Talking Screen (Sep-Oct 1930)

World Films, you remember, the one called What Price Potatoes. "Sure I remember it," said Fishbein. "It was lousy! If I want to throw away my money I can find lots of interesting ways on the Stock Market. I don't need you to help me!" 1ATE that afternoon Harlin Denis was y found by a party of tourists who had driven up to die top of Hollywoodland to see the view. The tourists drove down faster than they had driven up, to inform the Hollywood police that there was a dead man on the top of the mountain with four bullet holes in his head. To say that Hollywood was amazed is putting it mildly. The residents of Southern California are quiet and law abiding; except for an occasional fraternal murder among the movie people, there is very little sensational killing to disturb the balmy weather and the sleep of the retired lowans. It was the first time in the history of Southern California that a man had been "taken for a ride" in the manner long since made famous by Chicago. Although the warm California sunshine attracts every kind of American, it has so far been fortunate enough not to draw any large number of gangsters. An occasional one drifts in, of course, to rest up after a hard winter in the East, but the golden metropolis of Los Angeles has been, for an American city, singularly free from gang warfare and gang racketeering. The Los Angeles Times raised a frightful howl and demanded that the police apprehend the culprit immediately. Of the four murders that have taken place in movie circles in the past five years, every one of them has had a personal motive. Love, jealousy, passion, thwarted ambition, betrayal, seduction, broken promises. And so the police looked for personal motives. There had been many women in Denis' life of course — for what movie director does not have his pick of women? — but it was impossible to establish any such motivation for the crime. THE Cosmic Studios waited for Denis' funeral before recommencing work on Murder in the Loop. A new director had to be chosen for the picture, and Fishbein did not know whom to engage. Both Joyce and Kenny pestered the life out of him to give Kenny the big chance, but Fishbein was afraid of so young a man. At length he hired Jerome Kearney, the director who made such a big hit with Passion s Chariot, and Kenny was again thrown into the dumps. Fishbein even told Kenny that if he didn't stop bothering him he would put the boy out of the crowd scene and lock the front gate on him. As he heard jumped to his Joyce has a big quarrel with her brother whom she suspects of working in one of the Chicago rackets, and then flings out of the room, the brother has a silent moment in which he lights a cigarette disdainfully. But the expectant silence of the projection room was broken by a heavy voice coming off the record, a voice that had no relation to the action on the screen. " " It said, "Stop all work on this picture!" • A MAZEMENT l\. turned to consternation and consternation to an excited babble of tongues. What could it mean.^ Whose voice was that? "Flash on that scene from the beginning!" shouted Fishbein. Everyone quieted down, and when the scene arrived at the point where Joyce flung out of the room, there was a sharp intaking of breath. Once again the rough crude voice boomed out, just as the brother was lighting a cigarette, "Stop all work on this picmenacine words. the mysterious voice, Kearney feet and shouted : "I'm through with this damned outfit ! I'm not going to get shot for anv contract!" — and stormed out. ture!" There was.no mistaking the N' A week passed and there was not a single clue as to who had taken Harlin Denis for a ride. All the participants of Murder in the Loop were assembled on the set, ready to go to work, when Jerome Kearney said, "Flash the opening scene that Harlin Denis took. Let me have the voice synchronization, too. I want to see how he opened the picture." "Sure," said one of his assistants. "Come into the projection room and we'll set up the records. " Jerome Kearney, Fishbein, Joyce, Kenny and the electricians trouped into the tiny projection room. After a few minutes delay the opening s ene was flashed on the screen with the accompanying dialogue. Just at the end of the scene, where O ONE knew what to make of this curious incident. The police were called in and they tried to tie up the murder of Harlin Denis with this strange commanding voice, but no one could make any sense of it all. A heavy guard was installed inside the studio and the work continued. After three days of constant rehearsing on the opening scenes, into which a few new gags and some fresh dialogue were injected, Jerome Kearney had the receiving juice turned on and the scene recorded with the electrical apparatus. The following morning the entire cast assembled to see and hear how the scene -had gotten over. At the place where Joyce flung out of the room angrily and her brother reached for a cigarette, there should have been an instant of silence, for Jerome Kearney — like Harlin Denis — had directed it that way. A little shiver of excitement ran through the assembled group as the action neared that point, for they remembered into what consternation they had been thrown by the happening in Harlin Denis' version. Just at that moment a rough voice rang out from the screen and said, "Jerome Kearney, stop directing this picture or you'll join Harlin Denis!" One of the girls in the crowd fainted. Fishbein ran up and down like a wild man. Kearney lit a cigarette and tried to hide the sickly smile that had come to his face. Everybody in the place talked at once! An ofiicer who was on duty outside was called in and the scene repeated. Once again that rough voice, with anything but a movie tone, boomed out, "Jerome Kearney, stop directing this picture or you'll join Harlin Denis! " The words were horribly clear, \Continiied on page 78] 27