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1521 lines
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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 70 -- October 1998 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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Review: "Mysteries & Scandals"
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Jeanie Macpherson
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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A nice selection of Taylor photos in JPG format can be seen on the web site
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of the TAYLOROLOGY mirror run by David Pearson at:
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http://www.uno.edu/~drcom/Taylorology/Photos/Taylor.html
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The July 1998 issue of BIOGRAPHY magazine (published by A&E Cable TV)
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contains a brief, error-filled, one-page article on the Taylor case titled
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"Shocking, Lurid and True: The Case of the Dead Director." The article
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includes photos of Taylor, Minter, and Shelby.
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Review: "Mysteries & Scandals"
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The episode of "Mysteries & Scandals" dealing with the William Desmond
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Taylor murder was broadcast on the "E!" cable channel early in June 1998.
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The best thing about the program was the 15 seconds from the 1913 film "The
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Quakeress"--giving us a brief glimpse of William Desmond Taylor as an actor.
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The program also displayed a very nice selection of photographs of Taylor.
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But overall the episode was poorly done, filled with errors, and not
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concerned with presenting an objective examination of the case, although two
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of the six interview subjects (Betty Fussell and A. C. Lyles) did an
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admirable job. The program presumed that Charlotte Shelby killed Taylor, and
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did not even bother to mention prime suspect Edward Sands! But even as a
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program devoted to the Shelby-as-killer theory, the program was poorly done
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because it ignored the real case against Shelby (a bullet from Shelby's gun
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was similar to the fatal bullet, Shelby had previously threatened to shoot
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Taylor, Shelby had previously gone to Taylor's home carrying her gun, etc.),
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and instead the program presented its case via rumors and speculation.
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The following are some factual errors we noticed in the program:
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1. The dramatization of Taylor's shooting is incorrect regarding the
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distance of the gun from the body, the location of the fatal wound, and the
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path of the bullet through the body. [See TAYLOROLOGY 22, "The Path of the
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Fatal Bullet"] And Taylor actually had on his jacket and vest when he was
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shot.
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2. Taylor did not arrive in Hollywood "without a resume." He spent
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three years on the stage with actress Fanny Davenport, and also acted with a
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number of other prominent stage actors: Kathryn Kidder, Sol Smith Russell,
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Victory Bateman, and Harry Corson Clarke. In 1912, any actor with similar
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stage experience could have gotten a job in Hollywood.
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3. Taylor was not the "Steven Spielberg of his generation." Taylor was
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highly-regarded within the film industry, but not by the general public.
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Also, Taylor made no big spectacular films (such as had been made by
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Griffith, Brenon, Ince, De Mille), and Taylor never made his own independent
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films (such as had been made by Neilan, Tourneur, Vidor). Taylor worked
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within the studio system. A few months before his murder, MOTION PICTURE
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MAGAZINE had a readers' poll for "best director." The only directors
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receiving significant votes were (most to least): Griffith, C. B. De Mille,
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Neilan, Ince, W. De Mille, Fitzmaurice, Forman, von Stroheim, Dwan, Ingram,
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and Vidor.
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4. It is stated that Taylor married at the age of 33 (incorrect) and
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left his wife at the age of 36 (correct). Taylor married at the age of 29 in
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1901 and left his wife seven years later (not three years later) in 1908.
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5. At the time of his death, Taylor was not Paramount's "most popular
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director"--that title would have belonged to Cecil B. De Mille, whose
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pictures were the most successful. And Taylor was not the most popular among
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Paramount employees--contemporary reports are mixed, including a report that
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Taylor was nicknamed "Simon Legree" (the cruel slave owner from "Uncle Tom's
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Cabin") because he was such a demanding director. [See TAYLOROLOGY 32,
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dispatch of Wallace Smith]
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6. At the time of Taylor's death, Mary Miles Minter was 19 years old,
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not 17.
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7. The last day of Taylor's life was not "a normal day shooting at the
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studio." Taylor was between films and spent almost no time at the studio
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that day. The brief time he spent at the studio did not involve any filming.
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[See TAYLOROLOGY 21, "The Last Day of Taylor's Life"]
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8. Mabel Normand never said that Taylor was "arguing very heatedly with
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someone" on the telephone when she arrived. Taylor was having a normal
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telephone conversation with Antonio Moreno when Mabel arrived.
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9. The photo of "Taylor's dead body" is not Taylor--it is the photo of
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a suicide victim in Connecticut, a young man in his 20's. [See TAYLOROLOGY
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65, "175 Errors and Contradictions in 'A Cast of Killers'", item 102]
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10. After the body was found, Peavey did not call the police. The
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police were called by Taylor's neighbors. [See TAYLOROLOGY 56: "Mrs. Verne
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Dumas, who heard his [Peavey's] cries, called the police."]
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11. Studio executives were not burning papers in Taylor's fireplace--
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there was no fireplace in Taylor's home.
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12. It is stated that "there was no mention of homosexuality in the
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press." False. [See TAYLOROLOGY 65, "175 Errors and Contradictions in
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'A Cast of Killers'", item 43]
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13. It is stated that soon after the murder, "everybody was talking
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about Mary Miles Minter's underpants." At that time, the rumors were about a
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supposedly-initialed nightgown, not about "underpants."
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14. "Soon after Taylor's murder, Mary's bank account began to shrink."
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That is not accurate. Prior to the Taylor murder, Mary essentially had no
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bank account whatsoever--everything was in Shelby's accounts. Mary did not
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begin to personally receive her own paychecks until months after the murder,
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shortly before she moved out. [See TAYLOROLOGY 35.]
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15. The "finger of suspicion" did not only point at Charlotte Shelby--
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Edward Sands was also a major suspect and some investigators thought Sands
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killed Taylor. [See TAYLOROLOGY 19, "The Case against Edward Sands"] No
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serious documentary about the Taylor murder could fail to mention Sands.
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16. The photo of "Faith MacLean" is actually Kathlyn Williams.
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17. Faith MacLean did not "look out the window"--she looked out her
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front door, which also had a screen door. [See the statement of Faith
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MacLean in TAYLOROLOGY 62.]
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18. Two of the photos of "Mary Miles Minter" are not Minter. One of the
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photos is Marion Davies, from the film "Show People."
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19. At that time, Wallace Reid was Paramount's biggest star, not
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Arbuckle.
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20. It is stated that at the time of the Taylor case, Arbuckle was "on
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trial for rape and murder." False. He was only on trial for manslaughter.
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21. Mary Miles Minter was not Charlotte Shelby's only alibi witness.
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Actor Carl Stockdale stated that he was with Shelby at the time of the
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murder.
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22. It is stated that Mary wrote in her diary that her mother killed
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Taylor. Prove it. During the 1937 grand jury investigation, Mary's diaries
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were subpoenaed and found to be of "utterly no value" regarding the Taylor
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case. [See TAYLOROLOGY 22, "The 1937 Grand Jury Investigation"]
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23. It is stated that "just about everyone agrees that Charlotte Shelby
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committed the murder." Not hardly. The authors of two of the three books
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about Taylor (Giroux, Long) are not convinced that Shelby killed Taylor, nor
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is the author of MABEL (Fussell). [Also see TAYLOROLOGY 58, "In Defense of
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Charlotte Shelby"] And several investigators on the case thought Sands was
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the killer.
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24. Mabel Normand died in a sanitarium in Monrovia, not Pasadena.
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In addition to the above factual errors, there were a number of rumors
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which the program presented as facts. These should have been clearly labeled
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as only rumors (and rather dubious rumors, at that):
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1. That a cache of pornographic photos was found in Taylor's home.
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2. That Minter's underwear was found in Taylor's home.
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3. That an impressive collection of ladies' lingerie was found in
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Taylor's home.
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4. That Shelby was "deranged."
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5. That on the day of Taylor's death, Charlotte Shelby had hit
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Mary Miles Minter.
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6. That Minter wanted to "shack up" with Taylor.
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7. That Peavey often procured sex partners for Taylor. [See
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TAYLOROLOGY 65, "175 Errors and Contradictions in 'A Cast of
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Killers'", item 146]
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8. That studio executives had planted items in Taylor's home.
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9. That Shelby had bribed "three generations" of District Attorneys.
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10. That years later, Mary kept her mother locked in an upstairs
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bedroom.
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Of course, the batch of rumors spread recently do not deserve the same status
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as those rumors which were circulating immediately after the Taylor murder.
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The latter are part of the history of the Taylor case, the former are not.
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The false contemporary rumors had an impact on the nation's reaction to the
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Taylor murder, and an impact on Hollywood's reaction to people who were close
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to the murder; but false recent rumors have no real justification for
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repeating, even as rumors.
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The program naturally had to conform to the series format for "Mysteries
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& Scandals": fast-paced, tabloid television, with cynical wiseguy narration
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and focusing on sensational material, in order to draw and hold an audience
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who had never heard about the subject. But the program could have followed
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that formula and still presented a highly-accurate show, instead of the error-
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filled hodgepodge which was broadcast. Plus, there were many dramatic and
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lurid contemporary rumors and incidents which could have been discussed and
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dramatized, instead of recently-written nonsense.
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A good documentary on the Taylor case still needs to be produced. On a
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scale of 1 to 10, we would give a "3" rating to "Mysteries & Scandals." The
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good things in the program: the photographs and film of Taylor, and the
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interview segments with Betty Fussell and A. C. Lyles.
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Jeanie Macpherson
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In 1920, William Desmond Taylor was one of the "Big Five" directors at
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Paramount, along with Cecil B. De Mille, William De Mille, George
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Fitzmaurice, and George Melford. The "Big Five" all received "the name above
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the title" when their films were advertised. With the exception of George
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Melford, each of these directors was primarily associated with one female
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scenario writer, forming a collaborative creative team of writer and
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director: William Desmond Taylor and Julia Crawford Ivers; Cecil B. De Mille
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and Jeanie Macpherson, William De Mille and Clara Beranger, George
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Fitzmaurice and Ouida Bergere. The most successful team was that of Cecil
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B. De Mille and Jeanie Macpherson, and their collaboration continued
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throughout the silent era. Indeed, Jeanie Macpherson was one of the very top
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screenwriters of the silent film era, and she also directed and starred in a
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number of early films.
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In addition, Jeanie Macpherson was Mary Miles Minter's "best friend" for
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several years [see TAYLOROLOGY 11 and 69].
