Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

POKER FACES Needn't Worry NO ONE," expounded my brother at the luncheontable, "can foresee the incalculable value that these homemovies are destined to have in future years. Think what they will mean to our great-grandchildren ; who will be able, at will, to bring back the days that we, their forbears, are now living in ! They will have but to darken the room, press a button, and there we are before them to the life, looking as we really looked, and acting as we really acted!" Acting as we really acted! I have pondered those words. Some years ago I saw a motion picture, one scene of which must have made a very deep impression, because I distinctly remember its every detail. It represented a youngbride washing dishes. The dramatic purpose of the scene was to show that this young wife was domestically inclined, which quality would be demonstrated in her handling of the dishwashing. This is how she handled it. First she turned on the hot water faucet and made her rosebud mouth into an adorable round O of surprise delight when hot water gushed forth. What did she expect to come out — waffles? Providing" that she got her hot water in the way the rest of us get ours, there was nothing but hot water to expect from that faucet. Then she took up the dishmop. Before sousing it in the water, she held it up, contemplating it with lively pleasure. One would have supposed it was her favorite Madonna. When it came time to wipe the dishes, instead of drearily hauling down a towel from the rack without even looking at it, she took one reverently in her hands and pressed it to her heart. Her heaving bosom was testimony of the turmoil that was going on in her little insides. "That girl is a congenital idiot !" I said to myself. Well, if she was, then so am I ! I arrived at that painful conclusion by the following route. At the time of the great solar eclipse of January 24, 1925, I made a trip to H to see the spectacle in its totality. I stayed at my brother's house. He had just acquired a home-movie outfit and it was at this time that he made the remarks with which this article By Jane Budden opens. There was another guest in the house : a Calif ornian who also had travelled to H to see the eclipse, a practical stranger to my brother, with whom he had had a brief correspondence, and a total stranger to me. After lunch my brother, with the forward look to posterity which has ever marked his home-movie activities, proposed to "shoot" me, my being a close relative and therefore of interest to his great-grandchildren. He politely asked the Calif ornian to be in the picture. The former, who always does a bit of stage-managing before he "shoots," directed that the three of us, my sister-in-law, the Californian and myself, step out of the front door and walk towards the camera, engaging each other in easy conversation. Simple enough. Yet on the opening click of the functioning camera I went light-headed. Words, words, words poured from mouth, nose and ears and fell full on the exposed Californian, completely snowing him under. He had travelled to H to see the total eclipse, never dreaming that he was to be one himself. The drop-earrings which I happened to be wearing were gauge and measure, as indeed they were victims also, of what must have seemed to them a powerful seismic disturbance. Alas, their's the fate so often meted out to the innocent bystander ! The physical strain, combined no doubt with the nervous shock, seemed to have been too much for them. They disintegrated a few days later. When it came to pass that I saw that strip of film screened, I comforted myself with the reflection that if this experience but held the lesson for me of how not to behave in the movies, its awfulness would be largely compensated for. A series of appearances before the camera marked mv next visit a few months later. I found my brother as solicitous as before of posterity's claim. He was for having more pictures of the Lateral Branch. So, as a starter, I was to appear at the far end of the garden ; I was then to make my way slowly, easily, towards the camera, turning in at the front door, after having waved an airy hand to an imaginary neighbor across the way (an intimate, casual touch, that ! My brother is full of 'em ) . This time, at the first click of that dreadful little box, I experienced — how shall I explain it? — a psychic something. My head was borne aloft, so that the ground looked very far beneath. As my neck, shoulders and torso had followed in orderly succession, the miracle could only be explained by the assumption that my legs had lengthened out. Yes, this was undoubtedly the case, as I found myself involuntarily establishing a seven-league stride. I did not approve of this lengthened stride, noble though it was, but I couldn't help myself. Though disturbing, it was not paralyzing" and I was able to finish the trip to the front door. If my brother had noticed anything wrong about my legs, he was too tactful to say so, but it was not lost on me that at the next "shooting" he proposed to bear me company, the implication being that if my legs started to lengthen out again, he would be on hand to frown them down. So, turning the camera over to his son, he briefly plotted a scenario, the nub of which was that the two of us should turn our backs on the camera, walk arm in arm away for a distance of about forty feet, turn and walk back into the very teeth of the recorder. This would give posterity a good idea of my back and side elevation. So clean-cut and definite the boundaries of this layout, it did seem as if nothing could go amiss, and yet, though I had not the least intention of doing anything of the kind, though I had not the slightest premonition that I was going to do anything of the kind, god-forgive-me, I turned cute! (This, I believe, is not an isolated case. I believe anybody under ninety, under the spell of that demoniac clicking", is liable to go sprightly. ) I had been wearing a hat through these two exposures. My impresario now thought the unborn generations ought to see me hatless. His masterly command of the technique of the short, trenchant scenario is now to be shown at its highest development. I am to move about, lightly touching this object — and then — that! From here the plot will move swiftly, irresistibly to the inevitable denouement, which is — that I take oft my hat ! I am to be Nine