The Movie That Couldn't Be Screened: Reel I. Close-Ups of the Cast

CHARLIE said, ‘I did n’t believe actresses had sense enough to even wash dishes!’ and there never was compliment more genuine. ‘The Missus,’ he said, ‘is a swell cook.’

Charlie is a drifter, a sometime hack-driver from Saratoga turned lumberjack in Northern Idaho. He was wrong, of course. Lots of actresses dabble a dish-mop in a nice enamel pan of sudsy hot water in a blue-and-white kitchen that looks like a full-page ‘ad’ for Somebody’s stoves. I used to do it myself, after a party, wdien I was afraid the girl would quit if we left so many sticky-rimmed glasses. That was in Hollywood. Up here it is different. The setting for my crockery-bathing is so far removed from that blue-and-white ‘litho,’ and so impossibly poverty-stricken in its ‘props’ and furniture, that any good director would turn it down as too artificial and stagy. Even poor people don’t really live that way.

Picture a mean little 6×12 floating shack of unpainted boards, with a door at each end and two tiny windows in each side. From the tin-patched roof of homemade shingles — ‘shakes’ as we call them up here — protrudes a crooked cat’s tail of rusty stovepipe. This connects, inside, with a greasy black demon with a fat belly and fallen arches — the cookstove. Kitty-corner from the demon is a bed made of a sway-bottomed spring, lumpy mattress, and greasy quilts. Under the bed are various boxes, bags, bottles, boots, socks, and, no doubt, sealing wax. There are also a table with incurving legs and splotched oilcloth cover, four dubious chairs, and several milk and soda-cracker boxes utilized as seats. In one corner is a cupboard for dishes and more or less nonperishable food. Under one wee window is a broad shelf, on which I wash dishes, make pastry, open cans, cut cookies, and mix hotcake batter. The scraps go conveniently through a loose board into the lake below. When I wish fresh water I scoop it up with a bucket, leaning far out on the slippery logs of the house boat’s floating foundation. Sometimes I miss my footing and fall in.

All this is moored to a curved beach of astonishing beauty, backed by an emerald wall that slopes up and up, away and away to Canada and God knows where.

We make moving pictures for a living. That is, we make moving pictures. Why, I don’t know. But then, does anyone know why he does the thing he does? For instance, I would rather be an explorer, or a writer, or live on a ranch and have six sons, all tall, or be a writer, or own a drug-store and have my pick of all the perfumes, or be a writ — but —

I started out as an actress, pure and simple; very both. I was thirteen and long. In the Dramatic School I would implore my auditors to ‘Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall!’ wondering why my classmates laughed as I slapped my hard little chest. Poor wee thing! I do love to see you, down through the wrong end of the telescope. So earnest, so ambitious, so hopeful! Just one short step from Broadway! ‘Mother,’ I wrote home after my début, squawky-voiced and shaky-kneed in a six-side part with a number-four show, ‘I am an ACTRESS!’

So we make moving pictures, My Dear and I. We have for quite a long time. We are not amateurs; not more so, that is, than any of the producers who are finding the first ten years the hardest. Everyone connected with the business is of necessity a beginner. Only we are a bit worse off than most because we are that lone and pathetic object, the Independent Producer. In other words we are not on a pay roll — we are the pay roll itself. We make ‘em, to the best of our vision and knowledge, travel ‘em to New York, and lay ‘em, hopefully, at the feet of the Purveyors — those slaving servants of the Public whose one desire is to fill the screens with the fare most wanted; those Prophets of Opinion with finger on the palpitating pulse, who can tell you if Costume Drama, Homespun Comedy, or Open-Space Melo is most desired.

We made a picture with everything in it but the kitchen stove. Literally. Our all and more than all — impossible mortgages upon future hopes, loans, savings, what we could beg, borrow, and scrape — we sank cheerfully in that effort. All the gods that were not sold were mortgaged to complete the masterpiece. I had attained three Meccas: a real sealskin coat, a grand piano, and a black and silver shiner that you could really refer to as a ‘motor.’ They all went. It did not matter. The Picture! Anything, everything, for the Picture! Of course, others put something in too — ten thousand here, five there, twenty in another quarter — it takes big money to make movies. But with us it was more than money; it was heart’s blood, the very inner core of our beings, the finest tissue of our brains, and work — stark, sweating, unmitigated labor.

