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Merton of the Movies

Merton Gill looked. These would be hired dancers to entertain the pleasure-mad throng, a young girl with vine leaves in her hair and a dark young man of barbaric appearance. The girl was clad in a mere whisp of a girdle and shining breast plates, while the man was arrayed chiefly in a coating of dark stain. They swirled over the dance floor to the broken rhythm of the orchestra, now clinging, now apart, working to a climax in which the man poised with his partner perched upon one shoulder. Through the megaphone came instructions to applaud the couple, and Broadway applauded—all but Merton Gill, who stared moodily into his coffee cup or lifted bored eyes to the scene of revelry. He was not bored, but his various emotions combined to produce this effect very plausibly. He was dismayed at this sudden revelation of art in the dance so near him. Imogene Pulver had once done an art dance back in Simsbury, at the cantata of Esther in the vestry of the Methodist church, and had been not a little criticised for her daring; but Imogene had been abundantly clad, and her gestures much more restrained. He was trying now to picture how Gashwiler would take a thing like this, or Mrs. Gashwiler, for that matter! One glimpse of those practically unclad bodies skipping and bounding there would probably throw them into a panic. They couldn't have sat it through. And here he was, right up in front of them, and not turning a hair. This reflection permitted something of the contemptuous to show in the random glances with which he swept the dancers? He could not look at them steadily, not when they were close, as they often were. Also, he loathed the cigarette he was smoking. The tolerant scorn for the Gashwilers and his feeling for the cigarette brought him again into favourable notice. He heard Henshaw, but did not look up. "Get another flash here, Paul. He's rather a good little bit." Henshaw now stood beside him. "Hold that," he said. "No, wait." He spoke to Merton's companion. "You change seats a minute with Miss Montague, as if you'd got tired of him—see what I mean? Miss Montague—Miss Montague." The Spanish girl arose, seeming not wholly pleased at this bit of directing. The Montague girl came to the table. She was a blithesome sprite in a salmon-pink dancing frock. Her blonde curls fell low over one eye which she now cocked inquiringly at the director. "You're trying to liven him up," explained Henshaw. "That's all—baby-vamp him. He'll do the rest. He's quite a good little bit." The Montague girl flopped into the chair, leaned roguishly toward Merton Gill, placed a small hand upon the sleeve of his coat and peered archly at him through beaded lashes, one eye almost hidden by its thatch of curls. Merton Gill sunk low in his chair, cynically tapped the ash from his tenth cigarette into the coffee cup and raised bored eyes to hers. "That's it—shoot it, Paul, just a flash." The camera was being wheeled toward them. The Montague girl, with her hand still on his arm, continued her wheedling, though now she spoke. "Why, look who's here. Kid, I didn't know you in your stepping-out clothes. Say, listen, why do you always upstage me? I never done a thing to you, did I? Go on, now, give me the fishy eye again. How'd you ace yourself into this first row, anyway? Did you have to fight for it? Say, your friend'll be mad at me putting her out of here, won't she? Well, blame it on the gelatin master. I never suggested it. Say, you got Henshaw going. He likes that blighted look of yours." He made no reply to this chatter. He must keep in the picture. He merely favoured her with a glance of fatigued indifference. The camera was focused. "All ready, you people. Do like I said, now. Lights, camera!" Merton Gill drew upon his cigarette with the utmost disrelish, raised the cold eyes of a disillusioned man to the face of the leering Montague girl, turned aside from her with every sign of apathy, and wearily exhaled the smoke. There seemed to be but this one pleasure left to him. "Cut!" said Henshaw, and somewhere lights jarred off. "Just stick there a bit, Miss Montague. We'll have a couple more shots when the dancing begins." Merton resented this change. He preferred the other girl. She lured him but not in so pronounced, so flagrant a manner. The blight of Broadway became more apparent than ever upon his face. The girl's hand still fluttered upon his sleeve as the music came and dancers shuffled by them. "Say, you're the actin' kid, all right." She was tapping the floor with the heel of a satin slipper. He wished above all things that she wouldn't call him "Kid." He meditated putting a little of Broadway's blight upon her by saying in a dignified way that his real name was Clifford Armytage. Still, this might not blight her—you couldn't tell about the girl. "You certainly are the actin'est kid on this set, I'll tell the lot that. Of course these close-ups won't mean much, just about one second, or half that maybe. Or some hick in the cuttin' room may kill 'em dead. Come on, give me the fish-eye again. That's it. Say, I'm glad I didn't have to smoke cigarettes in this scene. They wouldn't do for my type, standin' where the brook and river meet up. I hate a cigarette worse'n