Buck Parvin and the movies; stories of the moving picture game

Front matter

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Contents

PAGE

Man-Afraid-of-His- Wardrobe 92

Buck's Lady Friend 174

II

Love at first sight is a beautiful theory; but in every-day life there is such a thing as taking a long critical second look. Tommy took several, and each time he saw Myrtle Manners in a new part he discovered added charms. An extra man may look at a moving-picture queen if he has the luck to be selected by the director for a day's work.

Each morning Tommy reported faithfully at the Titan headquarters, and when Jimmy Montague crooked his forefinger and said, ''I want you, kid!" that day was ringed on Tommy's calendar with a circle of gold. When the director shook his head and said, ** Nothing doing ! ' ' Tommy slouched away, with his lower lip drooping and his hands crammed deep in his pockets, a picture of blighted hope.

As the Cattle Queen, in sombrero and short [22]

riding skirt, Miss Manners captivated Tommy by her dash and daring in the saddle, and even Buck Parvin admitted that she *^sat up in the middle of a hawss'' like a cattle queen born. As the brave but heartbroken hospital nurse in the Civil "War picture, All for Dixie, she plumbed unsuspected depths of sentiment; but when she played the deserted wife and mother in The Cashier's Disgrace, and wept over the borrowed baby, she touched Tommy in his tenderest spot. He was all hers from that moment.

Then came the wonderful day when she spoke to him. The performers had gone out *'on a location'' to the outskirts of the city and had been delayed beyond the noon hour. Tommy volunteered to find the nearest restaurant and bring back food.

*^Two ham sandwiches and a pint of milk, please, ' ' was what she said to him ; but Tommy walked in a daze for the rest of the day.

He read a dozen meanings into that innocent remark and was pleased with every one of them*

An actor employed by the Titan Company and working under Director Jimmy Montague had no sinecure. Montague had a reputation as a producer of sensational film dramas. He spent his nights in thinking up new and thrilling stunts for his actors to perform, and in. devising scenarios to fit the stunts.

Jimmy's people never knew, when they re-- [23]

ported for work on a new picture, whether they would be required to leap off a cliff into forty feet of water, go up in a balloon or track a real lion to the camera's eye. Montague's leading man had to box like a Corbett, wrestle like a Muldoon, ride like a Cody, swim like a fish, climb crags like a goat, dress like a Brummel, make love like a Sothern, and face wild animals like a — Colonel.

Jimmy's specialty was animal stuff. After his tremendous success with The King of Beasts — a three-reel production that appeared in nearly every country under the sun and yielded a dollar harvest which remains a record to this day — the Titan owners saw a great light and began to invest in wild animals.

They had objected when Jimmy insisted on buying a mangy, toothless lion for use in a. single production ; the poor old brute turned out to be the most profitable investment the company had ever made, paying some eight thousand per cent. With one lion as a nucleus the Titan people rapidly acquired quite a respectable menagerie, and Jimmy Montague 's animal stuif became known from St. Petersburg to Tasmania.

There was Selim, the elephant — a star in The Eajah's Eevenge and The Heart of Hindustan. Selim was a Hamburg-trained pachyderm, with a fair working knowledge of the German language and a painstaking attention to detail that made him a remarkable moving-picture actor. No desert scene was complete without the camels— Sharkey, Old Blue, Betsy and Mame — unwilling but efficient performers. The lions- King, Duke, Bertha and Babe — had thrilled audiences all over the world ; and the monkeys, wolves, snakes, coyotes, elk, deer, hyenas, and the nearsighted comedy tapir, also contributed their bit to the entertainment of the masses.

Every time Sam Packard, the purchasing agent, had a chance to buy a wild animal he snapped it up and looked confidently to Jimmy Montague to invent a scenario to fit the creature.

One morning Montague received a telegram from the head of the firm in New York.

*^ Jungle stuff worked to death,'' it read. *^Get new scenario quick. Use all animals."

i i There 's gratitude for you, ' ' growled Jimmy as he tossed the telegram to Jack La Eu*e, who happened to be present. *^How the deuce can I ring in lions and elephants and camels without a jungle scenario?"

