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Merton of the Movies

<h2> CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE GLASS TOPS </h2> He approached the office of the Holden studios the following morning with a new air of assurance. Formerly the mere approach had been an adventure; the look through the gate, the quick glimpse of the privileged ones who entered, the mingling, later, with the hopeful and the near-hopeless ones who waited. But now his feeling was that he had, somehow, become a part of that higher life beyond the gate. He might linger outside at odd moments, but rightfully he belonged inside. His novitiate had passed. He was one of those who threw knives or battled at the sawmill with the persecuter of golden-haired innocence, or lured beautiful women from their homes. He might be taken, he thought, for an actor resting between pictures. At the gate he suffered a momentary regret at an error of tactics committed the evening before. Instead of leaving the lot by the office he should have left by the gate. He should have strolled to this exit in a leisurely manner and stopped, just inside the barrier, for a chat with the watchman; a chat, beginning with the gift of a cigar, which should have impressed his appearance upon that person. He should have remarked casually that he had had a hard day on Stage Number Four, and must now be off to a good night's rest because of the equally hard day to-morrow. Thus he could now have approached the gate with confidence and passed freely in, with a few more pleasant words to the watchman who would have no difficulty in recalling him. But it was vain to wish this. For all the watchman knew this young man had never been beyond the walls of the forbidden city, nor would he know any reason why the besieger should not forever be kept outside. He would fix that next time. He approached the window of the casting office with mingled emotions. He did not hope to find his friend again stricken with headache, but if it chanced that she did suffer he hoped to be the first to learn of it. Was he not fortified with the potent Eezo wafers, and a new menthol pencil, even with an additional remedy of tablets that the druggist had strongly recommended? It was, therefore, not with any actual, crude disappointment that he learned of his friend's perfect well-being. She smiled pleasantly at him, the telephone receiver at one ear. "Nothing to-day, dear," she said and put down the instrument. Yes, the headache was gone, vanquished by his remedies. She was fine, thank you. No, the headaches didn't come often. It might be weeks before she had another attack. No, of course she couldn't be certain of this. And indeed she would be sure to let him know at the very first sign of their recurrence. He looked over his patient with real anxiety, a solicitude from the bottom of which he was somehow unable to expel the last trace of a lingering hope that would have dismayed the little woman—not hope, exactly, but something almost like it which he would only translate to himself as an earnest desire that he might be at hand when the dread indisposition did attack her. Just now there could be no doubt that she was free from pain. He thanked her profusely for her courtesy of the day before. He had seen wonderful things. He had learned a lot. And he wanted to ask her something, assuring himself that he was alone in the waiting room. It was this: did she happen to know—was Miss Beulah Baxter married? The little woman sighed in a tired manner. "Baxter married? Let me see." She tapped her teeth with the end of a pencil, frowning into her vast knowledge of the people beyond the gate. "Now, let me think." But this appeared to be without result. "Oh, I really don't know; I forget. I suppose so. Why not? She often is." He would have asked more questions, but the telephone rang and she listened a long time, contributing a "yes, yes," of understanding at brief intervals. This talk ended, she briskly demanded a number and began to talk in her turn. Merton Gill saw that for the time he had passed from her life. She was calling an agency. She wanted people for a diplomatic reception in Washington. She must have a Bulgarian general, a Serbian diplomat, two French colonels, and a Belgian captain, all in uniform and all good types. She didn't want just anybody, but types that would stand out. Holden studios on Stage Number Two. Before noon, if possible. All right, then. Another bell rang, almost before she had hung up. "Hello, Grace. Nothing to-day, dear. They're out on location, down toward Venice, getting some desert stuff. Yes, I'll let you know." Merton Gill had now to make way at the window for a youngish, weary-looking