The picture did not fail. On the contrary, it was fairly successful. Not great, but a friend-maker. You liked it, and it had bits — real under-thehide bits. But the Purveyors, known technically as the Distributors, picked the month following the release of our picture to go bankrupt. The first earnings went down with them, and when the wreckage washed ashore, Our Child and the other survivors were shunted over to another firm for possible resuscitation.

Meanwhile, to satisfy our creditors, we had to fling them chunks of our holdings, bit by bit, like the old stories of the Russian steppes and the pursuing wolves.

Rather sad, you say, unfortunate and all that sort of thing, but likely to happen to almost anyone who embarks upon the sea of speculation. The unusual points and the facts that we had to face were these: in order to finish the wild animal and nature scenes of outpicture we had transported our collection of animal ‘actors’and Husky dogs into the wilds of Northern Idaho. The stock totals one hundred and thirtyfive head, and each head has a mouth. It takes food to feed them and money to buy the food. Here they were — invaluable, through long years of training, as actors in our pictures, and each and every one equally beloved.

What to do? They could not be moved. They were settled in wire cages and kennels on a strip of leased State land on the shore of a lovely lake, twenty-one miles from the semblance of a road, fifty from a railroad. If we had had the money to make a move, what then? The animals would eat as much in California as in Idaho and our chances for refinancing were no better in that film-bitten State. There was nothing to do but squat and hold tight. If we could get any backing at all we had a wonderful opportunity for making nature pictures in this glorious setting; if not we might as well sink with the ship.

Winter was coming. We had the following assets:—

1. One hundred and three acres of leased land with lots of firewood on it and the right to log off a strip that would furnish cabin timber.

2. A pile of trunks of ‘Northwest’ wardrobe, picture ‘props,’ dog sleds and harness, boats, and miscellaneous junk.

3. Fifteen bears, three deer, two elks, four coyotes, two wolves, one cougar, two wildcats, an endless array of raccoons, skunks, eagles, owls, porcupines, beavers, marmots, muskrats, and rabbits. Thirty-odd sled-dogs, four Great Danes, two Airedales, and a sprinkling of mutts and cats.

4. The Director, my partner — henceforth, for very obvious reasons, known as ‘My Dear.’ He is a foursquare sort of chap, white-haired at thirty. Once a racing driver, always a man. Brave, resourceful, not too humorous, and very sincere.

5. My ten-year-old son by a former marriage; a delightful, somewhat mischievous, and exceedingly lazy brat with a large percentage of humor and big brown eyes like fern-fringed forestpools.

6. Old ‘Daddy’ — ex-trapper and guide, now a slave to the Zoo. Seventy years away from the Kentish Hills, but still with an old-country flavor — the one faithful note in a discord of quitters.

7. Myself. I am entitled to this entry only by the fact that I have learned, through storm and stress, to cook; hence I am of use.

8. Two friends whose faces have remained our way when the solid line of the backs of the fair-weather wellwishers was all we could see. One of these loaned us $500, all the cash we now have on hand. The other has given its equivalent in belief.

Our liabilities were as follows: —

1. Debts, mountain high.

2. Stomachs that must be filled, bodies that must be covered, heads that must be roofed over against winter.

3. The ill-will of a community which bled us unmercifully when we had the cash.

4. One frozen foot.

This last item from the wrong side of the ledger was acquired by My Dear one night in March when the thermometer slid to forty below. We were in the Peace River country of Alberta making scenes of the ‘Arctic Barren.’ We were working at night with flares, and it was his duty to drive a team away from the ‘Hudson’s Bay Company Post.’ It took the other people a long time to do correctly the things they were supposed to do, and when he swung the long team of Siwash curs out across the frozen lake his foot was dead. A native guessed it would have to be ‘ammunated,’ but he has made a desperate battle to save the toes. The pain has settled there and gradually eaten down to the bone. This is the most serious of all our liabilities.

But this is to be from now on most strictly ‘diary.’ Not meanderings and thoughts, but chronicled events; the record of our winter in the wilderness, starting, as we are, sans everything, and battling through.

