Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1931)

Photoplay Magazine for September, 1931 I 2 1 Her Own Best Enemy COXTINXED FROM PACE 54 "Oh, isn't that sweet!" gurgles Lavina. "Won't you let me help you? My boy friends all say I'm great on writing cute pash notes." But Pink replies, real serious, "No, Ma'am, you couldn't. You're a mighty sweet girl, but I don't think you'd understand some of the sentiments I'm aiming to express." AND with that, he's off to get writing materials and as soon as the Chink has cleared the supper things, he sits down at the table and takes pen in hand. But I guess he didn't find composing love notes so easy, for after half an hour of scowling and perspiring, he comes over to me for advice. I sends him on to the scenario writer, who should be handy at that sort of thing, if anyone was. The two of 'em put their heads together for quite a spell and late that evening, I finds Zoebeck examining some words the Chink is wiping off the oilcloth table cover. "Isn't that terrible?" demands the manager, pointing out "grand passion" and "eternally yours." "Plumb fierce!" I says, having always believed that if a man must unloose such sentiments, it shouldn't be done in writing. "I'd fire Lavina, if I could, but it would ruin the picture." Zoebeck grits his teeth, 'til I was afraid his upper plate would crack. "Why?" I asks surprised. "She's just trying to be helpful to your financial assister in his love affair." "A helluva help she's been," he snarls. "What would you say if I told you there was no such person as Vilma Roselle?" "I'd say you was crazy. I've seen her myself." "You've seen her in films, but you haven't seen her in person and you won't, ever. Mr. Cottonwood, I'm going to tell you something that I threatened my troupe they'd be fired and blacklisted for, if they ever let on around this ranch. When I started the All Arts Film Company, my shoe-string wouldn't have threaded a baby's bootie — " "That's no surprise to me," I cuts in, "any more than that the check you talked of when you first came, never seems to have got dug out of that blizzard." But Zoebeck was too wrought up to take heed of my chaffing. "To speak facts," he continues, "during my first picture, I ran short paying what actors I had for the first sequence, and engaging a heavy woman for the denouement was out of the question. So Lavina, who is smart though hellish, volunteered to disguise herself and play the role. "She changed the shape of her mouth and eyebrows by make-up, put on brown powder, a black wig and high heels, padded her hips and called herself 'Vilma Roselle,' and with the help of a little double exposure camera work, she played the heavy woman herself, and so help me, if she didn't make such a hit, we had to continue the character through the rest of the series." KNOWING how crazy pictures are made, I felt no surprise, but still I couldn't help wondering about what the scenario writer called "the human equation." "What you're trying to tell me," I sums up, "is that Lavina is really Vilma, or Vilma is Lavina, or rather that one of them is both. That's all right with me, but why in Sam Hill should this two-person woman go to all the trouble she has just to plague a poor cowboy? " "Don't you understand," replies the manager, "Mr. Hawkins has insulted her." "How come? One thing I'll say for Pink, I've never seen him fall down in his etiquette with women." "He insulted Lavina the first time they met and he's kept on insulting her by daring to show interest in another woman while she's around." "But that other woman happens to be herself," I puzzles. "That makes no difference," cries Zoebeck. "Being a picture producer, I understand psychology, especially feminine psychology, and I know that nothing short of earthquake or pestilence is going to keep Lavina from vamping that cowboy away from her shadow self, and meantime she'll punish him plenty." "I reckon she will," I assents, "but what mostly interests me is how Pink's going to act when he finds out the deception." "That's what interests me, too," admits Zoebeck, worried like. " Do you think he'll consider it comes under the head of 'funny business'?" " I reckon he will," I assents. Then enjoying the pained expression on the manager's face, I invents a pleasing yarn of how Pink had come to the ranch, after killing a man in Texas and how he come to Texas after smashing a marshal's jaw in Montana, but by the time I gets to why Pink had come to Montana, Zoebeck has faded. XTEXT evening, as we ride in from the range. * ^ we find Lavina waiting perched on the corral gate and waving a slip of paper. "Well, my handsome hero," she cries to Pink, "here's a telegram in answer to your letter. It came over the 'phone, but the Chink couldn't understand, so I took down the message myself." And before Pink could make protest, she starts reading out loud: "Darling Pink, your letter wonderful. Crazy meet you and would come to ranch immediately but kid brother sick and must stay nurse him. Write often. Love. Vilma." Then, almost before Pink could get the full effect of those loving words, Lavina snuggles up close to him and coos: "That surely must have been a wonderful letter you wrote Vilma." "It was, Ma'am, it was," assents Pink, solemn like. "I wish I could get a letter like that. Couldn't you write me one sometime?" "I'd like to, Little Lady, but I'm afraid I haven't got more than one of 'em in me." After that, every evening, Pink composes a letter to Vilma, and every afternoon, Lavina arranges for him to get some kind of message in reply. Each one, from the way Pink's eyes would pop when he read it, must have been hotter than the last. Yes, it was evident that as Vilma, Lavina was doing all she could to rivet that cowboy's affections. On the other hand, as herself, she didn't miss out on any tricks, either. It was like a man playing solitaire and being firm set on not cheating himself. OAME along the last night before the last ^-*day the troupe was to be with us. All through dinner, I noticed Lavina didn't sound off as much as usual. Just sat still, studying Pink with a squint in her eye like a cowboy looking over an outlaw bronc that had throwed him in a rodeo. And Pink had sure throwed Lavina. But the girl was game. In spite of all the times she'd bit dust, she still came back for more punishment. 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