anything. You—I bet you'd give up food first." "I hate 'em, too," he muttered grudgingly, glad to be able to say this, even though only to one whose attentions he meant to discourage. "If I have to smoke one more it'll finish me." "Now, ain't that the limit? Too bad, Kid!" "I didn't even have any of my own. That Spanish girl gave me these." The Montague girl glanced over his shoulder at the young woman whose place she had usurped. "Spanish, eh? If she's Spanish I'm a Swede right out of Switzerland. Any-way, I never could like to smoke. I started to learn one summer when I was eight. Pa and Ma and I was out with a tent Tom-show, me doing Little Eva, and between acts I had to put on pants and come out and do a smoking song, all about a kid learning to smoke his first cigar and not doin' well with it, see? But they had to cut it out. Gosh, what us artists suffer at times! Pa had me try it a couple of years later when I was doin' Louise the blind girl in the Two Orphans, playin' thirty cents top. It was a good song, all right, with lots of funny gags. I'd 'a' been the laughing hit of the bill if I could 'a' learned not to swallow. We had to cut it out again after the second night. Talk about entering into your part. Me? I was too good." If the distant camera glanced this way it caught merely the persistent efforts of a beautiful debutante who had not yet felt the blight of Broadway to melt the cynicism of one who suffered it more and more acutely each moment. Her hand fluttered on his sleeve and her left eye continuously beguiled him from under the overhanging curl. As often as he thought it desirable he put the bored glance upon her, though mostly he stared in dejection at the coffee cup or the empty wine glass. He was sorry that she had had that trouble with the cigar, but one who as Little Eva or poor persecuted Louise, the blind girl, had to do a song and dance between the acts must surely come from a low plane of art. He was relieved when, at megaphoned directions, an elderly fop came to whirl her off in the dance. Her last speech was: "That poor Henshaw—the gelatin master'll have megaphone-lip by to-night." He was left alone at his table. He wondered if they might want a close-up of him this way, uncompanioned, jaded, tired of it all, as if he would be saying: "There's always the river!" But nothing of this sort happened. There was more dancing, more close-ups of Muriel Mercer being stricken with her vision of tenement misery under the foul glare of a middle-aged roue inflamed with wine. And there was a shot of Muriel perceiving at last the blight of Broadway and going to a table at which sat a pale, noble-looking young man with a high forehead, who presently led her out into the night to the real life of the worthy poor. Later the deserted admirer became again a roue inflamed with wine and submitted to a close-up that would depict his baffled rage. He clenched his hands in this and seemed to convey, with a snarling lift of his lip, that the girl would yet be his. Merton Gill had ceased to smoke. He had sounded on Broadway even the shallow pleasure of cigarettes. He was thoroughly blighted. At last a megaphoned announcement from the assistant director dismissing the extras, keeping the star, the lead, and a few small-part people, to clean up medium shots, "dramatics," and other work requiring no crowd. "All you extra people here to-morrow morning, eight-thirty, same clothes and make-up." There was a quick breaking up of the revelry. The Broadway pleasure-seekers threw off the blight and stormed the assistant director for slips of paper which he was now issuing. Merton Gill received one, labelled "Talent check." There was fine print upon it which he took no pains to read, beyond gathering its general effect that the Victor Film-art Company had the full right to use any photographs of him that its agents might that day have obtained. What engrossed him to the exclusion of this legal formality was the item that he would now be paid seven dollars and fifty cents for his day's work—and once he had been forced to toil half a week for this sum! Emerging from the stage into the sunlight he encountered the Montague girl who hailed him as he would have turned to avoid her. "Say, trouper, I thought I'd tell you in case you didn't know—we don't take our slips to that dame in that outside cafeteria any more. She always pinches off a quarter or may be four bits. They got it fixed now so the cash is always on tap in the office. I just thought I'd tell you." "Thanks," he said, still with the jaded air of the disillusioned. He had only the vaguest notion of her meaning, but her intention had been kindly. "Thank you very much." "Oh, don't mention it. I just thought I'd tell you." She glanced after him shrewdly. Nearing the office he observed a long line of Broadway revellers waiting to cash their slips. Its head was lost inside the building and it trailed far outside. No longer was any blight to be perceived. The slips were ready in hand. Instead of joining the line Merton decided upon luncheon. It was two o'clock, and though waiters with trays had been abundant in the gilded cabaret, the best screen art had not seemed to demand a serving of actual food. Further, he would eat in the cafeteria in evening dress, his make-up still