^^ Blest if I know!" said La Rue, lighting a cigarette. ^^You never see 'em anywhere else except in a circus, and "

^^ Bully boy!" shouted Montague. *^ Great suggestion. Jack!"

^^What suggestion?" demanded the amazed leading man.

< ^ Why, the circus ! ' ' said Jimmy. ^ * It 's never [25]

been done. We '11 make a circus picture and it '11 be a knockout ! ' '

**You're a wizard, Jimmy!'' said La Eue. **Give you a toothpick to start with and you'll have a lumberyard in ten minutes. How do you do it?"

Jimmy Montague pressed three buttons. The stenographer was first to appear.

* * Send a telegram to the house in New York and ask 'em if they've got any stock films of circus parades. Get that off quick ! That parade stuff will do fine for cut-ins," said Montague.

Ben Leslie, the property man, and Joe Bates, in charge of the wardrobe department, entered together.

*'Joe," said the director, '^Jack here wants some silk fleshings — full tights; white or pink will do. Manners ought to be a bareback rider, I suppose — no; hold on. Maybe we can't get anybody to double for her in a real riding act. I've got it! Why not make her a lion tamer? The very thing! Joe, get Manners a Spanish outfit and a lion-tamer's whip. I'll need some ringmaster's boots. That's all I can think of now; but it's enough to get busy on. I'll give you a list later."

^^Goin' to do a circus picture?" asked Ben Leslie. Ben was a lean, saturnine individual, as remarkable a personage in his way as any member of the company. Had he been ordered to produce the Kohinoor immediately he would have nodded twice, shifted his fine-cut from one cheek to the other and gone out without a word. And he would have brought back the Kohinoor — or the next best thing. Nothing surprised him; nothing daunted him.

* * Yes, ' ' said Jimmy Montague, * * we ^re going to do a circus picture. Get busy on it, quick! Ward Brothers^ Circus is wintering down at Santa Monica. You can borrow a lot of junk from them. You know Billy Ward, don 't you ? ' '

' ^ Sure ! ' ' said Ben. ^ ^ Worked for him once. ' '

* ' Gee-whiz ! ' ' said Montague. ^ ^ Is there anybody in the world you haven't worked for — oncer'

^'Eeckon not,'' said Ben, and departed.

*^This will be some scenario!" remarked Jimmy to his leading man.

In his brilliant mind the toothpick was already expanding into a telegraph pole; the lumberyard would come later.

*^Yes, but I don't get you," said La Eue. **What am I supposed to be in this picture? An acrobat!"

^^ Bareback rider," said Jimmy succinctly. **In love with the lion tamer. So am I. I'm the ringmaster. We can work up a lot of jealousy stuff. I crab your act. Hit your horse with the whip when you go to do a jump-up. You fake a fall — all that ^Cur-rse you, Jack Dalton!' business. I ain't got it straightened out, yet, of course ; but for the blowoff Myrtle 's lion-taming stunt goes wrong, I get cold feet, and you tear in and save the lady. Ain't that great r'

^'Mef said La Eue, laying one hand upon his breast. ^'Me — save the lady? Me — in the cage with a lion? Not on your life! Suppose something goes wrong and he takes a wallop atmer'

^^ Forget it!'* said the director. ^^We'll use old Duke for the cage scenes. You know what a gentle animal he is ! Brought up on a bottle, Kelly tells me.''

^^So was I," said La Eue; ^^but I'll eat meat now. That milkfed business doesn't signify anything, Jimmy."

^'Oh, rats!" said Montague. *' Duke's got the disposition of a great big dog."

^'No, he ain't," said the leading man earnestly. ^^He's got the disposition of a great big cat — and the claws and the teeth, and all the rest of it. Because he hasn't killed anybody yet is no sign that he won 't before he 's through. Nix on this tame-lion stuff — they're all wild, I tell you ! And Manners wouldn 't want to work with a lion either."

^' She's done animal pictures before," said Jimmy. ^'That girl ain't afraid of anything."

