Merton of the Movies. Harry Leon Wilson
city, though from time to time he will bow an assent or wave it with the hand clutching his evening newspaper to one of the favored lawful inmates, who will then carelessly saunter or drive an expensive motor car through the difficult portal.
Standing across the street, one may peer through this portal into an avenue of the forbidden city. There is an exciting glimpse of greensward, flowering shrubbery, roses, vines, and a vista of the ends of enormous structures painted yellow. And this avenue is sprightly with the passing of enviable persons who are rightly there, some in alien garb, some in the duller uniform of the humble artisan, some in the pressed and garnished trappings of rich overlords.
It is really best to stand across the street for this clandestine view of heart-shaking delights. If you stand close to the gate to peer past the bulky shape of the warder he is likely to turn and give you a cold look. Further, he is averse to light conversation, being always morosely absorbed — yet with an eye ever alert for intrusive outlanders — in his evening paper. He never reads a morning paper, but has some means of obtaining at an early hour each morning a pink or green evening paper that shrieks with crimson headlines. Such has been his reading through all time, and this may have been an element in shaping his now inveterate hostility toward those who would engage him in meaningless talk. Even in accepting the gift of an excellent cigar he betrays only a bored condescension. There is no relenting of countenance, no genial relaxing of an ingrained suspicion toward all who approach him, no cordiality, in short, such as would lead you to believe that he might be glad to look over a bunch of stills taken by the most artistic photographer in all Simsbury, Illinois. So you let him severely alone after a bit, and go to stand across the street, your neatly wrapped art studies under your arm, and leaning against the trunk of a eucalyptus tree, you stare brazenly past him into the city of wonders.
It is thus we first observe that rising young screen actor, Clifford Armytage, beginning the 10th day of his determined effort to become much more closely identified with screen activities than hitherto. Ten days of waiting outside the guarded gate had been his, but no other 10 days of his life had seemed so eventful or passed so swiftly. For at last he stood before his goal, had actually fastened his eyes upon so much of it as might be seen through its gate. Never had he achieved so much downright actuality.
Back in Simsbury on a Sunday morning he had often strolled over to the depot at early train time for a sight of the two metal containers housing the films shown at the Bijou Palace the day before. They would be on the platform, pasted over with express labels. He would stand by them, even touch them, examine the padlocks, turn them over, heft them; actually hold within his grasp the film wraith of Beulah Baxter in a terrific installment of The Hazards of Hortense. Those metal containers imprisoned so much of beauty, of daring, of young love striving against adverse currents — held the triumphant fruiting of Miss Baxter’s toil and struggle and sacrifice to give the public something better and finer. Often he had caressed the crude metal with a reverent hand, as if his wonder woman herself stood there to receive his homage.
That was actuality, in a way. But here it was in full measure, without mental subterfuge or vain imaginings. Had he not beheld from this post — he was pretty sure he had — Miss Baxter herself, swathed in costly furs, drive a robin’s-egg-blue roadster through the gate without even a nod to the warder? Indeed, that one glimpse of reality had been worth his 10 days of waiting — worth all his watching of the gate and its keeper until he knew every dent in the keeper’s derby hat, every bristle in his unkempt mustache, every wrinkle of his inferior raiment, and every pocket from which throughout the day he would vainly draw matches to relight an apparently fireproof cigar. Surely waiting thus rewarded could not be called barren. When he grew tired of standing he could cross the street and rest on a low bench that encircled one of the eucalyptus trees. Here were other waiters without the pale, usually men of strongly marked features, with a tendency to extremes in stature or hair or beards or noses, and not conspicuously neat in attire. These, he discovered, were extras awaiting employment, many of them Mexicans or strange-appearing mongrels, with a sprinkling of Negroes. Often he could have recruited there a band of outlaws for desperate deeds over the border. He did not fraternize with these waifs, feeling that his was another plane.
He had spent three days thus about the studio gate when he learned of the existence of another entrance. This was a door almost opposite the bench. He ventured through it and discovered a bare room with a wooden seat running about its sides. In a partition opposite the entrance was a small window and over it the words “Casting Director.” One of the two other doors led to the interior, and through this he observed pass many of the chosen. Another door led to the office of the casting director, glimpses of which could be obtained through the little window.
The waiting room itself was not only bare as to floor and walls, but was bleak and inhospitable in its general effect. The wooden seat was uncomfortable, and those who sat upon it along the dull-toned walls appeared depressed and unhopeful, especially after they had braved a talk through the little window with someone who seemed always to be saying, “No, nothing today. Yes, perhaps next week. I have your address.” When the aspirants were women, as they mostly were, the someone back of the window would add “dear” to the speech: “No, nothing today, dear.”
There seemed never to be anything today, and Clifford Armytage spent very little of his waiting time in this room. It made him uncomfortable to be stared at by other applicants, whether they stared casually, incuriously, or whether they seemed to appraise him disparagingly, as if telling him frankly that for him there would never be anything today.
Then he saw that he, too, must undergo that encounter at the little window. Too apparently he was not getting anywhere by loitering about outside. It was exciting, but the producers would hardly look there for new talent.
He chose a moment for this encounter when the waiting room was vacant, not caring to be stared at when he took this first step in forming a connection that was to be notable in screen annals. He approached the window, bent his head, and encountered the gaze of a small, comely woman with warm brown eyes, neat reddish hair, and a quick manner. The gaze was shrewd; it seemed to read all that was needed to be known of this new candidate.
“Yes?” said the woman.
She looked tired and very businesslike, but her manner was not unkind. The novice was at once reassured. He was presently explaining to her that he wished to act in the pictures at this particular studio. No, he had not had much experience; that is, you could hardly call it experience in actual acting, but he had finished a course of study and had a diploma from the General Film Production Company of Stebbinsville, Arkansas, certifying him to be a competent screen actor. And of course he would not at first expect a big part. He would be glad to take a small part to begin with — almost any small part until he could familiarize himself with studio conditions. And here was a bunch of stills that would give any one an idea of the range of parts he was prepared to play, society parts in a full-dress suit, or soldier parts in a trench coat and lieutenant’s cap, or juveniles in the natty suit with the belted coat, and in the storm-king model belted overcoat. And of course Western stuff — these would give an idea of what he could do — cowboy outfit and all that sort of thing, chaps and spurs and guns and so forth. And he was prepared to work hard and struggle and sacrifice in order to give the public something better and finer, and would it be possible to secure some small part at once? Was a good all-round actor by any chance at that moment needed in the company of Miss Beulah Baxter, because he would especially like such a part, and he would be ready to start to work at any time — tomorrow, or even today.
The tired little woman beyond the opening listened patiently to this, interrupting several times to say over an insistent telephone, “No, nothing today, dear.” She looked at the stills with evident interest and curiously studied the face of the speaker as she listened. She smiled wearily when he was through and spoke briskly.
“Now, I’ll tell you, son; all that is very nice, but you haven’t had a lick of real experience yet, have you? — and things are pretty quiet on the lot just now. Today there are only two companies shooting. So you couldn’t get anything today or tomorrow or probably for a good many days after that, and it won’t be much when you get it. You may get on as an extra after a while when some of the other companies start shooting, but I can’t promise anything, you understand. What