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The following is a selection of interviews with, and articles by, Jeanie
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Macpherson, written between 1917 and 1924.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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July 21, 1917
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Jeanie Macpherson
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MOVING PICTURE WORLD
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Development of Photodramatic Writing
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Writing for the photodrama is becoming more and more difficult every
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day. Every day new photo-dramatic symbols are being created to take the
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place of involved action or explanatory subtitles. As the art progresses, so
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does the public's understanding of the art, and the methods we used two years
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ago to explain certain things are now archaic, as, for example, not so long
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ago, when we wanted to show a man thinking of his sweetheart, we had him
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sitting with his head in his hands, casually gazing into a fire, but faded in
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a vision of his sweetheart on the scene over his head. Now we get the effect
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by simply having him bring out her handkerchief, a glove or something which
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shows the same thing. The audience understands it, and the obvious symbols
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are no longer a necessity.
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Illustrating sub-titles by means of moving pictures is also passed.
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No longer do we have to describe a scene of a sub-title and then act out the
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scene. Now a sub-title is being dropped wherever possible and everything
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told in terms of action. If a woman is going down town to buy a new hat
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because her old one is worn out, we no longer have to have our actors make a
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lot of gestures and use two or three spoken titles. It is simply necessary
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for them to show the worn, torn ribbon of the hat, with, of course, the
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necessary expression to show what is to be conveyed. To show a telephone
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conversation it is no longer necessary to show both parties hanging up the
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'phone. If one hangs up the 'phone we know the conversation is discontinued.
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We no longer have to show a letter inserted more than once or twice. When
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the audience reads the letter they know that it is in the person's possession
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and they can follow it. It isn't necessary to show it from time to time.
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We have found out it isn't necessary for a photo-drama to have only one
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dramatic scene, but each scene but be a drama in itself. The whole picture
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must be made up of a series of small dramas. This makes the completed drama
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a mosaic of little ones. Scenes that have no dramatic value in them, or say
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nothing, must be eliminated. So the scenario writer must bear in mind at all
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times not what he can put into a picture, but what he can leave out. If each
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scene has a why and a wherefore and an excuse for being, then you get a
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perfect continuity.
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When I speak of eliminating scenes I do not mean that scenes must be cut
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down to threadbare, straight plot. I find in a great many pictures that the
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writers deviate from their main theme--that they have two or three themes
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wandering through the story, which necessarily makes it complicated and hard
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to follow. If the writer will take a simple single theme, then work up the
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detail, decorate it with embroidery and lace, every little bit different from
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the last, but have each bit of trimming pertain directly to the main theme,
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he will have a much better story. Instead of that, writers branch off with a
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counterplot or sub-plot which is upsetting and makes the story hard to
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follow.
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Within the next two years I expect to see a school of photodramatists as
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well known and as distinguished as the dramatists of the speaking stage.
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Already this school is being developed and established, and within that time
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it will be set on a firm foundation and photodramatic writers will be given
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their proper place and will be remembered for their contributions toward this
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new art.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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December 1917
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Peter Gridley Schmid
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PHOTO-PLAY WORLD
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Jeanie Macpherson, The Screen's Most Successful Author
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The persons in two out of the three important branches of the motion
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picture producing industry are known to the public. The third branch,
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although as important as any, seldom receives its full share of credit in the
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public eye.
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We all know of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and William S. Hart.
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The names of D. W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince and Cecil B. De Mille are
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familiar to practically every patron of the screen. The first group
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represents the acting faction of the photoplay industry, the last three
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symbolize the directing end of the movies. Little is known by the layman,
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however, regarding the authors' branch of the business despite the fact that
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some of the most talented writers in the world are now contributing their
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genius to this new art.
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In this last branch of the photoplay producing field, there are "stars"
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just as there are in the acting and directing branches. Foremost among these
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star writers is Jeanie Macpherson, a young woman, but one whose success is
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entirely out of proportion with her age. What Mary Pickford stands for in
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the acting branch, or D. W. Griffith represents in the directing end of the
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game, Jeanie Macpherson typifies in the scenario field. Miss Macpherson's
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record as a screen author is twenty-four big productions in less than three
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years, including Geraldine Farrar's "Joan the Woman," Mary Pickford's "The
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Little American," and Miss Farrar's new Aztec spectacle, "The Woman God
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Forgot."
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Miss Macpherson, who arrived in New York, recently, from the Artcraft
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studio, in California, in speaking of her work brought out several important
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tips to amateur scenario writers who often wonder why their material is not
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accepted. "If writers would only study audiences and pictures, they would
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soon find their material has a better chance to be produced," said Miss
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Macpherson. "The trouble with most writers seems to be their utter disregard
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for public taste, and the scripts that many send in are proof conclusive of
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the fact that they know very little about motion pictures. What I mean to
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say is that, strange as it may seem, many authors know less about what the
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screen demands in the way of stories, than the lay public.
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"One way of finding out what the public will like is to learn the kind
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of material that it dislikes. If many writers would faithfully attend
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picture theatres, and study the screen as well as the audience, they would
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soon realize that they are writing directly in the face of motion picture
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possibilities and public criticisms. If they would listen to the comments of
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those seated about them, remember the dislikes of the spectators and avoid
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writing similar material, they would soon get on the right track. It is true
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that very often we find it 'hard to please the public,' but at the showing of
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every picture there is a consensus of opinion on certain scenes, themes and
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plots. Therefore, it is necessary to study the patron who pays to see a
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photoplay, the person who seeks to be entertained, because, as a rule, when
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that person is not entertained he or she will readily say so.
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"Many stories make good reading and yet are impossible for the screen.
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In writing a photoplay we must photograph it in our minds, or in other words,
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picture it, rather than write it. A scenario is only the directions, so to
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speak, of the photoplay. It is an index of a series of pictures, not a
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literary masterpiece, although much of our best literature makes splendid
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motion picture material. Each picture in this series must have individual
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merit, the more merit in the way of action, thrills or charm that we can
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inject into each picture, in continuity with the story, of course, the better
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the photoplay.
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"I have always endeavored to base my stories on subjects of big
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interest, and have found that such 'big interest' is evident in productions
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of either timely or historical appeal. I am not speaking of ordinary
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photoplays that please. My efforts have always been toward themes of more
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than ordinary interest. For instance, in 'Joan the Woman' we have a
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historical figure known to the whole world. The very theme has immediate
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interest. Joan of Arc is known from the cradle up and right there we have a
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big start. My new story for Miss Farrar, 'The Woman God Forgot,' deals with
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another page from history and has to do with the Aztecs, a wonderfully
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interesting people, at the time of the Spanish invasion under Cortez.
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"Mary Pickford's photoplay, written by myself, 'The Little American,'
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was created when Uncle Sam began his plea for patriotism. It was a story up
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to the minute and still is a timely production. It places before the eyes of
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the public things it has been reading about. At present I am on my way to
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Washington to consult several government officials on another story dealing
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with a subject uppermost in the public mind at this minute. Immediately,
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when its title is known it will arouse interest.
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"Very frequently, timely interest will ensure bigger success for a film
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than historic associations. Photoplays which are merely timely, however, are
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likely to have a shorter life than those which center about such universal
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figures as Joan of Arc and Cortez, to use some of my subjects as
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illustrations.
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"Too much emphasis, however, cannot be placed upon treatment. As I have
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said before, writing a scenario is an entirely different process from writing
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a short story or a play. The action must be visualized in all three
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processes, but in the case of the short story and the play, visualization is
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necessary only to obtain vividness of description and effective staging;
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while in the photoplay one must actually tell the story by means of pictures.
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"Novelty of theme is another important aim of the scenario writer. This
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does not mean that one should resort in every film to trick effects. One
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should aim, like the playwright and short story writer, to interpret a new
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phase of life."
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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July 1920
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Doris Delvigne
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MOTION PICTURE
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Mind the Little Things
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"You must build up your hero so that every young man in the audience
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pictures himself as that hero. You must build up your heroine so that every
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young girl will feel herself the heroine, wish herself the heroine--or
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understand the heroine's feelings. Unless you can do this," and Jeanie
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Macpherson smiled whimsically, "you are not in sympathy with your public."
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There's nothing masculine about this little French-Scotch girl who has
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interested the dramatic world with her craftsmanship. She's not a blue-
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stocking with emancipated ideas, nor has her contract with the biggest men in
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the motion picture world given her that swaggering independence which is
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supposed to adhere to begoggled authors. She is the most utterly feminine
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thing you ever beheld. She loves pretty clothes--her taste is fastidious.
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"So many people don't succeed in writing because their motive is all
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wrong," she continued. "Theirs is a desire to gather in some of the huge
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sums purported to be paid for screen dramas. No one can hope to become a
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great writer who begins with that false motive. All of us have to work--work
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again and then again.
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"And the biggest mistake of all is to wait for the great idea! Stories
|
|
are not evolved in that way. And if there's one point I'd like to drive home
|
|
more than anything else, it is MIND THE LITTLE THINGS. It is not a question
|
|
of evolving a new plot. We are using the same plots and dramatic situations
|
|
over and over again. It is the way the little things are worked out.
|
|
A motion picture script used to read, 'John and Mary love each other. They
|
|
stand by a table and he declares his love.' Today I would show John looking
|
|
furtively, then extracting a rose from his pocket--the rose she had worn and
|
|
loved, and in his very expression and the fondling of the rose the audience
|
|
knows that John loves Mary. In everything one must find the symbol. That is
|
|
the great secret of the picture art--finding the symbol for a thought."
|
|
We were sitting in Jeanie Macpherson's den and it was very pleasant.
|
|
Most things about Jeanie Macpherson would be pleasant--she would see to it
|
|
that they were. Yellow china blinks sunnily upon still more yellow roses in
|
|
a tall vase; the brass tea-kettle catches gleams of old gold from the
|
|
skylight, with its shirred yellow curtains; the fat chair, made of old
|
|
hogsheads and covered with yellow and black plaid cushions, invites one to a
|
|
prolonged visit; and her desk is half the width of the room, made of rough
|
|
timber and covered with interesting-looking memoranda. Above all else there
|
|
are books and books. Mary Roberts Rinehart's "Dangerous Days" noses "The
|
|
Holy Land," while "Browning's Poems" whisper to a beautiful copy of "Jeanne
|
|
D'Arc."
|
|
And Jeanie herself was clad in a faultlessly tailored pale blue linen
|
|
frock, with the daintiest of net undersleeves and neck-ruffle. She had
|
|
tossed the big white picture hat of organdy on the already crowded desk when
|
|
she came in. She is ultra-feminine, even down to the immaculate little white
|
|
slippers. Her hair parts on one side and falls into soft waves which are
|
|
absolutely natural--the sort of curly hair one saw years ago--like molasses
|
|
candy--always shiny--brilliant with life and marcelled by Mme. Nature.
|
|
I had asked her if she'd rather originate than adapt a novel to the
|
|
screen--one felt this girl was something of an authority.