woman who had once been prettier, who led an elaborately dressed little girl of five. She lifted the child to the window. "Say good-morning to the beautiful lady, Toots. Good-morning, Countess. I'm sure you got something for Toots and me to-day because it's our birthday—both born on the same day—what do you think of that? Any little thing will help us out a lot—how about it?" He went outside before the end of this colloquy, but presently saw the woman and her child emerge and walk on disconsolately toward the next studio. Thus began another period of waiting from which much of the glamour had gone. It was not so easy now to be excited by those glimpses of the street beyond the gate. A certain haze had vanished, leaving all too apparent the circumstance that others were working beyond the gate while Merton Gill loitered outside, his talent, his training, ignored. His early air of careless confidence had changed to one not at all careless or confident. He was looking rather desperate and rather unbelieving. And it daily grew easier to count his savings. He made no mistakes now. His hoard no longer enjoyed the addition of fifteen dollars a week. Only subtractions were made. There came a morning when but one bill remained. It was a ten-dollar bill, bearing at its centre a steel-engraved portrait of Andrew Jackson. He studied it in consternation, though still permitting himself to notice that Jackson would have made a good motion-picture type—the long, narrow, severe face, the stiff uncomprising mane of gray hair; probably they would have cast him for a feuding mountaineer, deadly with his rifle, or perhaps as an inventor whose device was stolen on his death-bed by his wicked Wall Street partner, thus leaving his motherless daughter at the mercy of Society's wolves. But this was not the part that Jackson played in the gripping drama of Merton Gill. His face merely stared from the last money brought from Simsbury, Illinois, and the stare was not reassuring. It seemed to say that there was no other money in all the world. Decidedly things must take a turn. Merton Gill had a quite definite feeling that he had already struggled and sacrificed enough to give the public something better and finer. It was time the public realized this. Still he waited, not even again reaching the heart of things, for his friend beyond the window had suffered no relapse. He came to resent a certain inconsequence in the woman. She might have had those headaches oftener. He had been led to suppose that she would, and now she continued to be weary but entirely well. More waiting and the ten-dollar bill went for a five and some silver. He was illogically not sorry to be rid of Andrew Jackson, who had looked so tragically skeptical. The five-dollar bill was much more cheerful. It bore the portrait of Benjamin Harrison, a smooth, cheerful face adorned with whiskers that radiated success. They were little short of smug with success. He would almost rather have had Benjamin Harrison on five dollars than the grim-faced Jackson on ten. Still, facts were facts. You couldn't wait as long on five dollars as you could on ten. Then on the afternoon of a day that promised to end as other days had ended, a wave of animation swept through the waiting room and the casting office. "Swell cabaret stuff" was the phrase that brought the applicants to a lively swarm about the little window. Evening clothes, glad wraps, cigarette cases, vanity-boxes—the Victor people doing The Blight of Broadway with Muriel Mercer—Stage Number Four at 8:30 to-morrow morning. There seemed no limit to the people desired. Merton Gill joined the throng about the window. Engagements were rapidly made, both through the window and over the telephone that was now ringing those people who had so long been told that there was nothing to-day. He did not push ahead of the women as some of the other men did. He even stood out of the line for the Montague girl who had suddenly appeared and who from the rear had been exclaiming: "Women and children first!" "Thanks, old dear," she acknowledged the courtesy and beamed through the window. "Hullo, Countess!" The woman nodded briefly. "All right, Flips; I was just going to telephone you. Henshaw wants you for some baby-vamp stuff in the cabaret scene and in the gambling hell. Better wear that salmon-pink chiffon and the yellow curls. Eight-thirty, Stage Four. Goo'-by." "Thanks, Countess! Me for the jumping tintypes at the hour named. I'm glad enough to be doing even third business. How about Ma?" "Sure! Tell her grand-dame stuff, chaperone or something, the gray georgette and all her pearls and the cigarette case." "I'll tell her. She'll be glad there's something doing