The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

When Blue Meets Gray — A Brand New Humorist is coming along. You easily can forget about yourself. And, while you are at it, Thoughtless, tie a can of cigarettes to the billet doux and send it along. They has smokes up here but they is too opera hat for yours truly. And how that director and leading man can forget to lay in a supply of lung-destroyers whenever we go out on location ! In town they always has a full pack, but get 'em in the cross-road section of the world and they're always out. Believe you me, they won't ask for the second butt when you send them dopes along. What they make them pills of is nobody's entertainment. Guess they uses old rubber and alfalfa. Anyhow, I had to hoof it five long rocky miles the other day to get a pack of smoke sticks for the gang and when I gets back I finds I've been missing something. The Greek god that plays the rah rah collegiate part in this flicker had done up and told Jimmy Queensly, the voice of the megaphone, to do it hisself. NOW the stunt wasn't bad — it was just downright foolish. All the offspring of Mrs. O'Neal had to do was jump off a cliff. Of course, the jump part wasn't going to muss up his pretty face and figger but — the sudden stop at the bottom might. You see, they was about ten feet clearance between the rocks and the tide was out, so they was only about two feet of water in the pool. Jimmy could have changed the location to where the water was deep, and the kid would probably have done the leap but, no, that meant retake on one scene and besides, who is the director of this celluloid spasm? Jimmy is a eggotistikal guy anyhow and the sudden raring of temperament of young Adonis just made Jimmy boil over. He gets sarcastic with a capital "S." At least that's what the innocent (Bah!) young dear that plays opposite O'Neal says. The kid steams up, too, and tells Jimmy to do the leap hisself; he don't have any dear public awaiting his next appearance in the galloping opera and the O'Neal has. That was the final pinprick to Jimmy's blimp. "By Harry, I will double for you, you coward," says the balloon-headed megaphone wielder. And he did. The Kid's clothes were pretty tight, 'cause Jimmy has lost that svelte-like figger of his juvenile days, but into 'em he got. The kid was warped into an overcoat and set in the car. He didn't need any wraps, to hear the bunch tell it, he was blowing off a full head of steam. Jimmy in the kid's suit was oozing fog out of every seam, too. Jimmy puts all he's got into the scene, kisses the fair dame au revoir and does a nose dive for the puddle of sea water at the bottom of the cliff. He misses the rocks all right, but they's a kinda whirlpool in the bottom of the pool and Jimmy gets stuck, with his feet the only thing in sight. It takes all hands and the cameraman to drag him out and the kid is the first one to reach him. Gee, they musta worked on Jimmy for ten minutes to bring him to. Jimmy is a good egg at that. When he comes to and can tear a yard of bandage off his glims he shakes hands with the kid and says it's all in a day's work. But we had to lay off the rest of the day to get the Kid's suit rebuilt at the village millinery and for Jimmy to recuperate. T IMMY got off a . heap *J easier than Forteus G. Franklin, the star director of Hinchville, in the days when cowboy pictures was made with real cowboys. Franklin had worked for the old Melies' company and what he didn't know about making pictures, to hear him tell it, was less than nothing. 98 The script calls for the blue cavalry to be ambushed as they passed the junction of the two cliffs. When the dust cleared, every darn horse in the troop was loose and heading for the hills. It looked just like a massacre. "Yeast Head," the Indians called him, and the Indians don't often go wrong. He knew all the tricks of the trade, according to his own admissions — and some from the other trades, too, which he don't admit. Tommy Hinch, the boss, liked him though, 'cause he not only directed, but he played the double-dyed villain with a willingness that made some of the lady stars hate his shadow even. He could, if we could keep him away from Playa del Rey long enough, turn out four one-reel pictures in a week. He was a worker, all right, and a slave driver that would have given Simon Legree deuces wild and beaten him to the joker. But his head was bigger than one of those sausage balloons. "We was making one of the first epics of filmdom, honest we was. Tommy Hinch had promised us three cameras for our big scenes and one crank-turner assigned to a director in them days meant he was made. He also promised all of us a sort of bonus for this horse opera, as his press agent had grown quite eloquent over the story. Yep, it was to be an epic all right. The opera was the regular carbon copy of what some good writer had writ for the dime novels. Our bright little boys in the scenario department just lifted the idea and changed the locations, that's all. The actors got so they knew all the situations, so rehearsals were a cinch. Why, some of those beard-tusslers learned to put glue on their crepe hair and were perpetual General Grants or Stonewall Jacksons. Yep, we was original in them days, we did the same thing over and over again only in a different spot — just like they does nowadays. The poor boobs that signed on as extras caught merry hades though, and the boys in the cavalry got it, too. The cavalry was made up of cowboys, Indians and whatever they could scrape up from the gutters on Los Angeles street to wear chaps. They was paid monthly, darn little dough, a bunk, cakes and an occasional bottle. The lunch was generally two measly, dry sandwiches, a saucer of milk or coffee and a orange, and cull oranges at that. If the extra could put on crepe hair he might get an extra half buck a day. If he had his own gee gee he could raise the ante to five smackers and oats for the quadruped. TO save time, which also meant save nickels for Tommy Hinch, the cavalry and extras would "underdress." They'd wear both the blue and the gray. That is, if they was making war pictures, and we was most of the time, some of 'em would have the gray uniforms on the outside with the blue underneath. Others would show the blues to the gaze of their admiring public. And how them babies could change. Many a time when the fillum was thrown on the screen