|
|
"Frankly," she replied. "I would rather originate. Authors naturally
|
|
find it difficult to realize that we do not slice into their stories in order
|
|
to find what we can take out--that is a misunderstanding, but one always
|
|
cherishes one's brain-child. I do and you do. But in trying to preserve
|
|
that which is good in their work we must tell in picture symbols what is
|
|
taking place. We have to put over some motive or idea--we must utilize an
|
|
entirely different set of tools. In order to save the main situation we are
|
|
sometimes obliged to work out a new play.
|
|
"When I did 'The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,' John Fox said, 'Good Lord,
|
|
there's nothing left in it but the pine!' And witty Eugene Walter retorted,
|
|
'You're wrong, it's a REDWOOD!' If authors attempted to put their own books
|
|
into continuity they would discover just what difficulties we encounter."
|
|
"Just how do you work out the theme?"
|
|
"Always I get some idea," she answered, "perhaps just a small idea.
|
|
Then I let the situation tell me about the characters. Characters will come
|
|
and talk to you. If you want them to do a certain thing they will sit right
|
|
up there on your desk and yelp at you and say, 'Entirely illogical. You know
|
|
I'd never do that!' Day by day they take on new freshness, and finally at
|
|
the end they are actually human beings. I can't tell them what to do--they
|
|
tell me what THEY ARE GOING TO DO.
|
|
"I write a very detailed continuity," she told me. "That's why
|
|
Mr. De Mille can work so fast. Nobody has to stand around waiting. I have
|
|
written in every gesture, every emotion. Of course, some directors won't
|
|
have that--they want the barest suggestions in their script and that is why
|
|
many stories are haphazard--the director just can't remember the continuity
|
|
of the story and the characterizations at the same time.
|
|
"And one can't drive the brain, either," she continued; "one must take
|
|
time for recreation, but not too much time."
|
|
"Your recreation?" I asked.
|
|
"Flying," she told me. "I would say generally, learn to fly! The
|
|
analogy between flying and flights of fancy is obvious. You may give people
|
|
rules about flying, let them collect a library on the subject, but ultimately-
|
|
-to fly well, you have to discard teachers, books and theories and just fly."
|
|
She was talking in riddles, and yet when you learn that she does
|
|
actually fly, you understand--on De Mille Field her ship soars about,
|
|
exciting Hollywood citizens. She has her license now, polishes up her
|
|
machine, tightens it, loves it--with it she is just like a little girl with
|
|
her doll.
|
|
And it is not a far-fetched comparison, that of Jeanie Macpherson to a
|
|
little girl.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
July 1921
|
|
Barbara Beach
|
|
MOTION PICTURE
|
|
The Literary Dynamo
|
|
|
|
Mary Pickford once said to me: "People are very like electric dynamos--
|
|
the more they work the more energy they story up for future use. The higher
|
|
rate of speed they demand from themselves, the more mileage they can make."
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson is one of those frail appearing, tiny, feminine
|
|
persons of high voltage power. From her brain has sprung the Big Ideas for
|
|
all the Cecil B. De Mille features: from her hand has come the completed
|
|
scenarios replete with original business for the picture dramas that have
|
|
stood, each one of them, as milestones in the photoplay's progress.
|
|
For five years now she has worked in an office in the main building of
|
|
the Lasky studio. Her typewriter has been the last to cease its daily
|
|
chatter, her light alone has been seen burning until one and two in the
|
|
morning, through the leafy pepper trees that screen her office windows.
|
|
She has had no time for play, very little for recreation--she has sacrificed
|
|
all the little personal touches of home life that mean so much to most women.
|
|
She has practically no time to spare for the dressmaker, the milliner or
|
|
shopping.
|
|
She is a prodigious author who uses the screen as her medium.
|
|
When one crosses the threshold of her office one enters what appears to
|
|
be the interior of a log cabin. Rough hewn logs form the walls, the huge
|
|
desk, the table, chairs and benches. There is an open fireplace of rough
|
|
stone with charred embers on the hearth. There are books and books, Merrick
|
|
and James Cabell, Navajo rugs and the skins of wind animals soften heavy
|
|
footsteps.
|
|
Sitting in one of Jeanie Macpherson's primitive but comfortable rockers,
|
|
I asked her why she did it--why she worked twice as hard as the average
|
|
person. She came from behind the huge desk that practically hid her tiny
|
|
feminine form and sat down nearer me on a stiff, yellow-covered bench. She
|
|
crossed her dainty feet in a business-like manner, while the afternoon sun
|
|
filtering through the windows formed an aureole about her silky fair hair.
|
|
"When I was very, very young," she told me, looking at that precise
|
|
moment like a twenty-two-year-old except for her air of assurance, "when I
|
|
was VERY young, I made up my mind that I wanted to be successful while I was
|
|
still young and could enjoy it. I wanted to reach the goal I had set for
|
|
myself before I was thirty--I wanted fame and money.
|
|
"I figured that to accomplish this I must work twice as many hours and
|
|
twice as hard as the average person. I have. While other authors gave
|
|
themselves long vacations to woo inspiration, I sat and worked at my desk.
|
|
I have found that if a director and a picture company are waiting for you to
|
|
write a story for them, and you know that each day you delay means a wasting
|
|
of their time and money, you're very apt to produce the goods. Wooing
|
|
inspiration is a long and thankless pastime. For the more one woos her the
|
|
farther away she flies. So I sit at my desk and work. Perhaps it is the
|
|
persistent Scotch in me that keeps me at it--who knows?"
|
|
While the Scotch blood of her father has endowed Jeanie Macpherson with
|
|
persistency and caution, the French ancestry of her mother has given her
|
|
enthusiasm, volubility, color and imagination. Jeanie was born in Boston,
|
|
but received her education in Paris at the school of Mademoiselle De Jacques,
|
|
where Mark Twain's daughter was educated. While it was perfectly natural
|
|
that she should become a writer--her ancestors on her mother's side all
|
|
having been writers and publishers--Jeanie did not turn to the world of
|
|
literature to win her pristine fame.
|
|
She went on the stage. Her first appearance was with Forbes Robertson.
|
|
Then she went with Edgar Selwyn's tour of "Strongheart." Later she played
|
|
the Spanish role of "Tita" with James T. Powers in "Havana," which ran a year
|
|
on Broadway.
|
|
At that time pictures were just beginning to gain the attention of the
|
|
public, and from the first time Miss Macpherson heard of them she became
|
|
interested in their possibilities and had faith in their future as the coming
|
|
art. She grew very anxious to get into pictures, but knew no one connected
|
|
with them, nor anyone who could even tell her how to try to get in. So she
|
|
sought out the Biograph company by looking up the address in the telephone
|
|
directory. The now-famous D. W. Griffith gave her a trial and engaged her.
|
|
She worked from "bits" to "leads," for in those days everyone served a long,
|
|
hard apprenticeship with the camera before they were given the best parts.
|
|
Miss Macpherson stayed with Griffith two years and played the leads in
|
|
"Spanish Gypsy, "Madame Rex" and "Out of the Shadows."
|
|
Next she joined the Edison company and worked under the direction of
|
|
Oscar Apfel. From there she went to Universal. Coming out on the train from
|
|
New York, she thought up an original story. At Universal her director found
|
|
himself without an adequate story. Miss Macpherson told him about hers with
|
|
the result that she was asked to put it in scenario form and act in it. But
|
|
the director failed to get all there was out of the plot, and some time later
|
|
Universal-Jewel let her do her story all over again. This time she not only
|
|
starred in the picture, but directed it as well. In appreciation of her
|
|
successful work with this production, Universal gave her her own company, and
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson wrote her own scenarios, starred in her pictures and
|
|
directed them.
|
|
At the end of six months' time she went with the manager of the Powers
|
|
Brand to the Criterion Features, and again directed and was featured with
|
|
Wilfred Lucas. There, too, she wrote all her own stories.
|
|
Miss Macpherson told me this story of her life in a quick, staccato
|
|
manner. Truth to tell, she had a million details awaiting her attention.
|
|
One of these details was Cecil B. De Mille, who was waiting for her to
|
|
accompany him downtown to look over some new stage settings. Wishing to hear
|
|
all there was to tell--for, being a born story-writer, Jeanie's conversation
|
|
is always interesting--I hurried along by her side as she slipped into a huge
|
|
squirrel coat and trotted through the studio to her car. She does not walk
|
|
slowly and sedately as one imagines great writers should, but indulges in a
|
|
cross between a fast walk and a run.
|
|
"I am very thankful for all my acting experiences in pictures," she told
|
|
me, in her quick, accurate way, as we hurried out, "for it taught me exactly
|
|
what could and what could not be screened, an intimate knowledge which is
|
|
absolutely essential to becoming a successful scenarist.
|
|
"I faced death several times. Especially memorable was my experience
|
|
while playing the leading feminine role in Jack London's 'Sea Wolf,' produced
|
|
by Balboa. Henry King and I had a scene where we were lowered in a lifeboat
|
|
from the stern of a schooner. The rope broke, tossing us into the middle of
|
|
the Pacific. The schooner was sailing at full speed. Mr. King could swim a
|
|
little and I not at all. Our small lifeboat had lost its oars and was
|
|
drifting bottom-side up, farther from us every second. The schooner was
|
|
leaving us rapidly. I had hit the water 'flat,' as the saying is, and had so
|
|
completely lost my wind that I wasn't able to think very clearly, but I did
|
|
sense one thing--the thing that every well-trained 'movie' remembers on all
|
|
occasions--the camera. To those on the schooner's stern I indicated 'turn
|
|
the crank,' and while the captain was busy trying to reach us with a rope,
|
|
our alert little cameraman caught it. It was just the sort of scene we
|
|
needed, and I can vouch for its realism! We were finally hauled to safety,
|
|
but very, very wet."
|
|
Jeanie's last screen appearances were under the direction of Cecil
|
|
B. De Mille, with Geraldine Farrar in "Carmen" and with Mabel Van Buren in
|
|
"The Girl of the Golden West." From her pen have come "The Dream Girl," "The
|
|
Golden Chance," "The Heart of Nora Flynn," "The Love Mask," "Joan the Woman,"
|
|
"A Romance of the Redwoods," and "The Little American" for Mary Pickford,
|
|
"Male and Female," "The Whispering Chorus," "Old Wives for New," "Don't
|
|
Change Your Husband," "For Better, for Worse," "Something to Think About,"
|
|
"Forbidden Fruit" and "The Affairs of Anatol."
|
|
It was because she decided--especially with the advent of multiple
|
|
reeled films--it was better to specialize, she chose the scenario end of the
|
|
business.
|
|
"I shall always be grateful for Mr. De Mille's assistance," Jeanie
|
|
Macpherson told me. "He is a hard taskmaster and he demands that a thing
|
|
shall be perfect. He used to scold me and show me where my scenarios were
|
|
wrong, and we would work them out together. It was hard, but it taught me
|
|
that anything worth doing at all was worth doing perfectly."
|
|
Now Miss Macpherson writes all her own business into the scenario,
|
|
knowing that Mr. De Mille will never change it--that he has perfect
|
|
confidence in her.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
August 1921
|
|
Marion Lee King
|
|
PICTURE-PLAY
|
|
What About the Foreign Films?
|
|
|
|
If you are an American and a motion-picture fan you hold the answer to
|
|
the endless discussion of the pros and cons of showing foreign-made films in
|
|
America. You have probably seen "Passion," "Deception," or "Gypsy Blood"--
|
|
perhaps all of them. Many thousands of Americans have. But you have not
|
|
seen the average German picture. You won't. The cost of keeping theaters
|
|
open in America is too great to encourage audiences to stay away from them.
|
|
And that is what the showing of most foreign-made films would result in,
|
|
providing the censor allowed them to be shown--which he wouldn't.