La Rue passed over the slur.

i i There 's such a thing as being too brave for your own good," he insisted. ^'I'm as game as anybody, Jimmy, but it wouldn't get me anything to be clawed up by a milkfed lion. If Duke doesn't look right to me you'll have to double me in that cage scene. I won't work. I'm an actor, not an animal trainer.''

^ ^ Oh, well, ' ' said Montague, ^ 4f it comes right down to cases we can let that Dennis kid double you and pull off the rescue; but there ain't any need of it. I've been in the cage with Duke a dozen times myself. He wouldn't harm a fly. You ought to know that I never ask you to take chances. I never got you hurt yet, did I ? "

**0h, no; not at all," said La Eue with sarcasm. ' ' I suppose I wasn 't hurt that time when I got pounded on the rocks by the surf up on the Malibu coast. There wasn't a spot on me as big as your hand that wasn't cut or bruised; but of course that didn't hurt! I just thought it did— that's all."

*'The trouble with you. Jack," said Montague, *4s too darned much temperament. Beat it out of here! I'm going to rib up this scenario."

^ ' You remember, now, ' ' warned La Eue. ' ' If Duke doesn't look right to me — nothing doing! You'll have to double me in that scene."

* ' Get out of here ! ' ' said Montague.

Left alone with his toothpick he drew a sheet of paper to him and scrawled upon it.

*'The Jaws of Death," said he with a grin. **I guess that's a perfectly miserable title!"

im

III

At eleven o'clock Jimmy Montague pushed his chair back from his desk and gazed upon a masterpiece completed.

^ ^ If that ain 't doping out canned drama while you wait I don't know what is/' he remarked with a satisfied sigh. ^ ' If the two big stunts in the lion's cage stand up all right I've got another grand picture for the poor old boss. If they fizzle — good night ! We '11 try fifty-one and fifty-three first. If Duke won't work with a woman I can turn the lion-taming stunt into something else and still have a circus picture."

One very fine thing about the moving-picture business is that no shred of an idea is ever wasted. Scenarios and action plots are subject to change at an instant's notice. A cameracaught accident often forms the basis of a new film drama. Jimmy Montague had once written a scenario round a leading man's broken leg. The picture of the fall from the roof was too good to waste.

The Jaws of Death, as articulated on paper by J. Montague, called for two reels of film, seventeen separate backgrounds or locations — as they are always called when the photographs must be made outside of the studio — and fiftyfive scenes. The two big stunts in the lion's cage were numbered fifty-one and fifty-three — '

THE EXTRA MAN" AND THE MILKFED LION"

almost the closing scenes of the picture. These would be photographed first for economic reasons.

In Jimmy Montague's early days with the Titan Company, when the moving-picture business was in its swaddling clothes and all the men connected with the infant enterprise were learning something daily from the best and the bitterest teacher in the world, Jimmy worked forty men and women for two weeks, consumed miles of film leading up to his one big stunt scene; and he found when he got to it that it was a physical impossibility. The Titan people paid the bills, but the telegrams from New York were hot enough to melt the glass insulators in their flight. Jimmy managed to hold his job, but it was a close call; and after that he decided to make sure of his stunts first. If they succeeded, well and good. If they failed, the loss in time, money and raw film was trifling; and the scenario was deftly twisted about to meet the limitations of man or beast.

This time the limitations were those of Duke, the performing lion; and the circus drama as originally planned would stand or fall upon that brute's behavior. Scenes fifty-one and fifty-three, marked simply Interior Cage, were the crucial ones ; so Jimmy set about his newest sensational production tail-first as it were.

In the darkened theater devoted to the Movie Muse the pictures flit upon the screen, incident fitting smoothly into incident to tell a connected story; but in the making a photo-play is the wildest crazy-quilt imaginable — a headless, tailless, cubist affair without form or coherence.

Scenes are photographed with an eye to background or location and no regard for sequence. The complete plan exists only in the magnificent mind of the producing director. Picking up the plot of a moving picture by following the actors at their work would be as easy a task as unraveling Monte Cristo by reading chapters at random. This is one reason why seasoned moving-picture actors seldom ask questions. The director tells them what to do and they do it.