once more on the perpendicular stage. Goo'-by." She stepped aside with "You're next, brother!" Merton Gill acknowledged this with a haughty inclination of the head. He must not encourage this hoyden. He glanced expectantly through the little window. His friend held a telephone receiver at her ear. She smiled wearily. "All right, son. You got evening clothes, haven't you? Of course, I remember now. Stage Four at 8:30. Goo'-by." "I want to thank you for this opportunity—" he began, but was pushed aside by an athletic young woman who spoke from under a broad hat. "Hullo, dearie! How about me and Ella?" "Hullo, Maizie. All right. Stage Four, at 8:30, in your swellest evening stuff." At the door the Montague girl called to an approaching group who seemed to have heard by wireless or occult means the report of new activity in the casting office. "Hurry, you troupers. You can eat to-morrow night, maybe!" They hurried. She turned to Merton Gill. "Seems like old times," she observed. "Does it?" he replied coldly. Would this chit never understand that he disapproved of her trifling ways? He went on, rejoicing that he had not been compelled to part, even temporarily, with a first-class full-dress suit, hitherto worn only in the privacy of Lowell Hardy's studio. It would have been awkward, he thought, if the demand for it had been much longer delayed. He would surely have let that go before sacrificing his Buck Benson outfit. He had traversed the eucalyptus avenue in this ecstasy, and was on a busier thoroughfare. Before a motion-picture theatre he paused to study the billing of Muriel Mercer in Hearts Aflame. The beauteous girl, in an alarming gown, was at the mercy of a fiend in evening dress whose hellish purpose was all too plainly read in his fevered eyes. The girl writhed in his grasp. Doubtless he was demanding her hand in marriage. It was a tense bit. And to-morrow he would act with this petted idol of the screen. And under the direction of that Mr. Henshaw who seemed to take screen art with proper seriousness. He wondered if by any chance Mr. Henshaw would call upon him to do a quadruple transition, hate, fear, love, despair. He practised a few transitions as he went on to press his evening clothes in the Patterson kitchen, and to dream, that night, that he rode his good old pal, Pinto, into the gilded cabaret to carry off Muriel Mercer, Broadway's pampered society pet, to the clean life out there in the open spaces where men are men. At eight the following morning he was made up in a large dressing room by a grumbling extra who said that it was a dog's life plastering grease paint over the maps of dubs. He was presently on Stage Four in the prescribed evening regalia for gentlemen. He found the cabaret set, a gilded haunt of pleasure with small tables set about an oblong of dancing floor. Back of these on three sides were raised platforms with other tables, and above these discreet boxes, half masked by drapery, for the seclusion of more retiring merry-makers. The scene was deserted as yet, but presently he was joined by another early comer, a beautiful young woman of Spanish type with a thin face and eager, dark eyes. Her gown was glistening black set low about her polished shoulders, and she carried a red rose. So exotic did she appear he was surprised when she addressed him in the purest English. "Say, listen here, old timer! Let's pick a good table right on the edge before the mob scene starts. Lemme see—" She glanced up and down the rows of tables. "The cam'ras'll be back there, so we can set a little closer, but not too close, or we'll be moved over. How 'bout this here? Let's try it." She sat, motioning him to the other chair. Even so early in his picture career did he detect that in facing this girl his back would be to the camera. He hitched his chair about. "That's right," said the girl, "I wasn't meaning to hog it. Say, we was just in time, wasn't we?" Ladies and gentlemen in evening dress were already entering. They looked inquiringly about and chose tables. Those next to the dancing space were quickly filled. Many of the ladies permitted costly wraps of fur or brocade to spill across the backs of their chairs. Many of the gentlemen lighted cigarettes from gleaming metal cases. There was a lively interchange of talk. "We better light up, too," said the dark girl. Merton Gill had neglected cigarettes and confessed this with some embarrassment. The girl presented an open case of gold attached to a chain pendent from her girdle. They both smoked. On their table were small plates, two wine glasses half filled with a pale liquid, and small coffee-cups. Spirals of smoke ascended over a finished repast. Of course if the part called