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson, who prepares the stories for all of the big Cecil De
|
|
Mille pictures, recently spent several weeks in Europe, conferring with the
|
|
chief motion-picture makers there. And she returned with the sincere
|
|
conviction that European films are not a menace to the American industry.
|
|
"WE are democratic," Jeanie Macpherson told me from the midst of a
|
|
bewildering array of treasures from Paris modistes that made everything else
|
|
seem relatively unimportant. "And foreign artists are not. That is why
|
|
American films are going to hold first place in the hearts of American
|
|
people, no matter how good the foreign pictures are. We believe in our whole-
|
|
hearted countrymen, and they don't. We believe that boy-and-girl love
|
|
stories--dramas of our own people--are important. And they"--she broke into
|
|
a delicious ripple of laughter at the thought of it--"they think they are
|
|
positively childish. As Ernest Lubitsch said to me, 'Your domestic picture
|
|
is quite beyond our ken.' And this is not true of Germany only.
|
|
"The picture producers of France and Italy, too, think that American
|
|
forms of entertainment are childish. And Americans would find THEIR stories
|
|
disgusting. We are working from an entirely different point of view, and
|
|
until they can understand Americans better, they can't compete with American
|
|
picture makers to any extent. After that--well, we'll have to watch out.
|
|
"Of course, people must realize that 'Passion,' 'Deception,' and 'Gypsy
|
|
Blood' are not typical of their pictures. They are the best of them.
|
|
"Those productions have shown Lubitsch to be a master in staging
|
|
spectacles. But in little, intimate scenes they can't touch the work of
|
|
American directors. We have not been making spectacles here because the
|
|
exhibitors insisted that the public did not want them. The success of
|
|
'Passion' and 'Deception' has disproved that, and now we can show what we can
|
|
do along that line. Mr. De Mille's and my 'Joan the Woman,' made six years
|
|
ago, is indicative of our ability to make spectacles. Abroad that is a great
|
|
success and is admittedly just as good as their big productions."
|
|
When discussion of the invasion by foreign films was just beginning
|
|
Herbert Howe said in "A Trip Through Europe's Filmland," in PICTURE-PLAY,
|
|
"It is a reflection upon our initiative if we, who have had the benefit of
|
|
uninterrupted prosperity, are defeated in art by a nation which has been
|
|
defeated in war, crushed with debt, and burdened with world hatred."
|
|
Miss Macpherson found that the motion-picture industry had been
|
|
protected and fostered in Germany throughout the war. We need not look on
|
|
their productions as having been made under any difficulties. They were a
|
|
privileged industry.
|
|
Incidentally, while many people in this country are reluctant to enjoy
|
|
the works of German artists, the Germans are eagerly taking up American
|
|
songs. Miss Macpherson found "A Japanese Sandman" a popular song in Germany,
|
|
as is "Avalon." But they are performed as serious dramatic works, which
|
|
suggests the kind of treatment that whimsical themes in motion pictures, so
|
|
dear to the hearts of the American public, would get there. "The Merchant of
|
|
Venice" is also being performed in Germany, but in such a manner that even
|
|
Shakespeare might not recognize it. And, most striking of all, German words
|
|
have been written to "Over There," and the tune is heard wherever one goes.
|
|
A print of "Forbidden Fruit," made by Mr. De Mille from a story by
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson, arrived while Miss Macpherson was in Germany, and she saw
|
|
it in company with Ernest Lubitsch. He marveled at the dream scenes, but he
|
|
quite frankly admitted that he could not understand the boy-and-girl love
|
|
affair. It was too wholesome!
|
|
He spoke of the superiority of American films in plot construction.
|
|
He said--and this information was elicited not from modest Miss Macpherson,
|
|
but from her rightfully proud mother--that he had never seen so smoothly
|
|
running a plot in a motion picture as in "Forbidden Fruit." That was his
|
|
introduction to the mysteries of continuity writing. Foreign directors work
|
|
without the aid of the carefully worked out scripts that American directors
|
|
have. And that they are not unwilling to learn from us is suggested by the
|
|
fact that Miss Macpherson is to return abroad next January. This information
|
|
was also advanced by Miss Macpherson's mother.
|
|
Perhaps you have wondered if foreign stars will supplant our Pickford,
|
|
our Ray, our Gishes, and our Talmadges.
|
|
Miss Macpherson's answer to the question was a gesture of mock horror.
|
|
"You should see them!" she exclaimed. "They are indescribable. The splendid
|
|
artists we have seen in the films already imported are not typical. Usually
|
|
even their ingenues are huge, according to our standards, and they wear bulky
|
|
clothes and cotton stockings. I got to thinking of Mr. Ziegfeld as I watched
|
|
some of them, and I burst out laughing."
|
|
Miss Macpherson welcomes the invasion of foreign films as a whiplash to
|
|
stir American producers to their best work. Her attitude toward them shows,
|
|
above all else, good sportsmanship. Her stand is "If any one can take
|
|
anything away from the American producer they deserve to have it taken away."
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
October 15, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
Henry C. De Mille, father of Cecil B. and William De Mille and himself a
|
|
playwright and associate of David Belasco, used to say to ambitious young
|
|
writers for the stage, "Plays are not written, but rewritten!"
|
|
That applies to scenarios also.
|
|
It is not an unusual thing for an author to spend a whole year or more
|
|
writing a novel. Writers for the stage take months to evolve a play, and
|
|
more months to whip it into proper form for the footlights. But somehow
|
|
amateurs who attempt writing for the screen think they can dash off their
|
|
thoughts in a few hours, without stopping to revise them or polish them, and
|
|
call it a photoplay and have it accepted by a producer.
|
|
I don't think any scenario written in that way has ever been bought.
|
|
I know that if I were to work in that style, I would soon be looking for a
|
|
job.
|
|
Paramount receives thousands of photoplays annually from unknown
|
|
writers. We have a large staff of readers to inspect this horde of
|
|
manuscripts and decide whether there is anything in them that can be placed
|
|
upon the screen. It is safe to say that not fifty per cent of them would
|
|
ever have been sent in by their writers, had the writers placed the stories
|
|
in their desk drawers for six months and then drawn them out and reread them.
|
|
The main thing in a good scenario is story. The beginner flounders
|
|
about with background and psychology and symbolism and cutbacks into ancient
|
|
history and quite forgets that what the audience wants is--story. Everything
|
|
should be subordinated to the story.
|
|
In revising your scenario, this should be kept in mind. Try the
|
|
practice, the next time you go to the movies, of writing down some of the
|
|
subtitles. See how you might condense them further and still keep the meat
|
|
of them. It will teach you word-values.
|
|
Work over your scenario and revise it until there is not an incident in
|
|
it that does not do its bit toward developing the plot; so that there is not
|
|
a superfluous word.
|
|
I remember writing titles for "The Affairs of Anatol" and revising them
|
|
until I thought there was not a word there that did not serve its purpose.
|
|
I took the titles to Mr. De Mille, and he said, "Cut them each down fifty
|
|
feet." Fifty feet are fifty words! That meant more hours of labor to find
|
|
substitute words that would carry the meaning more succinctly.
|
|
I have rewritten my scenarios as many as six complete times before I got
|
|
them in the shape where they were acceptable, even to myself. Rewriting a
|
|
title fifty times is a common occurrence with me.
|
|
If you revise your scenarios often, you'll write fewer scenarios, but
|
|
you'll have a much better chance of selling them...
|
|
There are two kinds of directors. In the studios they call them
|
|
directors who "shoot close to the script" and directors who "shoot wild."
|
|
The first kind sticks closely to the story as the scenario writer has laid it
|
|
out; the second takes all kinds of liberty with the scenario.
|
|
Sometimes it is necessary to make changes in the scenario. Unexpected
|
|
difficulties or unforeseen chances to better the picture are usually taken as
|
|
warranting changes.
|
|
Usually the scenario writer is consulted when changes are contemplated.
|
|
Frequently the author of the story is taken along with the company when the
|
|
story is being filmed, and his or her advice sought. My typewriter and I are
|
|
usually at Mr. De Mille's service during the shooting of one of his pictures,
|
|
whether in the studio or a hundred miles from there.
|
|
Sir Gilbert Parker saw every foot of his story, "A Wise Fool" filmed and
|
|
made many wise suggestions. So did Elinor Glyn in the case of "The Great
|
|
Moment."
|
|
Filming a picture means taking a story out of the world of words and
|
|
putting it into the world of motion--two different mediums. Naturally some
|
|
revisions are necessary.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
October 22, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
Over the desk of every writer connected with Cecil B. De Mille's
|
|
scenario staff is a small card bearing the slogan: "Say it with props."
|
|
The existence of these cards is not an accident. They were printed and
|
|
distributed by direct order of the producer and they carry to the writers one
|
|
of the greatest problems of continuity writing and, in fact, of all screen
|
|
writing.
|
|
For the benefit of the uninitiated let me explain that a "prop" is
|
|
anything that may be used by the character. A cigar, a letter, a picture, or
|
|
a grand piano may all be props. "Say it with props" therefore means: Put
|
|
over your idea whenever possible with screen business revolving around some
|
|
concrete article.
|
|
All too often the scenario writer leans heavily upon the subtitle as a
|
|
means of conveying some complicated thought to the audience. Of course,
|
|
there are instances where no other means will achieve the end. But those
|
|
instances are rare. In the majority of cases, that same idea or emotion may
|
|
be transferred to the spectator through the agency of a prop.
|
|
All this is of primary importance to the continuity writer. But it
|
|
applies just the same to the writer of original screen stories. One of the
|
|
major faults of the amateur screen writer is his reliance on clever (?)