September 24
A lovely, warm day, last dwindling of Indian Summer. It coaxes one to wander and waste precious time, dares winter to come, in fact denies all such things as the possibility of ice and snow. Then a cold drizzly rain sets in, the north wind steals up, the treetops moan, and, suddenly, a storm has hit.
During the night the two remaining eagles battled and only one survives. I can’t understand it. All three lived amicably enough together until we moved them into a larger cage. Now only one is left and he is already mournful and lonely, just like Tommy, the wildcat, after he had killed the female by chewing her leg through the wire of their cages.
Then to-day little Meesa, one of the fawns, brushed past me at the gate of their corral and ran away, right straight past the dogs. Lord, I was scared! I yowled for Daddy and the Boy and screamed and gibbered as I watched that little thing dodge the dogs, his white brush of a tail straight up and the powder puffs on his knees bristling. He got past by a miracle, the dogs straining their chains and yelping, and ran for the upper trail. Daddy and the Boy followed, while I tore down to the house boat to tell My Dear what had happened. Was so afraid he would hear the racket and come running out on his hurt foot.
We caught Meesa up in the woods, by my calling him gently and quietly. When he was quite close I was afraid to seize him, for if I missed there would never be a second chance. I let him wander away, then coaxed again. This time I grabbed and got him. He kicked like a little mule, but Daddy lugged him home. My, but I was relieved! His brother, Nenana, would have been more easily caught, but Meesa is very timid.
When we got down to the cages we found Brownie out and calmly strolling about. They had left her cage door open when I yelled. As I went to her, Coon, one of the Huskies, bit her on the rear end. Poor Brownie, she was so surprised! No dog had ever treated her so before. She turned on him and would have polished him off then and there, but fortunately I had some crackers left from the Meesa foray and I coaxed her into her cage with them. What a wonderful bear she is! But she won’t forget Coon in a hurry. She spent the day trying to get out and chew him up.
This day I cooked, cookies and beans, and swept the tent I am sleeping in and the cedar-shake shack against the arrival of two men who were expected. Only one came, a boy named Jim. We are desperate for a man to help on the cabin. My Dear can do nothing. The condition of his foot has scared him, at last, into sitting quiet. Poor soul, how he suffers! It has been over a year now of constant torture.
For dinner we had a partridge Daddy shot yesterday. It was good. Under glass, now, with mushrooms, it would run a dollar seventy-five per.
We are figuring up our winter supplies and cutting them down with every new list. The cost will be about one fourth of what it was last year. It is quite wonderful the system we have with the Zoo. The three of us — Daddy, the Boy and I — can feed the whole bunch in less than forty minutes.
Something is making a queer, squealing noise out in the Zoo. . . . Went out to see what it was, but could find nothing. I like to flash the light on the animals at night. It shines in their big eyes.
Raining now and so cold. I do wish the cabin were up. But wishing will not raise those log walls.

September 25
Another man arrived to-day and we made some progress. It looks nice to see the walls at least two logs high. We seem to have two good workers, so maybe she will go up now. Men are just like boys with blocks when it comes to building. They love it. It just hurts My Dear that he cannot pitch in and play too. His foot is awfully bad to-night. We played Mah Jongg and he could hardly sit through it.
Fed my hands pretty well to-day. Roast beef and raisin pie for noon dinner, baked beans, johnnycake, and chocolate blancmange for supper. It is a bit easier for me to cook now than it used to be. I don’t get quite so confused and ‘het up.’
To-morrow I have to bake dog biscuits and go to the village for supplies, as well as take care of the puppies and get three meals. My two sets of pups, Danes and Malamutes, have to be cooked for night and morning. Then I also do most of the Zoo feeding, so that the men can stay at the cabin work. Well, I may not be gathering much moss, but I won’t get any cobwebs, either!
Old Jack, the brown bear, is caged and to be shot at dawn. He has grown very mean and is making Jill ugly. He is no use to us for work and is an extra mouth, so it is better he should make a rug for the floor and some soup for the dogs.
Just supposing you could shoot useless people that way! But a bad person would not even be as useful dead as a bad bear.
Blowing a gale to-night.
I am so tired.