for cigarettes you must smoke whether you had quit or not. The places back of the prized first row were now filling up with the later comers. One of these, a masterful-looking man of middle age—he would surely be a wealthy club-man accustomed to command tables—regarded the filled row around the dancing space with frank irritation, and paused significantly at Merton's side. He seemed about to voice a demand, but the young actor glanced slowly up at him, achieving a superb transition—surprise, annoyance, and, as the invader turned quickly away, pitying contempt. "Atta boy!" said his companion, who was, with the aid of a tiny gold-backed mirror suspended with the cigarette case, heightening the crimson of her full lips. Two cameras were now in view, and men were sighting through them. Merton saw Henshaw, plump but worried looking, scan the scene from the rear. He gave hurried direction to an assistant who came down the line of tables with a running glance at their occupants. He made changes. A couple here and a couple there would be moved from the first row and other couples would come to take their places. Under the eyes of this assistant the Spanish girl had become coquettish. With veiled glances, with flashing smiles from the red lips, with a small gloved hand upon Merton Gill's sleeve, she allured him. The assistant paused before them. The Spanish girl continued to allure. Merton Gill stared moodily at the half-empty wine glass, then exhaled smoke as he glanced up at his companion in profound ennui. If it was The Blight of Broadway probably they would want him to look bored. "You two stay where you are," said the assistant, and passed on. "Good work," said the girl. "I knew you was a type the minute I made you." Red-coated musicians entered an orchestra loft far down the set. The voice of Henshaw came through a megaphone: "Everybody that's near the floor fox-trot." In a moment the space was thronged with dancers. Another voice called "Kick it!" and a glare of light came on. "You an' me both!" said the Spanish girl, rising. Merton Gill remained seated. "Can't," he said. "Sprained ankle." How was he to tell her that there had been no chance to learn this dance back in Simsbury, Illinois, where such things were frowned upon by pulpit and press? The girl resumed her seat, at first with annoyance, then brightened. "All right at that," she said. "I bet we get more footage this way." She again became coquettish, luring with her wiles one who remained sunk in ennui. A whistle blew, a voice called "Save it!" and the lights jarred off. Henshaw came trippingly down the line. "You people didn't dance. What's the matter?" Merton Gill glanced up, doing a double transition, from dignified surprise to smiling chagrin. "Sprained ankle," he said, and fell into the bored look that had served him with the assistant. He exhaled smoke and raised his tired eyes to the still luring Spanish girl. Weariness of the world and women was in his look. Henshaw scanned him closely. "All right, stay there—keep just that way—it's what I want." He continued down the line, which had become hushed. "Now, people. I want some flashes along here, between dances—see what I mean? You're talking, but you're bored with it all. The hollowness of this night life is getting you; not all of you—most of you girls can keep on smiling—but The Blight of Broadway shows on many. You're beginning to wonder if this is all life has to offer—see what I mean?" He continued down the line. From the table back of Merton Gill came a voice in speech to the retreating back of Henshaw: "All right, old top, but it'll take a good lens to catch any blight on this bunch—most of 'em haven't worked a lick in six weeks, and they're tickled pink." He knew without turning that this was the Montague girl trying to be funny at the expense of Henshaw who was safely beyond hearing. He thought she would be a disturbing element in the scene, but in this he was wrong, for he bent upon the wine glass a look more than ever fraught with jaded world-weariness. The babble of Broadway was resumed as Henshaw went back to the cameras. Presently a camera was pushed forward. Merton Gill hardly dared look up, but he knew it was halted at no great distance from him. "Now, here's rather a good little bit," Henshaw was saying. "You, there, the girl in black, go on—tease him the way you were, and he's to give you that same look. Got that cigarette going? All ready. Lights! Camera!" Merton was achieving his first close-up. Under the hum of the lights he was thinking that he had been a fool not to learn dancing, no matter how the Reverend Otto Carmichael denounced it as a survival from the barbaric Congo. He was also thinking that