on, like a real actor. The other time he had felt conspicuous because nothing had identified him with the ordinary clientele of the place. The room was not crowded now. Only a table here and there held late comers, and the choice of foods when he reached the serving counter at the back was limited. He permitted himself to complain of this in a practised manner, but made a selection and bore his tray to the centre of the room. He had chosen a table and was about to sit, when he detected Henshaw farther down the room, and promptly took the one next him. It was probable that Henshaw would recall him and praise the work he had done. But the director merely rolled unseeing eyes over him as he seated himself, and continued his speech to the man Merton had before seen him with, the grizzled dark man with the stubby gray mustache whom he called Governor. Merton wondered if he could be the governor of California, but decided not. Perhaps an ex-governor. "She's working out well," he was saying. "I consider it one of the best continuities Belmore has done. Not a line of smut in it, but to make up for that we'll have over thirty changes of costume." Merton Gill coughed violently, then stared moodily at his plate of baked beans. He hoped that this, at least, would recall him to Henshaw who might fix an eye on him to say: "And, by the way, here is a young actor that was of great help to me this morning." But neither man even glanced up. Seemingly this young actor could choke to death without exciting their notice. He stared less moodily at the baked beans. Henshaw would notice him sometime, and you couldn't do everything at once. The men had finished their luncheon and were smoking. The animated Henshaw continued his talk. "And about that other thing we were discussing, Governor, I want to go into that with you. I tell you if we can do Robinson Crusoe, and do it right, a regular five-thousand-foot program feature, the thing ought to gross a million. A good, clean, censor-proof picture—great kid show, run forever. Shipwreck stuff, loading the raft, island stuff, hut stuff, goats, finding the footprint, cannibals, the man Friday—can't you see it?" The Governor seemed to see it. "Fine—that's so!" He stared above the director's head for the space of two inhalations from his cigarette, imbuing Merton Gill with gratitude that he need not smoke again that day. "But say, look here, how about your love interest?" Henshaw waved this aside with his own cigarette and began to make marks on the back of an envelope. "Easy enough—Belmore can fix that up. We talked over one or two ways. How about having Friday's sister brought over with him to this island? The cannibals are going to eat her, too. Then the cannibals run to their canoes when they hear the gun, just the same as in the book. And Crusoe rescues the two. And when he cuts the girl's bonds he finds she can't be Friday's real sister, because she's white—see what I mean? Well, we work it out later that she's the daughter of an English Earl that was wrecked near the cannibal island, and they rescued her, and Friday's mother brought her up as her own child. She's saved the papers that came ashore, and she has the Earl's coat-of-arms tattooed on her shoulder blade, and finally, after Crusoe has fallen in love with her, and she's remembered a good deal of her past, along comes the old Earl, her father, in a ship and rescues them all. How about that?" Henshaw, brightly expectant, awaited the verdict of his chief. "Well—I don't know." The other considered. "Where's your conflict, after the girl is saved from the savages? And Crusoe in the book wears a long beard. How about that? He won't look like anything—sort of hairy, and that's all." Henshaw from the envelope on which he drew squares and oblongs appeared to gain fresh inspiration. He looked up with new light in his eyes. "I got it—got the whole thing. Modernize it. This chap is a rich young New Yorker, cruising on his yacht, and he's wrecked on this island and gets a lot of stuff ashore and his valet is saved, too—say there's some good comedy, see what I mean?—valet is one of these stiff English lads, never been wrecked on an island before and complains all the time about the lack of conveniences. I can see a lot of good gags for him, having to milk the goats, and getting scared of the other animals, and no place to press his master's clothes—things like that, you know. Well, the young fellow explores the island and finds another party that's been wrecked on the other side, and it's the girl and the man that got her father into his power and got all of his estate and is going to make beggars of them if the girl won't marry him, and she comes on the young fellow under some palms and they fall in love and fix it up to double-cross the villain—Belmore can work it out from there. How about that? And say, we can use a lot of trims from that South Sea piece we did last year, all that yacht and island stuff—see what I mean?" The other considered profoundly. "Yes, you got a story there, but it won't be Robinson Crusoe, don't you see?" Again Henshaw glanced up from his envelope with the light of inspiration. "Well, how about this? Call it Robinson Crusoe, Junior! There you are. We get the value of the name and do the story the way we want it, the