any card you like."

We turn again to the history.

"...Christopher Columbus, now arrived at the height of his desire, sets out upon his memorable voyage accompanied by a hundred companions in three caravels, the Pinta, the Nina and the Espiritu Santo."

Ah, here we have the movie work-the real thing. Cardboard caravel tossing on black water-seen first right close to us-we are almost on board of it. Notice the movie sailors with black whiskers and bare feet (bare feet in the movies always means a sailor, and black whiskers mean Spaniards). Now we see the caravel a little way out-whoop! How she bobs up and down! They give her that jolt (it's done with the machine itself) to mean danger. There are all three caravels-Hoop-er-oo! See them go up and down-stormy night coming all right. See the sun setting in the west, over the water? They're heading straight for it. Good-night Columbus-take care of yourself out there in the blackness.

"During the voyage Columbus remained continually on deck. Sleeping at the prow, his face towards the new world, he saw already in his dreams the accomplishment of his hopes."

On goes the picture. Christopher in the prow of the caravel (in the movies a prow is made by putting two little board fences together and propping up a bowsprit lengthwise over them). Columbus sits up, peers intently into the darkness, his hand to his brow-registers a look. Do I see America? No. Lies down, shuts his eyes and falls into an instantaneous movie sleep. His face fades out slowly to music, which means that he is going to dream. Then on the screen the announcement is shown:

SPIRIT OF AMERICA... Miss E. d.i.c.kenson

and here we have Miss d.i.c.kenson floating in the air above Columbus. She wears nothing except mosquito netting, but she has got on enough of it to get past the censor of the State of New York. Just enough, apparently.

Miss E. d.i.c.kenson is joined by a whole troop of Miss d.i.c.kensons all in white mosquito netting. They go through a series of beautiful evolutions, floating over the sleeping figure of Columbus. The dance they do is meant to typify, or rather to signify,-as a matter of fact we needn't worry much about what it signified. It is an allegory, done in white mosquito netting. That is generally held to be quite enough. Let us go back to the book-

"After a storm-tossed voyage of three months..."

Wait a bit. Turn on the picture again and toss the caravels up and down.

"...during which the food supply threatened to fail..."

Put that on the screen, please. Columbus surrounded by ten sailors, dividing up a potato.

"...the caravels arrived in safety at the beautiful island of San Salvador. Columbus, bearing the banner of Spain, stepped first ash.o.r.e. Surrounded by a wondering crowd of savages he prostrated himself upon the beach and kissed the soil of the New World that he had discovered."

All this is so easy that it's too easy. It runs into pictures of itself. Anybody, accustomed to the movies, can see Columbus with his banner and the movie savages hopping up and down around him. Movie savages are gay, gladsome creatures anyway, and hopping up and down is their chief mode of expressing themselves. Add to them a sandy beach, with palm trees waving visibly in the wind (it is always windy in the movies) and the thing is done.

Just one further picture is needed to complete the film.

"Columbus who returned to Europe to lay at the feet of the Spanish sovereigns the world he had discovered, fell presently under the disfavour of the court, and died in poverty and obscurity, a victim of the ingrat.i.tude of princes."

Last picture. Columbus dying under the poignant circ.u.mstances known only in the movies-a garret room-ceiling lower than ever-a truckle bed, narrow enough to kill him if all else failed-Teresa Colombo his aged mother alone at his bedside-she offers him medicine in a long spoon-(this shows, if nothing else would, that the man is ill)-he shakes his head-puts out his hand and rests it on the little globe-reaches feebly for his compa.s.ses-can't manage it-rolls up his eyes and fades.

The music plays softly and the inexorable film, like the reel of life itself, spins on, announcing

At this theatre All next week MAGGIE MAY and WALTER CURRAN in IS IT WORTH IT And after that I can imagine the audience dispersing, and the now educated children going off to their homes and one saying as he enters-

"Gee, I seen a great picture show at school to-day."

"Yes?" says his mother, "and what was it?"

"Oh, it was all about a gink that went round the cabarets trying to sell an invention what he'd got but n.o.body wouldn't look at it till at last one dame gave him three oyster boats, see? and so he and a lot of other guys loaded them up and hiked off across the ocean."

"And where did he go to?"

"Africa. And he and the other guys had a great stand in with the natives and he'd have sold his invention all right but one old dame got him alone in a hut and poisoned him and took it off him."