Screenland (May-Oct 1929)

SCREENLAND 97 is Al Rogell, the director, who married Marion Douglas. Then they took the scene. While Edith sewed on the button Ken sang one of the innumerable songs with innumerable verses that are included in a cowboy's repertoire. This is the verse you will hear sung in the half nasal though resonant twang the Texas cow puncher uses: Though not exactly feelin' blue, Yet you don't feel like you do In the winter or the long hot summer days, For your feelin's like the weather Seem to sorta go together An' you're quiet in the dreary autumn haze. Later we made Ken sing all the verses. All cow puncher songs tell a story, which makes them true lyrics, and all are sad. They are fascinating and one could listen to them by the hour. While they were finishing up the scenes I talked with Sid Rogell. I had noticed that the company seemed like one big family and Sid told me that was just about what it was. "It functions like one, any way," he said. "With the exception of the leading woman and principal actors the same people are carried through from picture to picture. The only reason the actors are changed is because it would be like a stock company which is not good business in pictures. On the stage it is a different matter. "We all feel that having a congenial crowd is a very important item. It insures harmony and eliminates waste of time. We all know each others' ways, know what we can depend on each person to do. No time spent in wondering whether the job will turn out all right. We \now it will, barring unavoidable accidents. Harmony and faith in each other makes a lot of difference." They did seem to. I never saw such fast, sure work on an outdoor picture. Near us Buck Bucko was 'dressing up' his wagon as they did in the old days. A barrel was fastened to one side held in place by a platform. That was for water. A heavy canvas was stretched from stem to stern and corded over. "Buck's taking great pride in dressing up his freighter because he's going to drive it," said Sid. "None of these boys mind turning carpenter or prop men or what have you when occasion demands. They're just helping Ken make a picture, and it takes co-operation to make a picture. "These boys all have fine careers. Tom Bay is head of them now but many _ of them have been heads in other companies. Fred Burnes handled horses and riders for Doug Fairbanks' picture The Iron Mask,' and his brother Ed has handled stock for Doug for years." For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the term 'six-up' I will explain it as Sid explained it to me. A 'six-up' is composed of six horses harnessed in teams one in back of the other, and hitched to one long tongue. The front team are called 'leaders,'' the next, 'middle team,' and the last, nearest the wagon, 'wheelers.' Each team is trained differently. For instance, if you hitched the wheelers or the middle team in the leaders' places they wouldn't know what to do. They would have to be unhitched and put where they belonged. Edith had been put in the runaway wagon again and she was a little nervous about it. "Don't you fret, Edith," said Mr. Brown. "You will be all right. There never was a girl hurt in any of my pictures. That's not saying anything about the men," he continued with a wink at me. "I re member a picture we did in Idaho and our car looked like a hospital train coming home. Black eyes, broken wrists, collar bones and ribs. I had both arms in a sling. I had been under a wagon and had given an order to fire. That cowboy let me have it right in the face. I was stone blind for days — had to finish directing the picture, blind. Don't know how many grains of powder they dug out of my eyes afterwards." We went to a lower grade where there was a real road to take the shots of the entire train of freighters running away. The camera car loaded on all the cameras — first and second and the Akeley, which does the panning and trick shots and is operated by William Sickner; and ran right alongside the charging steeds. Mr. Brown and the script clerk were also aboard. Tom Bay rode with the head team because when the horses get going they don't want to stop. They probably can't see the sense of the whole thing anyway, having to stand perfectly still for hours on end and then for no good reason made to run like the devil and stop short just when they were beginning to enjoy themselves. Maybe they feel sorry for themselves, just as humans sometimes do, and think it is pretty tough to be a horse. Bill Quinlan, head property man, and Mack Wright, the assistant director, stopped rigging one of the freighters to watch the sport. "There is one thing Tom Bay sure can do, and that is manage a horse," said Bill. A few scenes showing the entrance of the train into camp had to be taken down at the Lone Pine ball ground, and you should see how the villagers and tourists swarmed about us. The train was supposed to be at ease for the night when news of the approach of Hollister's men reaches them and they have to jump into a flight and a fight. HoUister is played by Tom Santschi, but Tom doesn't appear in these scenes. His orders are carried out by the two henchmen before mentioned. "Put a character hat on Tracy and let him walk through this," said Mr. Brown. "Tracy is Tarzan's trainer and Tarzan follows every move he makes. Also minds what Tracy tells him to do. Tarzan has a big part in 'The Wagon Master' and a C[ Mary Brian exhibits the wedding rings from the Paramount prop room. They were purchased from pawnhro\ers for screen marriages. good deal of intelligence is required of him." Edith had to run up to the bunch of men and tell her 'father,' who was among them, the bad news. In Westerns there is no time for detailed direction. Everything has to be done in broad sweeps. Consequently the actors are left more or less to get through the scene on general direction and as best they may. I noticed that Edith's spontaneous work was convincing and logical and that she put more than the usual fire into her performance of the terrified though courageous girl. She had to do a lot of jumping in and out of the wagon which she didn't mind this time because it was standing still. "My, she has to be some acrobat," said a little girl who was an admiring bystander. I looked around to see what had become of the star and there he was on the truck surrounded by a crowd of little boys who had had the luck to wander by just at this exciting hour on their way from school. Some had roller skates and their school books under their arms. They patted Ken's costume and examined the leather fringe on his trousers with great interest. He had just started a game of marbles ' with them when he was called to work, but not before I had moved the graflex cameraman in his direction. Then came the scene where the horses broke away and you should have seen the excitement of the children. One little girl hugged herself delightedly while she said in a half whisper, "My, I'm getting a little scared, I think!" Another child had left her coat in the car and was just about freezing in a sleeveless frock, but she stuck it out until the scene was over, afraid she might miss something. I put my arm about her shoulders as a gesture toward keeping off some of the wind but I'm afraid it wasn't much of a help. "Step on this one, boys," said Joe Brown, elated because he had accomplished so much that afternoon. "We'll take it from the platform and it will be the last shot tonight and the last of the sequence. Hot dickety dog!" And whacking his cameramen on their backs, almost bowling them over, he jumped to the scaffolding of the platform. "Oh-o-o! I must say he doesn't care what he does to his camera men. Isn't he jolly and nice? I think he is just awful funny," said the freezing little girl. Next morning Edith and I went home. We went to the location just long enough to take some of the pictures that appear on this page and some production stills and then we rolled away in Ken's car which he sent us back to Hollywood in. And although everyone had been extremely kind and hospitable I'll bet that whole troupe was" glad to see the last of 'the wimmen folks.' On the way Edith told me about her trip to the South Sea Islands where she did a picture called "Black Cargo" in Fiji. The company was feasted by the King and his court and Edith has a little gourd cup from which she drank and which the King autographed for her. Some smartie gave him some whiskey one evening and he got a little tipsy and began telling how much fun his father and ancestors used to have killing people in different ways. He got quite playful and was all for showing how it had been done so that the Americans were plenty nervous before he finally fell asleep. His slightest word was law on the island.