the Montague girl ought to be kept away from people who were trying to do really creative things, and he was bitterly regretting that he had no silver cigarette case. The gloom of his young face was honest gloom. He was aware that his companion leaned vivaciously toward him with gay chatter and gestures. Very slowly he inhaled from a cigarette that was already distasteful—adding no little to the desired effect—and very slowly he exhaled as he raised to hers the bored eyes of a soul quite disillusioned. Here, indeed, was the blight of Broadway. "All right, first rate!" called Henshaw. "Now get this bunch down here." The camera was pushed on. "Gee, that was luck!" said the girl. "Of course it'll be cut to a flash, but I bet we stand out, at that." She was excited now, no longer needing to act. From the table back of Merton came the voice of the Montague girl: "Yes, one must suffer for one's art. Here I got to be a baby-vamp when I'd rather be simple little Madelon, beloved by all in the village." He restrained an impulse to look around at her. She was not serious and should not be encouraged. Farther down the set Henshaw was beseeching a table of six revellers to give him a little hollow gayety. "You're simply forcing yourselves to have a good time," he was saying; "remember that. Your hearts aren't in it. You know this night life is a mockery. Still, you're playing the game. Now, two of you raise your glasses to drink. You at the end stand up and hold your glass aloft. The girl next to you there, stand up by him and raise your face to his—turn sideways more. That's it. Put your hand up to his shoulder. You're slightly lit, you know, and you're inviting him to kiss you over his glass. You others, you're drinking gay enough, but see if you can get over that it's only half-hearted. You at the other end there—you're staring at your wine glass, then you look slowly up at your partner but without any life. You're feeling the blight, see? A chap down the line here just did it perfectly. All ready, now! Lights! Camera! You blonde girl, stand up, face raised to him, hand up to his shoulder. You others, drinking, laughing. You at the end, look up slowly at the girl, look away—about there—bored, weary of it all—cut! All right. Not so bad. Now this next bunch, Paul." Merton Gill was beginning to loathe cigarettes. He wondered if Mr. Henshaw would mind if he didn't smoke so much, except, of course, in the close-ups. His throat was dry and rough, his voice husky. His companion had evidently played more smoking parts and seemed not to mind it. Henshaw was now opposite them across the dancing floor, warning his people to be gay but not too gay. The glamour of this night life must be a little dulled. "Now, Paul, get about three medium shots along here. There's a good table—get that bunch. And not quite so solemn, people; don't overdo it. You think you're having a good time, even if it does turn to ashes in your mouth—now, ready; lights! Camera!" "I like Western stuff better," confided Merton to his companion. She considered this, though retaining her arch manner. "Well, I don't know. I done a Carmencita part in a dance-hall scene last month over to the Bigart, and right in the mi'st of the fight I get a glass of somethin' all over my gown that practically rooned it. I guess I rather do this refined cabaret stuff—at least you ain't so li'ble to roon a gown. Still and all, after you been warmin' the extra bench for a month one can't be choosy. Say, there's the princ'ples comin' on the set." He looked around. There, indeed, was the beautiful Muriel Mercer, radiant in an evening frock of silver. At the moment she was putting a few last touches to her perfect face from a make-up box held by a maid. Standing with her was another young woman, not nearly so beautiful, and three men. Henshaw was instructing these. Presently he called through his megaphone: "You people are excited by the entrance of the famous Vera Vanderpool and her friends. You stop drinking, break off your talk, stare at her—see what I mean?