young fellow being shaved every day by the valet, and he can invite the other party over to dine with him and receive them in evening dress and everything. Can't you see it? If that story wouldn't gross big then I don't know a story. And all easy stuff. We can use the trims for the long shots, and use that inlet, toward the other end of Catalina for the hut and the beach; sure-fire stuff, Governor—and Robinson Crusoe, Junior is a cinch title." "Well, give Belmore as much dope as you've got, and see what he can work out." They arose and stood by the counter to pay their checks. "If you want to see the rushes of that stuff we shot this morning be over to the projection room at five," said Henshaw as they went out. Neither had observed the rising young screen actor, Clifford Armytage, though he had coughed violently again as they left. He had coughed most plausibly, moreover, because of the cigarettes. At the cashier's window, no longer obstructed, he received his money, another five-dollar bill adorned with the cheerfully prosperous face of Benjamin Harrison and half that amount in silver coin. Then, although loath to do this, he went to the dressing room and removed his make-up. That grease paint had given him a world of confidence. At the casting office he stopped to tell his friend of the day's camera triumph, how the director had seemed to single him out from a hundred or so revellers to portray facially the deadly effect of Broadway's night life. "Good work!" she applauded. "Before long you'll be having jobs oftener. And don't forget, you're called again to-morrow morning for the gambling-house scene." She was a funny woman; always afraid he would forget something he could not possibly forget. Once more in the Patterson kitchen he pressed his suit and dreamt of new eminences in his chosen art. The following morning he was again the first to reach the long dressing room, the first to be made up by the grumbling extra, the first to reach the big stage. The cabaret of yesterday had overnight been transformed into a palatial gambling hell. Along the sides of the room and at its centre were tables equipped for strange games of chance which only his picture knowledge enabled him to recognize. He might tarry at these tables, he thought, but he must remember to look bored in the near presence of Henshaw. The Spanish girl of yesterday appeared and he greeted her warmly. "I got some cigarettes this time," he said, "so let me pay you back all those I smoked of yours yesterday." Together they filled the golden case that hung from her girdle. "It's swell, all right," said the girl, gazing about the vast room now filling with richly clad gamblers. "But I thought it was all over except the tenement-house scenes where Vera Vanderpool has gone to relieve the poor," he said. The girl explained. "This scene comes before the one we did yesterday. It's where the rich old boy first sees Vera playing roulette, and she loses a lot of money and is going to leave her string of pearls, but he says it's a mere trifle and let him pay her gambling losses, so in a weak moment she does, and that's how he starts to get her into his power. You'll see how it works out. Say, they spent some money on this set, all right." It was indeed a rich set, as the girl had said. It seemed to Merton Gill that it would be called on the screen "One of those Plague Spots that Eat like a Cancer at the Heart of New York." He lighted a cigarette and leaned nonchalantly against a pillar to smile a tired little smile at the pleasure-mad victims of this life who were now grouping around the roulette and faro tables. He must try for his jaded look. "Some swell shack!" The speaker was back of him, but he knew her for the Montague girl, and was instantly enabled to increase the blighted look for which he had been trying. "One natty little hovel, I'll tell the world," the girl continued. "Say, this puts it all over the Grand Central station, don't it? Must be right smack at the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Well, start the little ball rolling, so I can make a killing." He turned his head slightly and saw her dance off to one of the roulette tables, accompanied by the middle-aged fop who had been her companion yesterday. Henshaw and his assistant now appeared and began grouping the players at the various tables. Merton Gill remained leaning wearily against his massive pillar, trying to appear blase under the chatter of the Spanish girl. The groups were arranged to the liking of Henshaw, though only after many trials. The roulette ball was twirled and the lively rattle of chips could be heard. Scanning his scene, he noted Merton and his companion. "Oh, there you are, you two. Sister, you go and stand back of that crowd around the faro table. Keep craning to look over their shoulders, and give us your side view. I want to use this man alone. Here." He led Merton to a round table on which were a deck of cards and some neatly stacked chips. "Sit here, facing the camera. Keep one hand on the cards, sort of toying with 'em, see what I mean?" He scattered the piled chips loosely about the table, and called to a black waiter: "Here, George, put one of those wine glasses on his left." The wine glass was placed. "Now kind of slump down in your chair, like you