Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

32 Because a Woman Believed A true story of how a big director who had thrown away his career, was brought back; and how he made, on his return, one of the biggest successes of the present season. By Myrtle Gebhart ON the screen, four characters moved stealthily, covert eyes suspecting each other. A bent, hooknosed old woman, who removed her wig and specs and disclosed the lined face of a master criminal, with craft and cunning in his eyes. A lumbering, knobmuscled, huge figure with the dull eyes of a dolt. A pigmy, pin-points of accusation squinting from his cherubic, baby face. A girl, hard-boiled, caustic, with bitter eyes that slammed at the others the truth about themselves and spared herself in scorn least of all, with lips that irony twisted, to disclaim the tenderness that lurked behind them. The action moved slowly, hinging upon little details with an uncanny gauging of suspense, so that the spectators could scarcely keep back their screams ; then of a sudden tensed and shot on to a quick and forceful melodramatic climax. The lights flashed on. "The Unholy Three'— the mystery play that couldn't be done ! Too strange, too weird and unreal, everybody said." Comments, staccatolike'in surprise, struck my ears from roundabout, and cut into my own exclamations of astonishment. For seven years that story has been a white elephant, banded about the studios. Everybody was afraid of it — and a director who "couldn't come back !" For two years nobody would take a chance on Tod Browning. Went to pieces, you know. One thing and another. Nobody knows the whole story. Except Tod. And, one should say, his wife. She just smiles. But— when he lost his grip on himself, she pulled him back into self-confidence. And now, he had turned out a picture that was going to be one of the big hits of the season. "Please don't, please don't," the director disclaimed his right to the congratulations that an enthusiastic audience, partly public but mostly professional friends, showered upon him. "If this picture is a success, the credit should go to my wife. It should be dedicated to her. For it is a tribute to a woman's faith." Those simple but sincerely spoken words interested me, and also the aggravating little rumors I had heard — those chance remarks that hint at a tale but half told, a story of how a plucky wife took hold of a man, when he was down and out, and virtually forced him back into the place that once he had occupied and that his own weaknesses had caused him to lose. I knew, vaguely, what all Hollywood knew: that for seven years Tod Browning had been connected with the movies in various capacities, ranging from acting to directing, that he had held the megaphone on Priscilla Dean's best Universal pictures, that he had a distinct flair for melodrama. I knew that two years ago, when he seemed to be at the peak of success, he suddenly went to pieces, that he dropped to the ignominy of being refused a job, that he drifted without caring a rap, until his wife started gathering up the pieces and refashioning them into the man in whom she still believed. It intrigued me. I wanted to know how she had done it, to hitch together in sequence those scattered comments. So I sought Tod Browning at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, where he is preparing to start production on an original story of his own. At first he was loath to' talk. His reticence, considering the circumstances, was natural. "I guess it's only fair that the truth be told, though it hurts a man's vanity to confess his own shortcomings," he finally reconsidered. "I want to give my wife every bit erf praise that she deserves. When a woman does what she has done, you can't eulogize her enough." So, bit by bit, he dug into the past that most men would prefer to keep buried from public scrutiny, that tribute might be paid to a woman who "stuck." "The whole thing resolves into this: a woman's faith. Men think they're so gol-darned important, but they're weak babies compared to the strength that a woman's belief in a person gives to her. "I made an ass of myself — we can't use pretty words about this, because the facts are ugly — and why in the world she ever loved me and thought she saw enough worth in me to salvage, I haven't fathomed. But I'm not questioning the why of my good fortune. I'm just thanking Heaven that I've got a wife like that. "Two years ago, I went to smash," he said slowly, with a candor that refused to gloss over his own imperfections. "Temperament, impulse, wanting my own way, stubbornness — there were a number of contributing factors. I had rows with the company with which I was then associated. I may have been partly in the right, for at that time they were in a grand, internal mix-up, changing executives, each man bringing in ideas of his own. There were a dozen people a director had to please, with little chance of doing anything the way he wanted to. "I had always got what I wanted before. I wouldn't listen to reason. I was as stubborn as a mule — wouldn't budge or make concessions, even when I knew inside that I was wrong. I quarreled constantly with the various and assorted swivel-chair bosses, and finally blew up and stalked out. "I had earned the reputation of being contrary and temperamental and 'Uncertain. The rumor got around that I had a nasty disposition — and let me tell you, it was true ! It isn't easy to say these things about myself, but my wife has taught me to look facts squarely in the face instead of crawfishing. "For two years I couldn't get a job. Nobody would hazard money on a production, with me at the megaphone. Once you're down in this game, the odds are strongly against your ever coming back or convincing anybody in authority that you're worth being backed up, even if your own inclination is to fight your way back — and mine wasn't. There's a funny Hollywood mind that rubber-stamps people and situations. "It's queer psychology, that all these brilliant and individual minds, forceful and pioneering minds, should run in a parallel groove on some thinp^ But let the IF WE COULD ONLY KNOW the human stories of stress and struggle that lie behind the rnak= ing of the motion pictures we see, how much more interesting would be our visits to the theater! It is seldom that these stories come to light, but here is one, freely told by the man most concerned, and after reading it, you will have a keener interest in the memory of the picture he made on his "comeback," and a keener interest in the pictures which he will make in the future.