|
|
subtitles.
|
|
If that same writer continually visualized his or her story as it is
|
|
written; if the author succeeded in assuming the role of continuity writer
|
|
without actually writing the continuity, the story would improve accordingly.
|
|
If, every time you have some bit of business, some thought or some
|
|
emotion in mind in writing your story, you keep in mind Cecil B. De Mille's
|
|
motto of "Say it with props," your story is certain to profit by it.
|
|
Although subtitles are an essential part of the photoplay, they
|
|
nevertheless impede the smooth flow of the story. The fewer subtitles
|
|
required, the nearer the approach to photoplay perfection.
|
|
Subtitles can be avoided by only one means that I know of--screen
|
|
"business." In other words, the thought may be conveyed by having the
|
|
character do something or refer to something that makes the situation clear
|
|
to the spectator.
|
|
Almost all dramatic "business" requires the assistance of a prop or two.
|
|
Hence, if the writer continually keeps in mind the slogan of "Say it with
|
|
props," the need for subtitles is continually diminished.
|
|
Almost anything may be a prop. I have written scenes wherein a girl
|
|
watching a fly climb a wall conveyed more to the audience than several
|
|
hundred words of subtitle might have done. There the fly became a prop.
|
|
Again, a prop may be a limousine or a prayerbook; a wine bottle or a
|
|
baby's rattle. It is the writer's task to single out the particular article
|
|
that, in the hands of the player or within the vision of the actor, may best
|
|
serve to convey the particular thought.
|
|
There are no rules whereby the amateur writer may be instructed in the
|
|
use of props in developing a story. The best advice on this score is the
|
|
same advice that goes for all phases of scenario writing: Study motion
|
|
pictures. See for yourself what the professional, experienced scenario
|
|
writers are doing along the line.
|
|
It will be found, I think, that the majority of successful photoplays
|
|
show the maximum use of props. The trained writer automatically casts about
|
|
for a means of this kind to put over the particular idea of the moment.
|
|
That tendency is the result of training. The beginner requires the aid
|
|
of just such reminders as the cards that Cecil B. De Mille caused to be
|
|
printed and distributed to the new writers who are studying under his
|
|
supervision at the Lasky Studio.
|
|
"Say it with props" if you would write screen stories that will meet the
|
|
approval of the producers...
|
|
I have gone to great extremes in order to learn how people actually act
|
|
under certain conditions, so that I might use my experiences in my scenario
|
|
work.
|
|
Once I operated an airplane for the late Lieutenant Locklear in one of
|
|
his screen thrillers.
|
|
And I shall never forget the famous fight with Geraldine Farrar in
|
|
"Carmen," when I nearly had my hair torn out by the roots.
|
|
When I offered to fight Miss Farrar "for the experience," they laughed
|
|
at me. "Why, Jeanie, you're not an actress any more," they told me. "Why
|
|
risk getting yourself all scarred and battered?"
|
|
But a writer has to have something authentic to write about. I wanted
|
|
to know how a woman felt under such great stress; I might want to describe
|
|
her psychology in a scenario. I felt that a woman under the emotional strain
|
|
of a fist fight was something I knew nothing about and would be wise to
|
|
learn.
|
|
Mr. De Mille finally allowed me in the fight. We certainly fought.
|
|
We pulled hair and clothes, and in the heat of the combat we forgot director,
|
|
camera, and studio. We were two primitive beings in the grip of a tremendous
|
|
anger. I learned just how the mind functions under such a condition, and I
|
|
have used my knowledge many times since.
|
|
Yes, first hand information is valuable in writing photoplays. Too many
|
|
beginners get their data out of the encyclopedia. And so very many write of
|
|
people and lands they known nothing about. We get stories of India by people
|
|
who have never been east of Pittsburgh, and we get thrilling "westerns" from
|
|
confirmed inhabitants of New York City.
|
|
Look around you. Perhaps there is a thrilling motion picture story in
|
|
the family next door. Certainly within a block of you there is a plot for a
|
|
picture that some body will buy.
|
|
The best background for a scenario writer is, of course, to have a wide
|
|
general knowledge of life rather than a specialized knowledge of any of any
|
|
particular phase or locality.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
November 12, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
This week I shall talk not so much to the amateur scenario writer who is
|
|
content merely to turn out a story for the screen once in a while and regards
|
|
his film writing as pastime, but to the writer who would like to take up
|
|
motion picture editorial work as a regular career and whose ambition is to
|
|
join the scenario staff of some film company.
|
|
What would such a career be like?
|
|
Perhaps if I described a typical day in the life of a scenario writer,
|
|
drawing from my own experience, you could answer that question.
|
|
In one sense, a scenario writer never has "a typical day." Every day is
|
|
different. Every day brings a new set of problems. Some may be solved in
|
|
five minutes; others require five hours or five days.
|
|
Because of the unusual demands of the work "office hours" in the usual
|
|
sense of the words are an unknown quantity. My day's work may start when I
|
|
arise in the morning and end when I fall asleep at night. That doesn't
|
|
necessarily mean that I am writing continuously from dawn to dark. But it
|
|
does mean that I am studying and thinking over situations; that I am planning
|
|
the action of a story or threshing out in my own mind some knotty problem of
|
|
scenario construction.
|
|
My hours at the Lasky Studio are regular only in the sense that I try to
|
|
arrive there between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. Whenever possible,
|
|
I devote my first hour there to necessary business appointments and routine
|
|
details which must be attended to daily. There are letters to write and semi-
|
|
business and personal matters pertaining to the work which must not be
|
|
allowed to accumulate from day to day.
|
|
My office is really not an office at all. Rather is it a work shop, a
|
|
den and a library rolled into one. And of these the term work shop is the
|
|
most truly descriptive, for after that first hour it becomes the scene of a
|
|
full day's work.
|
|
While a scenario is in the process of construction there are numberless
|
|
consultations with Mr. De Mille. First comes the idea--and a thorough
|
|
discussion of it with Mr. De Mille. Scenarios are not things of the minute.
|
|
Often the idea which serves us as the motive has lain in the back of one's
|
|
head for months or years.
|
|
If Mr. De Mille is interested--if he considers the idea practical--
|
|
I proceed to rough out the story. I wish to "put over" such-and-such a
|
|
theme. What kind of action will best accomplish this end? Lengthy thought,
|
|
occasional reference to past experience and thorough discussion of the
|
|
subject with Mr. De Mille are the means which I use to come to a solution of
|
|
this first problem.
|
|
In almost every story there are purely technical angles which must be
|
|
carefully studied if the story is to ring true. How did people conduct
|
|
themselves in such-and-such a period? How did they regard certain matters?
|
|
And so through dozens of similar questions which must be answered before the
|
|
story can be put on paper.
|
|
Having secured the necessary information and having the general outline
|
|
of the story well in mind, I proceed to write it, scene by scene. I do all
|
|
of my writing in longhand and turn over my manuscript to my stenographer for
|
|
copying. Many scenario writers, I believe, either use a typewriter
|
|
themselves or dictate their continuity--the scene-by-scene working plot of
|
|
the story--to a stenographer. I prefer to write mine with pencil and paper,
|
|
although it is undoubtedly slower and more tiring.
|
|
And so through the day I labor at my scenario. Often the evenings will
|
|
be devoted to consultations with Mr. De Mille or some other interested
|
|
person. Sometimes the story becomes so absorbingly interesting that I work
|
|
on into the night without thought of time.
|
|
Not infrequently the work of filming the story gets under way before the
|
|
final scenes are written. This means that I must keep well in advance of the
|
|
production work with my writing if I am to avoid halting this highly
|
|
expensive process.
|
|
But through all of this there is no such thing as "an average day's
|
|
work." Every day is a day unto itself. It may start at noon and end at
|
|
three in the morning of the following day, or it may start at nine and end
|
|
when the work is finished.
|
|
Sometimes I think that the grind of it will prove too much for me. But
|
|
it never does. The work, for all of its disadvantages, possesses an appeal
|
|
which I can never refuse. It is often hard, generally irregular as to hours
|
|
and frequently trying to the patience. But it still continues to claim my
|
|
time and my best efforts and so I suppose it will continue to do so.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
December 3, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
"How can I learn to write scenarios?"
|
|
That question, variously worded, is the burden of scores of letters that
|
|
reach my desk. Attempting to answer it is much like telling an ambitious
|
|
music-lover how to play the violin.
|
|
Fortunately for the ambitious musician there are many capable teachers
|
|
but unfortunately for the would-be screen writer there is a woeful lack of
|
|
competent instruction on the subject of scenario writing. The whole art of
|
|
the photodrama is still too new, too young to have developed this important
|
|
but secondary department. Those who know how are too busy to tell others.
|
|
The answer I make to this question is invariably the same: Study
|
|
pictures!
|
|
In lieu of actual personal instruction from a master of screen writing
|
|
technique, there is no better method of learning both the form and general
|
|
content of scenario writing. Go to see pictures and more pictures and still
|
|
more pictures! See for yourself how dramatic situations are constructed; how
|
|
dramatic suspense is created; how thought is photographed.
|
|
Merely sitting through a picture or two will not accomplish the desire
|
|
results, just as two or three casually taken violin lessons will not teach
|
|
you how to play the violin. It takes years to master this instrument--years
|
|
of hard work and patient study. Scenario writing, despite popular opinion,
|
|
is vastly harder than playing the violin and it cannot be learned in a week
|
|
or even a month.
|
|
If you are seriously attempting to learn the technique of screen writing
|
|
try this experiment: Go to see three or more of the best pictures every week
|
|
for a period of six months. Do not attempt to write a finished manuscript in
|
|
that period. Devote it entirely to study and, if you like, practice writing.
|
|
In studying the pictures that you see, strive to analyze and segregate
|
|
the elements that all pictures have in common: Their dramatic form and
|
|
structure; their emotional or psychological appeal.
|
|
Make a list of the subject matter--the themes--of all of these pictures.
|
|
It will teach you what type of story is in demand by the American public
|
|
which in turn controls the producer who is your potential employer.
|
|
Watch and listen to the people around you in the theatre. See how they
|
|
react to the story as it unrolls on the screen. Their comments will often be
|
|
valuable guide posts in your subsequent work.
|
|
If, at the end of your six months probation and study period, you still
|
|
feel that you are capable of writing for the screen, select your idea and
|
|
develop it on the composite model that you should have in mind by this time.
|
|
If your story depends upon plot primarily, the chances are that you are
|
|
wasting your time. The day of the purely action picture has gone; the
|
|
picture of today and tomorrow must have a theme--a vital, real idea. It must
|
|
depend upon thought rather than action; psychology rather than plot.
