Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1919 - Feb 1920)

82 The company assembled at eight and proceeded to make up. I casually rambled into the Brute's' dressing room to look him over. The look on his face was, to me, good to see; I chatted, but he was in no mood to talk. So, with the parting instruction to be on the set at eightthirty sharp, T left him. At eighttwenty-five I dropped in on Harry. "Made up?" I inquired pleasantly. Any one could see that he was. "Everything's ready," I continued. "Better come down." As we walked toward the stage I drew him to one side, into the shadow of some scene flats. "Listen," I whispered. "I want to do the square thing and tip you off. The only chance the Brute has to square himself with the audience is in this scene. He has a rotten part, and they'll hate him, but if he puts up a good fight it will tone down the bad taste in everybody's mouth. So he plans to give you a fight — a regular one. You won't have a chance in the world to hog this scene. I just wanted to put you hep because he's going after you." Harry looked at me and smiled grimly. "All right," he remarked. "If he wants fight he'll get it. I won't stall if he doesn't." On the set the director got the two of them together. "Look here, you guys," he said in pleading tones, "for the love of Mike don't fake ; we've got to get something that looks like a fight or scrap the picture. Make it look real or we're done for." The two principals glanced at each other, then averted their gaze. I turned my back and studiously and carefully lit a cigarette. Obviously this was none of my affair. We rehearsed the preliminaries, gave positions and entrances, and then "Picture — ready — go " shouted the director. The crowd in the barroom got into action, drinking, laughing, shouting, while Harry engaged in earnest conversation with an old miner. In reeled the Brute, glanced around, saw Harry, and lurched toward him. Harry saw him coming and eyed him defiantly. Motion-picture people usually invent their own lines for the scenes they play. "Hey, you !" the Brute addressed The Frame-Up ConHnucd from page 47 him. "You keep away from my girl or I'll knock your block off." Talking ceased, and the miners crowded around. "You and who else?" Harry retorted with a sneer. "I don't need any help," the Brute replied. Both squared oil. "Go to it !" the director shouted. "Mix it up!" The Brute swung, not for the shoulder or the side of the necknot a wide, slow swing that lands like a feather, but photographs like one of Dempsey's wallops — but a hard, sure, savage lunge straight for the face. Harry ducked and caught it over the eye. Then they went at it hammer and tongs, vicious blow receipted for in kind. The director watched with popping eyes, the camera man, intent on the fight, almost forgot to crank and pan to follow them. "Get it, you boob \" I shouted in his ear. Around they went; chairs and tables were upturned, while the extras, not expecting such a battle, stood open-mouthed and gave them plenty of room. Naturally they acted better than twenty rehearsals could have made them. Down went the fighters, and over and over they rolled. They staggered to their feet. The Brute's lip was cut, Harry was bleeding from the nose, but they fought on. They reeled, staggered, and lunged to the staircase, where the Brute fought Harry up step by step. They forgot they were making a picture ; they were just fighting. Step by step they mounted the stairs, blows raining on blows, while I, my attention centered on the camera man, saw to it that he got it all. To the top of the stairs and along the balcony, still savagely battling, the two men went, and, right in the center of the picture, almost as if he had been directed to do it, Harry made a mad rush at the Brute. Both crashed against the railing; it gave way, and down they came, nine feet to the floor. The fall partially stunned the Brute, and Harry staggered to his feet. His face was bat tered and bloody. Then the Brute scrambled up with the aid of a table, his bloated, blood-smeared face making him look utterly hideous. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and looked around. "Cut !" shouted the director, finally recovering his wits. He was white as a sheet and his eyes were like saucers. We sent both our fighters to the hospital. Harry was out in three days, his black-and-blue countenance looking as if it had taken a trip through a meat chopper. The Brute showed up a day earlier ; a casual observer would have said he'd had an argument with a threshing -machine. When the scene was developed and we looked at the film the director studied it carefully. "Some fight !" he remarked. "Wonder why those fools tried to kill each other." I looked out of the window. A pepper tree, swaying in the wind, had suddenly become a source of great concern to me. Just after that picture's showing in the projection room I met the Broadway star. She refused to speak to me; said the Brute and Handsome Harry had stolen the picture from her because of that big scene, and blamed me for it, though I reminded her that I wasn't the director. Half an hour later I encountered Harry and the Brute, lunching together ; their icy glances and sarcastic greeting told me all too plainly that they'd compared notes and were gunning for me. I strolled sadly over to a near-by table, where the director was talking with some critics ; thought I might as well cpnfess the truth and get some credit for my little ruse, since I was getting the blame anyway. "I don't know that I can tell you how that big scene was put over," the director was saying thoughtfully. "I'd like to, but — well, it doesn't do to divulge too many secrets, you know, and a director has to keep his tricks to himself sometimes." And so I kept my guilty secret — until now. 'OME stars are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have clever press agents.