—she makes a sensation. Music, lights, camera!" Down the set, escorted by a deferential head-waiter, came Muriel Mercer on the arm of a middle-aged man who was elaborately garnished but whose thin dyed mustaches, partially bald head, and heavy eyes, proclaimed him to Merton Gill as one who meant the girl no good. They were followed by the girl who was not so beautiful and the other two men. These were young chaps of pleasing exterior who made the progress laughingly. The five were seated at a table next the dancing space at the far end. They chatted gayly as the older man ordered importantly from the head-waiter. Muriel Mercer tapped one of the younger men with her plumed fan and they danced. Three other selected couples danced at the same time, though taking care not to come between the star and the grinding camera. The older man leered at the star and nervously lighted a gold-tipped cigarette which he immediately discarded after one savage bite at it. It could be seen that Vera Vanderpool was the gayest of all that gay throng. Upon her as yet had come no blight of Broadway, though she shrank perceptibly when the partially bald one laid his hand on her slender wrist as she resumed her seat. Food and wine were brought. Vera Vanderpool drank, with a pretty flourish of her glass. Now the two cameras were moved forward for close-ups. The older man was caught leering at Vera. It would surely be seen that he was not one to trust. Vera was caught with the mad light of pleasure in her beautiful eyes. Henshaw was now speaking in low tones to the group, and presently Vera Vanderpool did a transition. The mad light of pleasure died from her eyes and the smile froze on her beautiful mouth. A look almost of terror came into her eyes, followed by a pathetic lift of the upper lip. She stared intently above the camera. She was beholding some evil thing far from that palace of revels. "Now they'll cut back to the tenement-house stuff they shot last week," explained the Spanish girl. "Tenement house?" queried Merton. "But I thought the story would be that she falls in love with a man from the great wind-swept spaces out West, and goes out there to live a clean open life with him—that's the way I thought it would be—out there where she could forget the blight of Broadway." "No, Mercer never does Western stuff. I got a little girl friend workin' with her and she told me about this story. Mercer gets into this tenement house down on the east side, and she's a careless society butterfly; but all at once she sees what a lot of sorrow there is in this world when she sees these people in the tenement house, starving to death, and sick kids and everything, and this little friend of mine does an Italian girl with a baby and this old man here, he's a rich swell and prominent in Wall Street and belongs to all the clubs, but he's the father of this girl's child, only Mercer don't know that yet. But she gets aroused in her better nature by the sight of all this trouble, and she almost falls in love with another gentleman who devotes all his time to relieving the poor in these tenements—it was him who took her there—but still she likes a good time as well as anybody, and she's stickin' around Broadway and around this old guy who's pretty good company in spite of his faults. But just now she got a shock at remembering the horrible sights she has seen; she can't get it out of her mind. And pretty soon she'll see this other gentleman that she nearly fell in love with, the one who hangs around these tenements doing good—he'll be over at one of them tables and she'll leave her party and go over to his table and say, 'Take me from this heartless Broadway to your tenements where I can relieve their suffering,' so she goes out and gets in a taxi with him, leaving the old guy with not a thing to do but pay the check. Of course he's mad, and he follows her down to the tenements where she's relieving the poor—just in a plain black dress—and she finds out he's the real father of this little friend of mine's child, and tells him to go back to Broadway while she has chosen the better part and must live her life with these real people. But he sends her a note that's supposed to be from a poor woman dying of something, to come and bring her some medicine, and she goes off alone to this dive in another street, and it's the old guy himself who has sent the note, and he has her there in this cellar in his power. But the other gentleman has found the note and has follered her, and breaks in the door and puts up a swell fight with the old guy and some toughs he has hired, and gets her off safe and sound, and so they're married and live the real life far away from the blight of Broadway. It's a swell story, all right, but Mercer can't act it. This little friend of mine can act all around her. She'd be a star if only she was better lookin'. You bet Mercer don't allow any lookers on the same set with her. Do you make that one at the table with her now? Just got looks enough to show Mercer off. Mercer's swell-lookin', I'll give her that, but for actin'—say, all they need in a piece for her is just some stuff to go in between her close-ups. Don't make much difference what it is. Oh, look! There comes the dancers. It's Luzon and Mario." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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