saw the hollowness of it all—see what I mean?" Merton Gill thought he saw. He exhaled smoke, toyed contemptuously with the cards at his right hand and, with a gesture of repulsion, pushed the wine glass farther away. He saw the hollowness of it all. The spirit of wine sang in his glass but to deaf ears. Chance could no longer entice him. It might again have been suspected that cigarettes were ceasing to allure. "Good work! Keep it up," said Henshaw and went back to his cameras. The lights jarred on; desperate gaming was filmed. "More life at the roulette tables," megaphoned Henshaw. "Crowd closer around that left-hand faro table. You're playing for big stakes." The gaming became more feverish. The mad light of pleasure was in every eye, yet one felt that the blight of Broadway was real. The camera was wheeled forward and Merton Gill joyously quit smoking while Henshaw secured flashes of various groups, chiefly of losers who were seeing the hollowness of it all. He did not, however, disdain a bit of comedy. "Miss Montague." "Yes, Mr. Henshaw." The Montague girl paused in the act of sprinkling chips over a roulette lay-out. "Your escort has lost all his chips and you've lost all he bought for you—" The girl and her escort passed to other players the chips before them, and waited. "Your escort takes out his wallet, shows it to you empty, and shrugs his shoulders. You shrug, too, but turn your back on him, facing the camera, and take some bills out of your stocking—see what I mean? Give her some bills, someone." "Never mind, Mr. Henshaw; I already got some there." The pantomime was done, the girl turned, stooped, withdrew flattened bills from one of the salmon-pink stockings and flourished them at her escort who achieved a transition from gloom to joy. Merton Gill, observing this shameless procedure, plumbed the nether depths of disgust for Broadway's night life. The camera was now wheeled toward him and he wearily lighted another cigarette. "Get a flash of this chap," Henshaw was saying. The subject leaned forward in his chair, gazing with cynical eyes at the fevered throng. Wine, women, song, all had palled. Gambling had no charm—he looked with disrelish at the cigarette he had but just lighted. "All right, Paul, that's good. Now get that bunch over at the crap table." Merton Gill lost no time in relinquishing his cigarette. He dropped it into the wine glass which became a symbol of Broadway's dead-sea fruit. Thereafter he smoked only when he was in the picture. He felt that he was becoming screen wise. And Henshaw had remembered him. The cast of The Blight of Broadway might not be jewelled with his name, but his work would stand out. He had given the best that was in him. He watched the entrance of Muriel Mercer, maddest of all the mad throng, accompanied by the two young men and the girl who was not so beautiful. He watched her lose steadily, and saw her string of pearls saved by the elderly scoundrel who had long watched the beautiful girl as only the Wolf of Wall Street could watch one so fair. He saw her leave upon his arm, perhaps for further unwholesome adventure along Broadway. The lights were out, the revelry done. Merton Gill beyond a doubt preferred Western stuff, some heart-gripping tale of the open spaces, or perhaps of the frozen north, where he could be the hard-riding, straight-shooting, two-fisted wonder-man, and not have to smoke so many cigarettes—only one now and then, which he would roll himself and toss away after a few puffs. Still, he had shown above the mob of extra people, he thought. Henshaw had noticed him. He was coming on. The Montague girl hailed him as he left the set. "Hullo, old trouper. I caught you actin' again to-day, right out before the white folks. Well, so far so good. But say, I'm glad all that roulette and stuff was for the up-and-down stage and not on the level. I'd certainly have lost everything but my make-up. So long, Kid!" She danced off to join a group of other women who were leaving. He felt a kindly pity for the child. There could be little future in this difficult art for one who took it so lightly; who talked so frankly to strangers without being introduced. At luncheon in the cafeteria he waited a long time in the hope of encountering Henshaw, who would perhaps command his further services in the cause of creative screen art. He meant to be animated at this meeting, to show the director that he could be something more than an actor who had probed the shams of Broadway. But he lingered in vain. He thought Henshaw would perhaps be doing without food in order to work on the scenario for Robinson Crusoe, Junior. He again stopped to thank his friend, the casting director, for securing him his first chance. She accepted his thanks smilingly, and asked him to drop around often. "Mind, you don't forget our number," she said. He was on the point of making her understand once for all that he would not forget the number, that he would never forget Gashwiler's address, that he had been coming to this studio too often to forget its location. But someone engaged her at the window, so he was obliged to go on without enlightening the woman. She seemed to be curiously dense. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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