CHAPTER FIVE
A BUNCH OF ONE-REELERS FROM BENTLY BROWN
The Manager of the Acme Film Company cleared his throat with a raspingnoise that sounded very loud, coming as it did after fifteen minutes ofcomplete silence. Luck, smoking a cigarette absent-mindedly by the windowwhile he stared out across two vacant lots to a tawdry apartmenthouse,--and saw a sage-covered plain instead of what was before hiseyes,--started from his daydream and glanced at Martinson inquiringly."Well, what do you think of it?" he asked.
Martinson cleared his throat again, and shuffled the typed sheets in hishands. "Seems to lack action, don't it?" he hazarded reluctantly. "Ofcourse, this is a rough draft; I realize that. I suppose you'llstrengthen up the plot, later on. Chance for some good cattle-stealingcomplications, I should think. But I'd boil it down to two reels, Luck,if I were you. There's a lot of atmosphere you couldn't get, anyway--"
"I can get every foot of that atmosphere," Luck put in crisply.
"Oh, I suppose--but you don't want that much. Too expensive, where itdoesn't carry the action along. I'd put in some dance-hall scenes; youhaven't enough interiors. Make your lead a victim of card sharps, whydon't you, and have his sister come there after him? You could get somegreat dramatic action--have her meet the heavy there--"
"After the tried-and-tested recipe. Sure, Mart! We can take the middleout of that _Her-Brother's-Honor_ film and use that; and if you're afraidthe public may recognize it, we'll run it backwards. Or we can mix itwith some _Western-Girl's-Romance_ film, or take--"
"Now, Luck, wait a minute. Wait-a-minute!" Martinson's hand went up inthe approved gesture of stopping another's speech. "You can give it anoriginal twist. You know you can; you always have."
Luck swore, accustomed though he was to the makeshifts of the business.The street cars had stopped running the night before, while he was stillhammering that scenario out on the typewriter; the street cars hadstopped running, and the steam heat had been turned off in the hotelwhere he lived, and he had finished with an old Mexican _serape_ drapedabout his person for warmth. But his enthusiasm had not cooled, thoughhis room grew chill. He had gone to bed when the typing was done, and haddreamed scene after scene vividly while he slept. Still glowing with thepride of creation, he had read the script while his breakfast coffee hadcooled, and he had been the first man in the office, so eager was he toshare his secret and see Martinson's eyes gleam with impatience to havethe story filmed.
Knowing this, you will know also why he swore. Martinson thrust out hisunder lip at the oath, and tossed the script neatly into the clear spaceon the desk. "Oh, if that's the way you feel about it!" His tone wastrenchant. "Sorry I offered any suggestions. There are some good bits, ifthey're worked up right, and I naturally supposed you wanted my opinion."
"I did. I never saw you square up to anything but the same old dime-novelWest before. I wanted to see how it would hit you."
"Well, it don't." Martinson waited a minute while that sunk in. When hespoke again, his manner was that of a man who has dismissed adisagreeable subject, and has taken up important business.
"We've made quite a haul since you left. A bunch of one-reelers fromBently Brown. You'll eat 'em up, Luck,--all those stories of hisfeaturing the adventures of the XY cowboys. You've read 'em; everybodyhas, according to him. They'll be cheap to put on, because the same setsand the same locations will do for the lot. Same cast, too. He blew inhere temporarily hard up and wanting to unload, and we got the wholeseries for next to nothing." He opened a desk drawer, and took out abundle of folded scripts tied with a dingy blue tape. Martinson was amatter-of-fact man; he really did not understand just how much Luck's newstory meant to its author. If he had, he surely would not have been quiteso brisk and so frankly elated over that untidy lot of Bently Brownscenarios.
"I had all the synopses numbered and put on top here," he went on, "soyou can run them over and see what they're like. A small company will do,Luck. That's one point that struck me. Two or three die, on an average,in the first four hundred feet of every story; so you can double a lot.I've had Clements go over them and start the carpenters on the street setwhere most of the exterior action takes place; we're behind on releases,you know, and these ought to be rushed. You'd better go over and see howhe's making out; you may want to make some changes."
Luck hesitated so long that Martinson was on the edge of withdrawing theproffered scripts. But he took them finally, and ran his eyedisparagingly over the titles. "Bently Brown!" he said, as though he werenaming something disagreeable. "I'm to film Bently Brown'sblood-and-battle stuff, am I?" He grinned, with the corners of his mouthtipped downward so that you never would have suspected it of everproducing Luck's famous smile. "I might turn them into comedy," hesuggested. "I expect I could get a punch by burlesquing--"
"Punch!" Martinson pushed his chair back impetuously. "Punch? Why, mygodfrey, man, that stuff's all punch!"