Thus Myrtle Manners did not ask questions when she was given a Spanish costume, though she w^ondered what she was to do with the short rawhide whip.

Jack La Eue did not need to ask questions. He scowled as he inserted his manly form into pink silk fleshings. Jack did not like animals of any sort, and animals did not like him.

Tommy Dennis, picked out of the squad of extra men at the usual morning inspection, asked but one question as he tugged at another suit of pink silk fleshings.

**Say, Buck,'' said he, ^4s — is Miss Manners in this pictured'

**I dunno,'' said Buck, gloomily surveying a clown costume. ^^All they told me was that I got to ride that ornery trick mule. Jimmy Montague is fixin' to get my head kicked off,

THE EXTEA MAN AND THE MILKFED LION

I reckon. Look at tlie clothes they wished on me ! What are you made up for, Tommy? The flyin' trapeze or just a parachute jump? "Where do these fool pants hook on to the shirt!''

Tommy Dennis, however, had lapsed into dreamy silence. Miss Manners, he reflected, had never seen him in tights. He looked down at his symmetrical limbs with a grave air of satisfaction. A costume of this sort — silk — ought to make a difference.

Charlie Jennings, a retired stock actor of long experience and no small skill with grease paints, entered the extra men's dressing room, carrying a makeup box and a black, curly wig.

* ^You're elected to be made handsome, Tommy," said he. ** Montague says for me to make you up to double La Eue."

To double the leading man! Tommy's heart skipped a beat and then hurried wildly as if to catch up.

' ' S-a-a-y ! ' ' exclaimed Buck, suddenly jealous. * * What 's coming off here I If this is goin ' to be ridin' stunts, why can't I double it? Tommy can have the mule. I can pull stuff on a hawss that La Eue — the big dub ! — never knowed was in the book! I'm going to make a holler about this! I'm a rider; I ain't no rough-and-tumble comedian. There's favoritism in this joint!"

**0h, I guess you don't want this job so bad as you think you do," said Jennings as he darkened Tommy *s eyebrows. ^^IVe got an idea you^d pass it up if they offered it to you/'

** What's the stunt f asked Tommy, trying his best to appear blase and unconcerned.

' ' Lion stuff ! ' ' said the old actor. ' ' Hold that eye still! How do you expect I'm going to make you up if you wiggle all over the place 1 ' '

^^Lions!" ejaculated Buck. '^Excuse me a minute till I put my cue back in the rack. Tommy, you win a job and welcome. I'll take a chance with the mule. Ole Buck here is awful careless, but he ain't mislaid no lions lately. Huh-uhl"

**Are you afraid of lions, kid?" asked Jennings. ' ^ Would you go in the cage with Duke ? ' '

*^ Which one is Duke I" asked Tommy.

*'The big one. Think you'd be afraid!"

**Did La Rue pass it up!" Tommy had no intention of committing himself until he knew more of the details.

**Well," said Jennings with tact, *'I don't know as Jack's really leary; I heard him tellin' Miss Manners just now that she might be a lion tamer, but he thanked God he was an actor."

*^Is that little gal goin' into a lion's cage!" demanded Buck incredulously.

*'Sure!" said Jennings. '^ She's game as they make 'em."

*'I never was much afraid of lions," said Tommy. ^ ^ Even when I was just a little shaver I used to look 'em right between the eyes and make 'em turn away. ' '

THE EXTEA MAN" AND THE MILKFED LION

* ^ Ho ! ' ' sniffed Buck. * * But you was outside the cage when you done that hypnotic stuff. It makes a heap of difference to a lion whether you're outside lookin' in or inside with him tryin' to get out. Don't overlook that, son!''

*^Well, you needn't worry about Duke," said Jennings. ''He's kind and gentle, and works fine in a picture. I wouldn't be afraid to lead him right down the middle of the street by his whiskers."

Buck cackled derisively.