|
|
Many of the inquiries that reach my desk seek information on the best
|
|
form in which to submit a scenario idea to the producer. Although there is
|
|
no rule in this matter, most scenario editors prefer the story in synopsis
|
|
form. This does not mean that a short story style need be developed. All
|
|
that is necessary is a clear outline of the story told as briefly as possible
|
|
without the omission of any of the detail that may aid in conveying the idea
|
|
to both the editor and the public.
|
|
Insofar as I know, no producer today requires that a submitted story
|
|
shall be developed into a continuity to be salable. Continuity writing is a
|
|
distinct and highly specialized branch of screen writing and producers prefer
|
|
to leave this work to the specialists. No amateur writer can hope to produce
|
|
a continuity that will meet the requirements of the producer. Even if the
|
|
continuity were dramatically passable--which it is not likely to be--it would
|
|
be almost certain to require complete re-writing to fit the individual
|
|
producer and star...
|
|
Scenario writing cannot be mastered overnight nor can the ambitious
|
|
writer expect to set the world afire with his or her first venture in a new
|
|
field. Success is never won without a fight. If your story is rejected you
|
|
may be sure that the fault is yours and not the studio reader's. It is your
|
|
task to locate that fault and correct it and by your ability to do this will
|
|
be reckoned your success or failure.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
December 24, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
Don't write screen stories that require explanatory subtitles in
|
|
profusion!
|
|
Although it is doubtful if the American photoplay ever succeeds in
|
|
eliminating the subtitle altogether--and it is an open question whether such
|
|
elimination is to be desired--it is nevertheless true that the ideal
|
|
photoplay is the photoplay with the minimum number of subtitles.
|
|
The purpose of the subtitle is to explain or emphasize a point. Used
|
|
sparingly for these purposes it has a definite place in the scenario of
|
|
today. The American public is not yet ready--and perhaps never will be ready-
|
|
-to accept Continental pantomime with its complete absence of the spoken or
|
|
written word.
|
|
So-called "spoken titles" and the use of dialogue are not infrequently
|
|
of tremendous value in the construction of the scenario and the finished
|
|
photoplay. But all of these must be used very, very sparingly.
|
|
A properly constructed photoplay should capture the spectators'
|
|
attention and the outset and hold it without interruption to the finish.
|
|
There should be no let-down--no waning of interest at any point. The
|
|
audience should be able to lose itself completely in this story.
|
|
To achieve this result two things are necessary: Dramatic suspense and
|
|
smooth continuity. It is with the latter quality that the subtitle has to
|
|
do.
|
|
Every time the action of a story is halted for printed words to be
|
|
thrown on the screen there is a tiny break in the interest of the spectator.
|
|
This is inevitable. But in many instances the results justify the means.
|
|
Sometimes a subtitle will serve to whip the spectator's interest to an even
|
|
higher pitch.
|
|
One of the commonest faults of the amateur writer when faced with a
|
|
knotty situation in his or her story is to inject a subtitle to clarify the
|
|
atmosphere. To the amateur almost every problem is a knotty one with the
|
|
result that the story is one long succession of potential subtitles.
|
|
In a previous article I emphasized the importance of re-writing every
|
|
story several times. This is of value in a multitude of ways and it is
|
|
exceedingly useful in eliminating opportunities for subtitles. Frequently I
|
|
have found that subtitles that seemed absolutely essential in the first rough
|
|
draft of the story became superfluous as the story is worked over and over
|
|
again. With each re-writing I succeeded in weeding out many such potential
|
|
subtitles.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
December 31, 1921
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
Hints to Scenario Writers
|
|
|
|
...I have never written a screen story that has not required more time
|
|
for the acquisition of data than it did to write. In some instances twice or
|
|
three times as much time was devoted to mastering the facts before I set pen
|
|
to paper.
|
|
An instance of this is to be found in "Joan the Woman." We--
|
|
Mr. De Mille and I--have been criticized many times for the alleged liberty
|
|
with fact which we are supposed to have taken. These charges are untrue.
|
|
There is not a single incident in the story of "Joan the Woman" that isn't
|
|
backed up by historical fact. I know because I spent months reading every
|
|
line that has been printed regarding the famous Maid of Orleans.
|
|
Critics pointed out that Joan never had a love affair; that no man ever
|
|
loved her. If these same critics had taken the same trouble to learn the
|
|
facts they would not have made that criticism. As a matter of fact, Joan had
|
|
a boyhood lover whom she considered marrying before she was called to her
|
|
greater mission.
|
|
Nor is the necessity for a complete knowledge of the facts restricted to
|
|
the historical drama. The need is just as great or greater in dealing with
|
|
matters of everyday occurrence. Nine out of ten people may not be in a
|
|
position to question the facts regarding the life of Joan d'Arc, but a full
|
|
ten out of every ten people will be able to criticize modern problems and
|
|
facts because all the world is familiar with these facts.
|
|
Therefore, it behooves the writer to have these facts correct and beyond
|
|
criticism. To be a really successful scenario writer it is almost necessary
|
|
to be a jack of all trades and a walking encyclopedia of information. But it
|
|
will suffice if the writer makes it his or her business to really known what
|
|
is being written at that particular moment.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
August 19, 1922
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
MOVIE WEEKLY
|
|
|
|
"I Have Been In Hell"-- or In Search of Prison Knowledge
|
|
|
|
I have been in hell!
|
|
I have plumbed the utmost depths of human degradation.
|
|
I have seen women's souls stripped stark naked.
|
|
I have been face to face with humanity at its worst.
|
|
And I have met the most perfect kindness and sympathy it has ever been
|
|
my lot to experience.
|
|
I have been in jail.
|
|
I did not visit the jail as a privileged guest. I went as a criminal,
|
|
serving a sentence. I was arrested, charged with simple larceny, tried,
|
|
convicted and sentenced to ten days in prison. I served three days and three
|
|
nights of that sentence--three depressing days and three horrible nights.
|
|
I wore the prison garb and ate--or tried to eat--the prison fare. And I
|
|
know, from personal experience, just what "prison hysteria" is.
|
|
I am a scenario writer. Complete knowledge of my subject is a requisite
|
|
of my work. It was in search of this knowledge that I went to prison.
|
|
I found it.
|
|
In the photoplay that I am writing for Cecil B. De Mille's production,
|
|
in the near future, the chief feminine character is sentenced to prison for
|
|
manslaughter. "Manslaughter" is the title of the story. The girl goes to
|
|
prison a selfish egotist. She emerges completely changed. In order that I
|
|
might understand the influences at work on this character during her prison
|
|
stay, I, too, went to jail.
|
|
When I decided to make this experiment, I selected the Detroit House of
|
|
Correction as the institution that would best serve my purpose. The name is
|
|
a misnomer. It is not a reform school. Instead, it is a penitentiary--
|
|
a penitentiary that has the unique distinction of housing Michigan's Federal
|
|
feminine offenders of every type of crime--State prisoners, County prisoners
|
|
and the City of Detroit's municipal prisoners and doing all this in a fashion
|
|
that compares favorably with the Middle Ages.
|
|
There were several reasons for this choice. One was the sinister
|
|
reputation of the institution. The second was that this is the only jail in
|
|
the country where petty criminals are confined with those serving sentence
|
|
for manslaughter. Another was that my family numbers among its friends--
|
|
a man formerly prominent in the administration of the Detroit prison. This
|
|
individual was the only person whom I took into my confidence. I wished to
|
|
have his aid in securing my release, should the experience become unbearable.
|
|
With the exception of this man, no one connected with the experiment
|
|
knew that I was not in fact "Angel Brown." It was under this name that I
|
|
"operated" when I stole a fur neck piece of nominal value from a woman of my
|
|
family's acquaintance who was living at the Hotel Statler. She reported her
|
|
loss to the house detective and I was arrested before I had left the
|
|
building.
|
|
Hailed into court, I gave my name as "Angel Brown" from San Francisco,
|
|
and was charged with simple larceny. I pleaded guilty to the charge and was
|
|
sentenced to a fine of ten dollars or the alternative of ten days in the
|
|
Detroit House of Correction. On my statement that I did not have the money
|
|
to pay the fine, I was turned over to a police officer with instructions to
|
|
commit me to jail.
|
|
Just at this point, all my plans were threatened by a big fatherly Irish
|
|
policeman who was detailed to conduct me to the prison. On our way down to
|
|
the alley where the patrolwagon was to meet us, he said:
|
|
"This is your first time up, isn't it, little girl?"
|
|
I assured him that it was.
|
|
"Isn't there anyone you know who will put up the money and keep you out
|
|
of jail?"
|
|
There was no one, I declared.
|
|
"I hate to see you go to that place. You wait right here"--and he
|
|
pushed me through a door into a bare waiting room on the level with the jail
|
|
alley--"I think I know a man who will lend us the money."
|
|
My heart sank. After all my trouble to get into jail, my plans were
|
|
about to be frustrated by the kind heart of a well-meaning policeman!
|
|
My good-natured policeman soon returned with failure written all over
|
|
his kindly features. His friend was unable to help. There was nothing else
|
|
to do but load me into the "Black Maria" and send me on my way. He had no
|
|
suspicion that I was thanking Providence for his failure.
|
|
I arrived at the jail late in the afternoon. My guardian turned me over
|
|
to the chief matron, who knew me only as a thief, and the iron bars
|
|
figuratively and literally closed behind me.
|
|
There followed the formality of booking me. My name and sentence were
|
|
the outstanding facts noted by the matron's secretary, a trusty serving a
|
|
long term. After this I was stripped to the skin and searched for narcotics.
|
|
They even took down my hair and made a painstaking examination of it.
|
|
When it came to selecting my prison garb, I was allowed to choose
|
|
between long and short-sleeved underwear. I chose the long, for it was
|
|
December and cold. With it went the faded gingham coverall, prison-made and
|
|
drab. Despite the coldness of the weather, this garment had short sleeves.
|
|
I selected my footwear from a great pile of shoes that occupied one corner of
|
|
the matron's office. My choice fell upon a pair of dirty misshapen things
|
|
that fitted approximately and had been splashed with paint and whitewash at
|
|
one time in the recent past.
|
|
From the office, I was conducted by the trusty to the cell assigned to
|
|
me. It was on the second tier of the cell-block which consisted of four
|
|
tiers of twenty cells each--accommodations for eighty prisoners. And at the
|
|
time of my incarceration, the jail contained one hundred and forty women
|
|
prisoners. Beds in the corridors supplied sleeping accommodations for those
|
|
not assigned to cells. White and black, petty criminals and murderesses
|
|
sleep, eat and work, side by side.