Luck curved a palm over his too-expressive mouth while he skimmed thecentral idea from two or three synopses. Martinson watched him uneasily.Martinson claimed to keep one finger pressed firmly upon the publicpulse--wherever that may be found--and to be ever alert for its warningflutterings. Martinson claimed to know a great deal about what the publicliked in the way of moving pictures. He believed in Luck's knowledge ofthe West, but he did not believe that the public would stand for the realWest at all; the public, he maintained, wanted its West served hot andstrong and reeking with the smoke of black powder. So--
"Well, the market demands that sort of thing," he declared, arguingagainst that curved palm and the telltale wrinkles around Luck's eyes."It's all tommyrot, of course. I don't say it's good; I say it's thestuff that goes. We're here to make what the public will pay to lookat." Martinson, besides keeping his finger on the public pulse andattending to the marketing of the Acme wares and watching that expensesdid not run too high, found a little time in which to be human. "I know,Luck," the human side of him observed sympathetically; "it's justmade-to-order melodrama, but business is simply rotten, old man. We'vejust got to release films the market calls for. There's noart-for-art's-sake in the movie business, and you know it. Now,personally, I like that scenario of yours--"
"Forget it!" said Luck crisply, warning him off the subject. To make thewarning keener-edged, he lifted the typed sheets over which he had workedso late the night before, glanced at the top one, gave a snort, and torethem twice down the length of them with vicious twists of his fingers. Hedid not mean to be spectacular; he simply felt that way at thatparticular moment, and he indulged the impulse to destroy something. Hedropped the fragments into Martinson's waste basket, picked up the bundleof scripts and his hat, and went out with his mouth pulled down at thecorners and with his neck pretty stiff.
He went swinging across the studio yard and on past the great stage wherethe carpenters halted their work while they greeted him, and looked afterhim and spoke of him when he had passed. Early idlers--extras with highhopes and empty pockets--sent him wistful glances which he did not see atall; though he did see Andy Green and his wife (who had been RosemaryAllen). These two stood hesitating just within the half-open, high boardgate fifty yards away. Luck waved his hand and swerved toward them.
"Howdy! Where's the rest of the bunch?" he called out as they hurried upto him. Whereupon the group of extras were sharp bitten by the envy ofthese two strangers, spoken to so familiarly by Luck Lindsay.
"Do you know, I feel sure the boys are being held in the lost-child placeat the police station!" Rosemary Green, twinkled her brown eyes at himfrom between strands of crinkly brown hair. "I had tags all fixed, withname, age, owner's address and all that, and I was going to hang themaround the boys' necks with pale blue ribbon--pale blue would be sobecoming! But do you know, I couldn't find them! I feel worried. I shouldhate to waste thirty-nine cents worth of pale blue ribbon. I can't wearit myself; it makes me look positively swarthy." Rosemary Green had amost captivating way of saying swarthy.
The corners of Luck's mouth cam
e up instantly. "We'll have to send outscouting parties. I need that bunch of desperadoes. Let's look over bythe corrals. I've got to go over and see what kind of a street setthey're knocking together, anyway.
"Hello! I have sure-enough crying need for all you strays," he exclaimedfive minutes later, when they came upon the Flying TJ boys standingdisconsolately at the head of the street "set" upon which carpenters werehammering and sawing and painters were daubing. Luck's eyes chilled as hetook in the stereotyped "Western" crudeness of the set.
"Well, we sure need you--and need you bad," Pink retorted. "We want toknow what town was peeled so they could set the rind up like that andcall it a street? Between you and me, Luck, it don't look good to me,back or front. You walk into what claims to be a saloon, and come out ona view of the hills. They tell me the bar of that imitation saloon isaway over there on that platform, and they say the bottles are all fullof tea. That right?"
Luck nodded gloomily. "Soon as they get the set up, it's going to be yourprivilege to come boiling out of that saloon, shooting two guns, Pink,"he prophesied. "You'll have the fun of killing half a dozen boys thatcome down from this end shooting as they ride." He put his cigarettebetween his lips and began to untie the dingy blue tape that bound thescenarios together.
"Ever read any of Bently Brown's stories? They wished a bunch of them onto me while I was gone and couldn't defend myself," he said, as one whobreaks bad news. "I'm certainly sorry about this, boys. It's a long wayfrom what I brought you out here to do; and if you want to, you can callthe deal off and go home. Rip-snorting, rotten melodrama--cheap as ice inAlaska. Stuff I hate--because it's the stuff that cheapens the West inpictures."