"My! My! That actor man sure don't need no press agent ! " he said. ' ' Tommy, you know me ! I 'm your friend. I like you ; but you don 't resemble no Daniel-in-the-den to me, and don't you let nobody kid you into pullin' no lion's whiskers. It ain't bein' done this season at all. You could put a million dollars in a cage with a lion — an ole, sickly lion — a lion that had run round nights and dissipated, and never took no kind of care of himself, and wasn't enjoyin' good health — you could stack that dough right up to the roof, and do you think I 'd go in there after it? Not in four thousand years ! No, sir ! A lion has got something on you any time he starts — an' he don't say nothin' to you before he starts neither. Just b-zing ! — and first thing you know you ain't got no face left. I claim I'm gamer 'n any man ought to be and have good sense. I've had the cold chills sometimes thinkin' about the darn fool chances I've took; but little ole Buck Parvin in a cage with a lion?

Huh-uh ! My folks raised me to know better ! *' ^^What are you trying to do — scare somebody 1 ' ' snapped Jennings. ' ' Don 't pay any attention to him, kid. This is a tame lion.''

*^ Tame— hell!'' snorted Buck. ^'They ain't no tame lions ! ' '

IV

Duke woke up when Tim Kelly and the crew of the animal farm began to trundle his cage toward the canvas studio. He blinked lazily, shook a fly off his nose, yawned twice, and prepared to take a languid interest in his surroundings. It was as if he said :

*^Well, boys, what new foolishness is this?"

Nothing that men might do could surprise Duke very much. Beginning life under the canvas of a circus tent, he had seen human beings since the day his eyes opened. Even before he saw them he had smelled them. He had studied them covertly for years, without arriving at a definite conclusion regarding them ; there was about him something of the impartial air of one who suspends judgment until all of the evidence has been presented. He looked upon the entire human race with a mixture of grave dignity, quiet patience and noble condescension.

Certainly these two-legged animals were queer creatures — the moving-picture ones queerest of all — ^but they were good to him ; and

THE EXTEA MAN AND THE MILKFED LION

Duke recognized a certain obligation on Ms part. He did not know why they wished him to do foolish and undignified things, but it was plain to him that these things pleased his friend Tim Kelly, the boss animal man; so whenever he was called upon, Duke stalked gravely through his part like the obliging old gentleman he was.

Duke liked the animal farm. He liked the long, lazy California days. There were no jolting street parades; no stuffy circus tent with its endless stream of gaping faces ; no irritating rattle and thunder of night freights. If Duke had planned a Heaven for tired old lions it would have been like the animal farm, with its kindly attendants, large, comfortable cages, good food and long stretches of drowsy inactivity.

He had but one disquieting memory left him from his circus days — the memory of a swarthy man who made him leap through a fiery hoop, stand on his hind legs, and roll over. Before every performance the swarthy man came into the cage and beat Duke unmercifully with a rawhide whip.

This memory returned vividly whenever Duke saw a whip in a trainer's hand. At such times he would sit up and strike at the rawhide, growling ferociously and showing his teeth, as he had always done when the swarthy man whipped him. He continued to do this long after he learned that, though Tim Kelly might sometimes show him a whip, he never struck him with it.

*^Poor old felly!'' Tim would say in his soft, crooning voice. ^^ 'Tis not me ye 're scoldin' at, darlin' ; it's the whip. Ye've been abused, Juke — bad luck to the brute that done it to ye ! "

Then Tim would toss the whip out of the cage and rub the short hair on Duke's nose ; and Duke would stretch himself luxuriously, making gentle dabs at Tim with his great cushioned paws by way of explaining to him that habit bound lions too, and that his growl did not really mean anything of a personal nature. Upon this habit Jimmy Montague had built his scenario. If Duke would growl at a whip in the hands of a woman the picture was as good as made.

Once in the studio Duke looked about him with a patronizing stare, sniffed once or twice, and then, dropping his nose between his paws, composed himself for a nap. He had been fed heavily early in the day and he was very sleepy.

^^Ah!" said Jimmy Montague, very elegant in a ring-master's shining tile, cutaway coat, white moleskin breeches, and top boots. * * That 's my notion of the ideal moving-picture actor ! He rolls in, on time to the dot ; rubbers round once to see that everything is all right, and then goes to sleep till he's wanted. He never forgets his makeup and doesn't try to do any of the director's thinking for him."