|
|
The cell into which I was ushered was without a window and measured
|
|
approximately six feet in length, six feet in height, and not over five feet
|
|
in width. Most of this room was occupied by my bunk bearing a straw
|
|
mattress, blankets and prison-made linen, but no pillow. This and a broken-
|
|
down chair, tin wash basin and pitcher and pail were the sole furnishings.
|
|
I made my prison debut in the midst of the so-called recreation hour.
|
|
This is the period in late afternoon when the girls, having finished a day's
|
|
work in the shops, are permitted to wander about the corridor-like space that
|
|
surrounds the cell-block itself. This space is called the recreation room,
|
|
although there is no semblance of recreation facilities, and was very cold.
|
|
Two hard benches and a few straight kitchen chairs and one small table
|
|
constituted the furnishings, and I saw no evidence of any books or
|
|
literature.
|
|
On the particular day that I arrived, the girls were in the chapel of
|
|
prison viewing a motion picture. The picture was a cheap industrial film,
|
|
showing the making of a newspaper and Panama Canal, badly made and badly
|
|
photographed. I think a strapping negro girl voiced the opinion of the
|
|
majority when at the conclusion of the picture, she said: "My Gawd, why don't
|
|
they give us a love story once-in-a-while!"
|
|
I had heard that clever crooks never talked or made intimates and that
|
|
the common criminals respected the mental superiority of those who could
|
|
resist the temptation to gossip about anything and everything. I was relying
|
|
on this fact to carry me safely through the shoals of cross-examination on
|
|
the part of my cell mates.
|
|
It was fortunate that I adopted this attitude. I had hardly returned to
|
|
my cell before a delegation of curious visitors dropped in to find out all
|
|
about me and to get the latest news from the outside. Everyone wanted to
|
|
know, first of all, where I came from. Every single one of them tremendously
|
|
anxious to hear the news from their own home town. Since I claimed San
|
|
Francisco as my home, I disappointed them all. And it did disappoint them.
|
|
One girl, speaking for herself spoke for them all when she demanded: "Hell, I
|
|
thought you was from Flint."
|
|
My refusal to talk won me immediate respect. And when it was nosed
|
|
around that I had been caught "working" the Hotel Statler, single-handed, I
|
|
became a near-heroine. The Statler detective system is known and feared by
|
|
all criminals, I learned. My supposed consummate nerve won their respect.
|
|
But if I kept silent, no one else did. Apparently everybody talked all
|
|
the time, calling loudly back and forth from cell to cell. It is part of the
|
|
hysteria of the place. Speech relieves the tension that they are all under,
|
|
consciously or unconsciously.
|
|
Supper interrupted the cross-examination. We filed into the long dining
|
|
room and I faced my first prison meal.
|
|
Long wooden tables and benches were the chief articles of furniture in
|
|
this room. Some one with a sense of humor had posted a large sign at one and
|
|
of the room commanding silence, but the babble of voices and the clatter or
|
|
granite-ware dishes continued at fever heat throughout every meal.
|
|
Supper consisted of a greasy soup that had soured; two pieces of white
|
|
bread without butter; a mug of some mysterious black liquid erroneously named
|
|
coffee.
|
|
I believe that I can eat any kind of food that is fit for human
|
|
consumption, but there are limits; and this meal and its successors went
|
|
beyond that limit.
|
|
Supper over, we arose on signal from the presiding matron and filed back
|
|
to our cells. As I entered mine, the door banged shut behind me and locked.
|
|
Then I began my first night in jail.
|
|
For a time the hysterical racket that had gone on steadily since my
|
|
advent continued. When it subsided a little I threw myself on the bunk and
|
|
amused myself by analyzing my emotions of the day. Eventually I dropped into
|
|
a fitful sleep.
|
|
How long I slept I have no means of knowing, but it could not have been
|
|
more than a few hours. I was awakened by a peculiar crawling sensation that
|
|
meant but one thing--vermin!
|
|
There was no more sleep for me that night. Wide-eyed, I sat on the edge
|
|
of my bunk and prayed for daylight.
|
|
I have heard and read much of the terrible feeling of being shut in,
|
|
buried alive and suffocated that prisoners undergo during their first night
|
|
in prison, but until the time of my own experience, I believe it to be
|
|
largely imaginative. It is not. It is the most real thing in the world.
|
|
I felt that the walls of my tiny, windowless cell were slowly closing in on
|
|
me--I could not breathe. The close cell, cleaned with a sickening
|
|
disinfectant seemed, to strangle me. There are no words to picture the
|
|
suffocating horror that envelops one at this time. Hysteria succeeds
|
|
reason--I wanted to scream and beat my head against the stone walls of the
|
|
cell--anything to push them away. Only one tiny portion of my brain remained
|
|
rational. It was this tiny control center that kept me from going stark,
|
|
staring mad for the time, at least.
|
|
In spite of this semi-control, by four o'clock in the morning I was on
|
|
the verge of panic. Partly in an effort to relieve the tension and partly in
|
|
search of information regarding prison routine, I feigned sickness and
|
|
shouted for assistance.
|
|
I succeeded in attracting the attention of a trusty who was detailed to
|
|
nurse service. She made a sympathetic effort to diagnose my trouble, but she
|
|
was unable to render any real assistance. At my insistence, she summoned the
|
|
night matron and I told my troubles to her. She explained that the jail
|
|
hospital was closed for the night; that the chief matron was the only one who
|
|
could open my cell door, even for sickness; and that this lady could never be
|
|
disturbed until she reached her office at nine o'clock in the morning. That
|
|
meant that if I was in danger of death I could go ahead and die without
|
|
medical aid before nine A. M.! The night matron even refused me a piece of
|
|
paper to fan myself with.
|
|
Throughout my feigned illness, the neighboring prisoners kept up a
|
|
perfect bombardment of encouragement and sympathy. The nurse-trusty was
|
|
infinitely sympathetic, but she was powerless to aid.
|
|
This excitement served to combat the evil atmosphere of the night, but
|
|
daylight seemed to be ages away. And it was not until we were released about
|
|
eight for breakfast that I succeeded in ridding myself of the hysterical
|
|
feeling.
|
|
Some time between eight and eight-thirty--at the discretion of the
|
|
matron--we were freed from our cells. En route to breakfast we made our
|
|
toilettes--such as they were. Inasmuch as toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs
|
|
and soap were absolutely forbidden, this was an exceedingly sketchy affair.
|
|
There were woman in that prison who had not had a comb in their hair for
|
|
months. They kept it in place with string, bits of hairpin, or anything else
|
|
that could be adopted to the purpose. A trough into which all the prison
|
|
filth is emptied by the prisoners--also en route to breakfast--does not add
|
|
to one's grooming.
|
|
From this service, we marched to the meal itself. Like its predecessor,
|
|
it was inedible as far as I was concerned, at least. The same two pieces of
|
|
bread, the same nameless black liquid, or the alternative of bluish white
|
|
milk, and a watery fluid in which a few grains of some cereal were floating
|
|
made up the menu. I counted the cereal grains--I think they were rice--and
|
|
found six in my dish.
|
|
Breakfast over, we marched to the shops. We were set to work making
|
|
cane and reed chair seats. In other departments of this same shop, brushes
|
|
are made and the prison tailoring shop turns out the prison clothes and
|
|
linen. This work is done by the long-termers during work hours, although
|
|
most of them eat and live together with the short-termers.
|
|
At noon we were marched back across the courtyard between the prison
|
|
proper and the shop building for luncheon. White bread to the number of two
|
|
slices, two slim "wenies," sloppy cabbage and the unbelievably bad coffee
|
|
made up this repast. The "wenies" were a luxury. Usually mealy looking
|
|
baked beans formed the main course of lunch. Meat was allowed once about
|
|
every two days, I learned.
|
|
The shops claimed our attention throughout the afternoon, although the
|
|
total amount of work done was negligible. Any petty criminal who works
|
|
earnestly in the shop is promptly reprimanded by her sisters. It sets a bad
|
|
example and makes the prison authorities expect more of the other prisoners.
|
|
Late in the afternoon we were herded from the shop back to the cell
|
|
block and the so-called recreation hour. And once again I was subjected to a
|
|
severe grilling by my cell mates.
|
|
Except that it had lost some of its terror, the second night was a
|
|
repetition of the first. Sleep was impossible. Through the night I heard
|
|
the multitudinous sounds of many women confined in a tiny space, quarreling
|
|
back and forth or forming discordant screening quarters in an effort to ward
|
|
off as long as possible the spectre of the long dreary night. I was told on
|
|
good authority that the old-timers long ago had learned to pick the locks of
|
|
their individual cells and many of them surreptitiously visited friends in
|
|
other cells for purposes better guessed at than said.
|
|
Two tiny windows on the wall opposite the cell-block furnished the
|
|
ventilation for this entire structure. Imagine one hundred and forty women
|
|
living in a space ventilated by these two windows and overheated by badly
|
|
placed steam pipes and you will be able to conjure up a picture that
|
|
resembles the steam room of a Turkish bath, peopled with all the stenches of
|
|
human existence made nauseating by the persistent odor of disinfectant.
|
|
During a lull in the noises, I heard one woman, a cell or two away,
|
|
instructing a neighbor in the art of crocheting. They could not see each
|
|
other, but one had evidently secured crochet needles and material, and the
|
|
other was explaining how many stitches it would take her per day to finish
|
|
the collar for her baby back home, by Christmas!
|
|
By dawn I was more than satiated with my jail experience. It seemed to
|
|
me that another twenty-four hours of this would be impossible. Confident of
|
|
my ability to reach my friend, the prison official, I survived the night.
|
|
After breakfast I sought a means of reaching this influential gentleman.
|
|
I learned that he had quarreled with his superiors the previous day, and
|
|
forgetting about me, resigned! Furthermore, I would have been unable to
|
|
reach him even if he had remained in his position!
|
|
To serve the full ten days without sleep or food was beyond my powers of
|
|
endurance. I began to plan frantically to achieve my release. I bethought
|
|
myself of my mother, Mrs. O'Neill, who was living with my uncle. I took
|
|
council with the nurse who had been so sympathetic during my supposed illness
|
|
without, however, telling her that my crime had been faked. She advised me
|
|
to go to the matron and explain that I knew of a woman who might pay my fine.
|
|
Perhaps the matron would notify her.
|
|
I took an additional twenty-four hours to bring this about. The matron
|
|
was skeptical, but I insisted that this "kind lady" had frequently befriended
|
|
me in the past and might be prevailed upon to do so again! Needless to say,
|
|
my mother had been disturbed by my continued absence. She knew that I was in
|
|
jail, but she had expected me to return at the end of the first day. By the
|
|
third day she was nearly frantic. When the matron phoned to say that there
|
|
was a girl in the House of Correction who said she knew Mrs. O'Neill and
|
|
wanted her to pay the fine, my mother never even waited to find out the name
|
|
of the criminal. She assured the matron that she would take care of the
|
|
matter and hastened to the judge. We have often wondered what the matron
|
|
thought of the pair of us.