"What about our range picture?" Andy Green began anxiously.
Luck choked back an oath because of Andy's wife. "Ah--they're married tothe idea that this rot is what sells best. They don't know what a _real_Western picture is: they never saw one. And they're afraid to take achance. I was in hopes--but Mart's the big chief, you know. He'd gone andloaded up with this trash, and so he couldn't see my story at all. I gethis viewpoint, all right; he's keen to pry off some real money, and he'safraid to experiment with new tools. But it does seem pretty raw to putyou boys working on this cheap studio stuff after getting you out here todo something worth while."
"We're to stay right here, then?" Weary spoke the question that was inthe minds of all of them.
"That's the present outlook," Luck confessed with bitterness. "I don'tneed real country for this junk. I was all primed to show him where I'dhave to take my company to New Mexico, but I didn't say anything about itwhen he sprung this Bently Brown business. This will all be made righthere at the studio and out in Griffith Park."
Down deep in Luck's heart there was a hurt he would not reveal to anyone. It was built partly of disappointment and an honest dislike fordoing unworthy work; it had in it also some personal chagrin at beingcompelled to put the Happy Family at work in the very class of pictureshe had often ridiculed in his talk with them, after bringing them all theway from Montana so that he might produce his big range picture. He stoodlooking somberly at the set which Clements had planned to save time--andtherefore dollars--for the Acme Company. He thought of his range story,as it had first grown out of the night away up there in the plainscountry; he thought of how he had hurried so that he might the soonermake the vision a reality; how he had talked of it confidently to thesemen who had listened with growing enthusiasm and interest, until hisvision had become their vision, his hopes their hopes.
They had left the Flying U and come with him to help make that bigpicture of the range. By their eager talk they had helped him tostrengthen certain scenes; they had even suggested new, original materialas they told of this adventure and that accident, and argued--as wastheir habit--ever scenes and situations. That was why Andy had spoken ofit as _their_ picture. That was why they were here; that was what hadbrought them early to the studio. And in his hand he held a half dozen ormore of those cheap, lurid stories he had always despised; they must letthe public see their faces in these impossible, illogical situations, orthey must go back and call Luck Lindsay names to salve theirdisappointment.
The dried little man--whose name was Dave Wiswell--came walking curiouslyup the fresh-made "street," his sharp eyes taking in the falsity of thewhole row of shack-houses that had no backs; bald behind as board fences,save where two-by-fours braced them from falling. He saw the groupstanding before a wall that purported to be the front of a bank (whichwould be robbed with much bloodshed in the second scenario) and hehurried a little. Luck scowled at him preoccupiedly, nodded a goodmorning, and turned abruptly to the others.
"Listen. If you boys are game for this melodrama, I'd like to use you,all right. You'll get experience in the business, anyway, so maybe itwon't do you any harm. And if the weather holds good, we'll just make along hard drive of this bunch of drivel; we'll rush 'em through--sabe?And I'll make it my business to see that Mart doesn't unload any more ofthe same. You may even get some fun out of it, seeing you're not fed upon this said Western drama, the way I am. Anyway, what's the word? ShallI hop into the machine and go down and buy you fellows a bunch of returntickets, or shall I assign you your parts and wade into this blood andbullets business?"
Weary folded his arms and grinned down at Luck. "I'm all for the bloodand bullets, myself," he said promptly. "I'm just crazy to come shootingand yelling down this little imitation street and do things that arebold and bad."
"I should think," interjected Rosemary Green, with a pretty viciousness,"that you'd be ashamed, Luck Lindsay! Do you think we are a bunch ofquitters? Give me a part--and a gun--and I'll stand on a ladder behindthat hotel window and shoot 'em as fast as they can turn the corner downthere." Her brown eyes twinkled hearteningly at him. "I'll pull my hairdown, and yell and shoot and wring my hands--Pink, you keep still! I'mpositive I can shoot and wring my hands at the same time in a BentlyBrown story, can't I, Luck?"
"You certainly can," Luck told her grimly. "You can do worse than thatand get by. Well, all right, folks. You prowl around and kill time whileI get ready to start. There won't be anything doing till after lunch, atthe earliest, so make yourselves at home. I'd introduce you to some ofthese folks if it was worth while, but it ain't. You'll know them soonenough--most of them to your sorrow, at that." He turned on his heel witha hasty "See yuh later," and plunged into the work before him just asenergetically as though his heart were in it.