Jimmy crossed toward La Eue, who was sit- [38]

ting on a bench, Ms pink-silk legs crossed and the eternal cigarette between his lips.

^'You see how quiet he is/' urged Montague. ^^He's as easy to get along with as a Newfoundland puppy.''

La Rue scowled and shook his head.

*'The only lion I'll ever go in the cage with will be a dead one, ' ' said he. ^ ' He 's asleep now, Jimmy; but I've seen these tame wild animals wake up at the wrong time — and so have you. ' '

Miss Manners, more beautiful than ever in the Spanish costume, a single yellow rose in her dark hair, looked at Duke anxiously. Tommy Dennis, modestly smothering his silken grandeur in a shabby raincoat, took up a protecting position beside her. After a time he dared to speak, feeling that his elevation to the part of understudy to the leading man permitted him a certain amount of latitude.

*^Aw, he's all right!" said Tommy, nodding toward the sleeping beast. ' ' He never hurt anybody in his life. Miss Manners. He 's what they call a milkfed lion."

The girl indulged him with a smile.

^^He looks peaceful enough now," said she. *^I'm always a little nervous with animals, though. Are youf"

*^I never have been yet," said Tommy, skirting the thin edge between truth and fiction.

^ ^ Did you ever work with this lion before ? ' '

*^Not with this one," said Tommy, allowing [39]

the lady to draw her own conclusions from the slight shading of the adjective.

''You're doubling La Eue, aren't you?'' asked the girl, glancing at the wig. ' * You don't look much like him. ' '

**I thank you," said Tommy, and they laughed together. Immediately he felt a subtle bond of sympathy between them and risked a bold stroke. ''You don't care very much for him yourself, do you?" asked Tommy, marveling at his own audacity.

"I'm not answering questions this morning," smiled Miss Manners.

"You don't have to," said Tommy bluntly. "I know!"

"Indeed?" The slow, rising inflection warned Tommy that it was time to change the subject.

"Say, what about this stunt we're going to do?" he asked. "All they told me was that it was lion stuff."

He said it with the airy nonchalance of one to whom lions were nothing — the merest trifle — an every-day affair.

"I don't know what the action is myself yet," said the girl. "You're not in the first scene, I believe; but in the next one you're to carry me out of the cage."

"Great!" ejaculated Tommy, who at that moment would not have exchanged places with any living man, lion or no lion. * ' That ought to make a swell picture ! ' '

^^Yes/' said Miss Manners; ^'but don't you forget that it's my face that you want to keep toward the camera. I don't want anybody to think that I had to be doubled in this scene!"

^' Leave it to me!" said Tommy. "I don't care whether they see me or not, so long as I can help you make a good picture of it. And let me tell you something: When you go in there, look at that lion right between the eyes ! Whatever you do, don't turn your head away for a second ! Just keep your nerve with you ; and remember that a lion can't do a thing so long as you look him square in the eye."

*^I've heard that before," said the girl.

^^Sure you have, and it's true! I've pulled that eye stuff on lions and things ever since I was a kid, and it 's worked every time. ' '

While Tommy was gilding the dull edges of fact with the glittering alloy of fancy Jimmy Montague had not been idle. His first task was to superintend the placing of the cage — a long, narrow receptacle, constructed with an eye to the focal limitations of a camera lens. The inclosure was swung about so that the narrow front end of the cage, in which was the door, rested opposite the steep tier of bleacher seats upon which the audience was already seated.

A single bar at the back end of the cage was [41]

then removed to permit the entrance of the camera. The lines of focus sweeping fanv^se from the lens embraced the entire width of the receptacle at the front end, with the door as the exact center of the stage, and broadened out to embrace the audience as a background. Between the bleacher seats and the cage was an open space in which a certain portion of the action must transpire.

The completed picture, when flashed upon the screen, would present to the beholder an unobstructed foreground of the interior of the cage, beyond which the actors appeared against a solid wall of faces, the latter conveying the impression of a crowded circus tent.

^ ^ Now then ! ' ' said Jimmy Montague briskly, ^^all you people who are not in this first scene get back over the lines and keep still 1 Dennis, that means you. Beat it ! ' '