|
|
My release came at the close of the third day--almost seventy-two hours
|
|
after my entrance. In that time I lost twelve pounds and I was sick with
|
|
hunger and loss of sleep. As I left, a group of fellow prisoners gathered at
|
|
the door to wish me good luck. I shall never forget the picture they made.
|
|
I call them my "gray ghosts." Unkempt and drab, they waved me good-bye with
|
|
a sincere wish that I might "stay out" and prosper.
|
|
No one who has not had a similar experience can appreciate the outlook
|
|
of the criminal serving sentence. To them the world is reversed. Out of
|
|
prison we eulogize people in direct ratio to their lack of criminal ability;
|
|
the criminal idealizes the master crook. The bigger the crime, the higher
|
|
the social position of the criminal! That is the code of the underworld and
|
|
nowhere is the effect of this code more strikingly emphasized than in prison.
|
|
One loses his perspective on crime. Even with my slender experience, I found
|
|
myself adopting their viewpoint. If the atmosphere can do that to me in
|
|
three days, think what it can do in months or years to the confirmed
|
|
criminal.
|
|
Of one thing I cam convinced: Most of the women serving in the Detroit
|
|
House of Correction were cases of psychopathic care or, at least, expert
|
|
medical attention. Many of them, I am convinced, could be returned to normal
|
|
life by proper care and psychological treatment--not physical punishment.
|
|
But they can never return under the existing conditions.
|
|
The effect of such an experience on a woman, born and bred to a very
|
|
different place in life, is certain to be revolutionary. The girl in
|
|
"Manslaughter" leads a life of ease and self-gratification up to the time
|
|
that she goes to prison. Most of the penitentiaries, and especially the
|
|
women's prisons in New York State, are vastly better than the jail in which I
|
|
suffered. But this girl must go through that horrible first night in some
|
|
intermediate City or County Jail. That is one moment that is certain to
|
|
exert a powerful influence upon her. And by comparison with this experience,
|
|
the actual penitentiary will seem a paradise.
|
|
I went in search of an experience and I found it. I wouldn't go through
|
|
the same experience again for any amount of money. But I wouldn't sell it
|
|
for an even greater sum.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
January 21, 1923
|
|
Dorothy Day
|
|
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
|
|
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson Rests Amid Roars of Broadway
|
|
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson is in New York resting. Unlike most writers, she does
|
|
not resort to the farm for relaxation, but takes a suite in a hotel in the
|
|
very busiest part of Broadway, where the glare of the electric light signs
|
|
flicker in through the windows and the roar of the many street noises hurl up
|
|
their ceaseless symphony.
|
|
"Adam's Rib," which Cecil B. De Mille finished screening a short time
|
|
ago, is the latest picture story from the pen of this charming young writer.
|
|
Her next effort is to be called "The Ten Commandments." This title was
|
|
selected from thousands which were received in response to a prize offer of
|
|
$1,000 in a contest for the best picture title. Letters with suggestions
|
|
poured into the Lasky office from China, Japan, Germany, France, Africa and
|
|
America. Three translators were kept hard at work. During the first week of
|
|
the contest a letter came containing the suggestion "The Ten Commandments"
|
|
and before the thirty days of the contest were over seven more with the same
|
|
idea were received, and so when it was finally decided that the title was to
|
|
win the prize, $5,000, instead of $1,000, had to be distributed.
|
|
It is interesting to note from what varied sources the same suggestion
|
|
sprung. One was from a poor widow who was struggling to pay for a small
|
|
house in which she and her four children live. The money came as manna from
|
|
heaven to her.
|
|
Another one of the winners was a major, who, when he sent in his
|
|
suggestion, stated that if by any chance it should be accepted, he desired
|
|
the money to go to the crippled children's hospital.
|
|
A boy working his way through college was awarded one of the $1,000
|
|
prizes, which, of course, meant a great deal to him.
|
|
A society woman donated her winnings to a charitable organization.
|
|
Many people whose suggestions were rejected wrote in that they were glad
|
|
of it, because they realized that "The Ten Commandments" affords far greater
|
|
possibilities than their own idea of a title.
|
|
Miss Macpherson does not even let herself think about the method she
|
|
will use in developing the story for the picture. She is letting her mind
|
|
have a complete rest, so that when she returns to Hollywood the first part of
|
|
February, she will be refreshed and ready to start work on it in real
|
|
earnest. The story will not be a Biblical one, but will be modern in design,
|
|
with the commandments applied to everyday life. Miss Macpherson says that
|
|
there is nothing antique about the commandments--that they are practically
|
|
embodied in our present laws--also that the subject will have to be handled
|
|
in a delicate manner so as not to offend any religion. One of her friends
|
|
asked her how she would develop the commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy
|
|
neighbor's wife," without treading on an army of toes, to which she very
|
|
resourcefully replied that in the original Hebraic form the words were simply
|
|
"Thou shalt not covet."
|
|
It seems that since their origin some one has been at work amending the
|
|
commandments.
|
|
Miss Macpherson grew indignant when the subject of the vices of
|
|
Hollywood were approached. "It is a deplorable truth," she said, "that human
|
|
nature is so constituted that tales of virtue are never as interesting as
|
|
stories of vice"--and so all we hear in the East about wicked Hollywood,
|
|
which might readily lead us to believe that dope parties take place right in
|
|
the middle of the main street, are only one side of the story, and that a
|
|
negative side. "There are 30,000 men and women out in Hollywood," continued
|
|
Miss Macpherson, "who are working seriously for the pictures, and there are
|
|
any number of happy families who live sane, decent lives." If Miss
|
|
Macpherson's serious little face is an echo of the true spirit of Hollywood,
|
|
then we'll say it must be a pretty fine place.
|
|
Aeroplaning is one of Miss Macpherson's chief delights. She pilots the
|
|
machine herself and guarantees that a trip in the air will cure any woman of
|
|
such petty fears as mice and spiders.
|
|
Mr. De Mille, who will direct "The Ten Commandments," is off cruising on
|
|
his yacht somewhere in the Pacific. He plans to go to the Tiberan Islands,
|
|
off the south coast of California, which is said to be inhabited by a savage
|
|
tribe of Indians. He is interested to see these people, who are alleged to
|
|
be very primitive, and who rarely encourage visitors to their shores. He is
|
|
also going to catch some ray fish. These, Miss Macpherson said, are thirty
|
|
feet broad, and are caught by means of a harpoon. And thus do our great
|
|
minds of the pictures seek rest and relaxation.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
1924
|
|
Jeanie Macpherson
|
|
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MOVIES
|
|
|
|
Building the Dramatic Scenario
|
|
|
|
The trouble with ninety-nine out of one hundred stories is that they
|
|
lack the cement of perspective.
|
|
A group of very pretty, well-made bricks of situation and character
|
|
portrayal are made and are set on top of each other. But they tumble in a
|
|
heap when pushed with the prod of dramatic analysis because there is nothing
|
|
to hold them together. And even if there is a slight joining medium running
|
|
through the story structure, oft times the brick of particular characters is
|
|
so much larger or smaller than the situations to which it is attached as to
|
|
create an equally dangerous weakness.
|
|
I would be carried away with the particular series of sermons I was
|
|
writing. I would build them and build them and build them. And then at the
|
|
end I would find them utterly out of proportion to other elements, equally
|
|
important dramatically but not nearly as interesting to develop.
|
|
And I would find that a small minor character would so intrigue me that
|
|
I would load upon the lady or gentleman a great deal of very important
|
|
business which would give them a flash in the limelight for a few scenes and
|
|
then die out, without having advanced the story in any way.
|
|
A story is a unit and not a conglomeration, but this is a fact that few
|
|
who desire to write ever learn.
|
|
Amateur writers too often get panic-stricken when minor characters get
|
|
out of hand. The tendency then is to throw too much of the plot to them and,
|
|
as a result, the story develops a jarring flat wheel.
|
|
When a minor character seems to be gobbling too much, I transfer its
|
|
business to a major character and thus move toward a smooth, direct plot.
|
|
But sometimes this action is real torture. In "Don't Change Your
|
|
Husband," I had a wife's friend who was simply lovely. She was a piquant,
|
|
delightful little piece. I had all sorts of fun playing with her. But one
|
|
day I woke up and found she was nothing but a nice, big log right square in
|
|
the path of my leading lady. I wept about twenty-four hours, and then
|
|
carefully amputated my pet, transferring all of her important action to the
|
|
feminine principal.
|
|
I would say, "Keep your minor characters down to the limit." But you
|
|
must have some. Those that pass the acid test are very vital to your story
|
|
in their capacity as scavengers, removers of waste material in the way of the
|
|
plot's progress.
|
|
Take Lois Wilson's baby boy and her mother in "Manslaughter," You see
|
|
the boy but twice or three times--and yet he provides the motivation for all
|
|
of the tense drama which surrounds the mother part and he does it with very
|
|
little waste of "footage."
|
|
The boy's grandmother you see but once, but that one time saves us half
|
|
a dozen titles and keeps the audience from worrying about the child for three
|
|
reels, by showing us that the boy is being kept well and happy while his
|
|
mother is in prison. The grandmother is an excellent example of the manner
|
|
in which a minor character may keep debris from cluttering a plot.
|
|
Cecil B. De Mille has me read this first synopsis to him. But he does
|
|
not allow me to relate the story as I have written it. He forces me to
|
|
condense the flower of my imaginative writing into plain, unadorned
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description of the dramatic action. His reason for this is that he does not
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wish to have his dramatic sense clouded by the imaginative fervor of my first
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rush into the story.
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Then comes the "one-line continuity." Each scene is written in one or
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two lines. It is the "clearing house" of the story, for here we are
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concerned with straightening out the structure and the motivation.
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Everything is eliminated that is not essential to the building of these
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fundamentals.
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Then I start my second continuity. In this continuity I am through with
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the problems of building structure and drama. My sole concern is with the
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precision and accuracy with which my characters move, the determining of
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whether it would be better for a certain player to die in the sitting room or
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the bedroom, etc.
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But a scene that sounds great on paper may fail to hit when the camera
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cranks upon it. And back it comes for revision, and it is changed until the
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minutest detail holds water.
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Finally the picture is finished.
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*****************************************************************************
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Back issues of Taylorology are available on the Web at any of the following:
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http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/
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http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Taylorology/
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http://www.uno.edu/~drcom/Taylorology
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Full text searches of back issues can be done at http://www.etext.org/Zines/
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For more information about Taylor, see
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WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
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