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SHOWMAN
away, indicating that I thought Frohman could probably figure out why I'd done it. After all, I was young then, and given to pointless antics of kinds other than critic-baiting.
The theatrical syndicate wasn't the only sign of changing times in the amusement world. Nobody was exactly taking the movies seriously, but they had just barely come into existence and were feeling round for commercial possibilities. It was still the period of the Edison Mutuscope— a device you can still find in less progressive shooting-galleries consisting of a slotmachine with the customer turning a crank to make an illuminated roll of separate action photographs flicker past his eyes. The early Mutuscope called for plenty of violent action to cover up the flicker— and prizefighting meant action— so presently the Kineograph Company, Edison's outfit, was approaching Corbett and me to do a fight for them— six one-minute rounds.
So here we were, out at the Edison Laboratory near Llewellyn Park, N. J., pioneering in the movie business. To stand up with Corbett they'd hired a large tenth-rater named Peter Courtney, supposed to be champion of New Jersey or something. Corbett could have flattened him in ten seconds fast asleep, but, with careful rehearsal, he could be made to look like a fighter— and we rehearsed as religiously as the chorus of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Edison ran that end of it himself. He didn't know much about fighting and still less about dramatic effects, but I was thoroughly
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