Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

52 Th e r Humorous and ironic comments culled along the highways and byways of the movie capital. By Carroll Grakam illustrated by Lui Trug0 HARKEN to the sad tale of Elmer Thistlewaite. Elmer Thistlewaite, in case you are interested in his past, was born in Porterville, California. His parents lived on a farm, and it was on this farm that Elmer first came upon Dodo. Dodo proved to be the turning point in his entire life. Dodo was a goose and, to every one but Elmer, not a particularly unusual fowl. But to Elmer, Dodo was a goose among geese. A certain swagger in his waddle, a jauntiness in his feathers, a plaintive note in his honk, perhaps, must have set Dodo apart from other geese in Elmer's eyes. Elmer set about training Dodo, and over a period of two years he taught the goose to do any number of extraordinary feats. Dodo would feign sleep, roll over, flap his wings or honk at a command. And for no one but Elmer would he do these things. The training of Dodo was Elmer's first genuine creative effort in some twenty-odd years of existence. This did not particularly please the elder Thistlewaites, who had vainly attempted to thrust Elmer into some useful pursuit about the farm. Seeing that, with Dodo occupying all his waking hours, he was even less likely to workman before, several assaults were made on Dodo's life. These failing, Elmer was finally kicked off the farm, to shift for himself in a world he was obviously incapable of combating. In a moment of rather surprising generosity, his parents permitted Elmer to take Dodo with him. Elmer, with Dodo, eventually turned up in Hollywood, as most odd people generally do, at one time or another in their lives. The screen, he believed, must hold a place somewhere for the world's best-trained goose, and he would find it. Eventually he did. A gag man in one of the larger studios sat and thought and thought and thought. One day, oddly enough, he had an idea. He told it to a director, and laughed so heartily as he told it, that even his superior thought it funny. The idea required the services of a goose. "But," said the director, with that clarity of thought which always marks the truly great, "we have no goose." "There must be a trained goose somewhere in Hollywood," the gag man argued, and appealed to the casting director. Elmer had been So goose and trainer were Robert Edeson advertises that he wants to do something big, like washing an elephant. sitting in the casting director's office for three weeks with Dodo under his arm. engaged. The picture in which Dodo first appeared was a success. Consequently every other studio promptly made one just like it, and Elmer and Dodo were soon working constantly. Goose and trainer received a joint salary of seven dollars and fifty cents a day and felt sorry for Tom Mix. Elmer, at this stage of his career, was ideally happy. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to put Dodo through his paces for any and all observers. They became familiar figures on Hollywood Boulevard. Every one knew Dodo's name. No one knew Elmer's. He was referred to as "the guy that owns the goose," and gloried in the title. Then Elmer met a girl, with the usual results. Her name was Pearl Alexander. She had flaming-red hair, with a temper to match. She made her living as an extra and resided with her parents and an elder sister, who clerked in a store. The mother took in washing. The father was a glass-blower by trade, but hadn't blown a glass for seven years. Pearl took an instantaneous dislike to Dodo. It was returned. Dodo, sensing a menace, nipped Pearl on the ankle at every opportunity. "Marry me," said Elmer, ill-advisedly, one night. "And what would we live on?" "Dodo has worked three days a week for the last six months." "That's one helluva way to make a living — off a trained goose." "Dodo is the best trained goose in the world." "Get rid of him and get a job and I'll marry you." Thus things went. Elmer wanted desperately to marry Pearl, but couldn't think of separating from Dodo. Then fate took a hand. Pudgy men with prominent noses lighted expensive cigars and bemoaned conditions in the "pitcher" business. Films were returning a profit of only three hundred per cent instead of the five hundred of other years. So something had to be done about it. Studios were shut down. Twenty-five-dollar-aweek stenographers were fired, and thousand-dollar-a-week actors remained idle — on pay.