September 27
There is recompense in even so prosaic a thing as a diary; a sort of getting off by yourself which, even when you are tired and it is night, gives you a grain of satisfaction. The fine frenzy of constructive work! I often think of that in the midst of baking or dishwashing. Still, I can cook good meals and wash a dish clean, and maybe I ‘m not so much at covering white paper with pothooks, or gumming up good celluloid, as I may imagine.
The Boy and I baked a hundred dog biscuits yesterday, as well as doing all our chores and getting breakfast and dinner. Then My Dear and I went to the village for supplies. It was a lovely day, a rich, vivid, oil-painting day, clear and soft and velvet-hushed. Coming home we headed into a rainstorm, could see it raining across the sunset — a most peculiar effect, the storm clouds a deep maroon. We bundled up and got ready for the deluge, but the storm skirted us and passed down the lake, raining pitchforks upon the place that we had just vacated.
When it was dark we saw, very dim and eerie, but unmistakable, the northern lights. They shot up from behind the Selkirks with faint, fairy fingers of light and they brought memories of my first sight of them, in Fairbanks, so many long times ago. I remember I was running — the swift, hard-fleshed run of a very young girl — and a big dog was beside me. It had just turned cold, and the lights fairly sizzled and crackled. When I saw them again in Faust, Lesser Slave Lake, another big dog was with me, my dear Trcsore. Of all the unkind, wicked things done to me in this country, the killing of my Great Dane was the most cruel. Two men came in a rowboat to the place he guarded, the ‘point of honor’ under the flag, and threw him poisoned meat. He was the truest, most honorable friend a human being ever had. When they brought me the news of my father’s death, following so close on the going of my dear mother, Tresore was the one who gave me the most comfort and consolation. I can never forget his great head resting upon my lap, his true, kind eyes uplifted in immeasurable love and understanding. . . .
We baked two hundred and seventynine dog biscuits to-day. I did not stop work nor sit down once from the time I hit the kitchen at 7 A.M. and started to cook the hot cakes until now. I did n’t even manage to brush my teeth, let alone my hair.
The cottonwoods on the shore are all golden now. This is the loveliest time of the year, so quiet and rich, so ripe with fulfillment. It should be the best time of a person’s life, too. You have your Spring of Promise, your Summer of Achievement, and then the Autumn, the harvest, the garnering and storing of all you have gained, against the coming of Winter — of old age and the shut-in senses.

September 30
Last day of September and as warm and sweet as a sun-kissed peach. Must get out this afternoon for a ramble with the dogs. I wish this weather could go on forever, but it won’t. Winter will hit with a bang.
The Jim boy got a badly infected knee and had to go out to the doctor, but the walls are up to the windows and that is something. We are so anxious to get at the inside. Adversity pays after all, for if we had money we’d probably put in hideous board walls. As it is, there won’t be a bit of milled lumber in the shack — nothing but logs and poles.
Old man Beaver chawed out day before yesterday, but stayed around and at feeding-time came back to his cage and walked in. Only his long, flatsome tail stuck out, so we gently folded that in and shut the door. This is the second time he has been loose, and I believe that if it were not for his going housekeeping up some creek we could give him his freedom, as we have the mallards, and still own him.
Have n’t done much outside of cooking and washing. Don’t mind the first so much. Had a nice chicken-dinner for them to-day and a plum pudding, which has boiled twenty-four hours and is n’t done yet. The only part I don’t like is baking about ‘steen million sourdough hot-cakes in the morning. The stove is so hot and I get so faint.

October 5
Must take some time for writing or I ‘ll turn into a plain, greasy cook. Am trying to map out a schedule whereby I can get breakfast, clean up, feed the puppies, bake, prepare and serve dinner at twelve, clean up, take an hour’s rest, and put in the afternoon at the typewriter. It seems that I ought to be able to do it, that my brain should function even if my back is tired. Also I must get the Boy back to his lessons. We were getting along splendidly when we had to stop on account of the extra work.
The cabin is up to the top logs and looks very fine. It is about 24x40. A passing lumberjack asked me if I thought we ‘was going to be able to get all of our animals into that barn.'
We have only Daddy and Charlie, the ex-hack-driver, to work on it, as Jim turned out to have a touch of blood-poisoning and is in the hospital.

October 10
Old Codger Charlie walked out today for no reason that we can see. Just another drifter, unable to stay long in any one place. The boy Jim is back, but not able to do much on account of his knee; so we are not so very well off. Yesterday we went to the village to try for another man. I was glad for the breathing-spell. I wonder why this cooking business shoots me so to pieces?
My Dear has realized, at last, that he is quite crippled, and unless his foot, takes a big mend it will have to go. An operation right now is out of the question, and the only thing we can do is try to keep him sitting quiet. A mean job, as the least thing will bring him hobbling out, and away goes a day’s gain. His nerves, and hence his temper, are absolutely shot, and he is fearfully hard to get along with, but so pathetic in his misery that one’s heart aches for him. Sitting still and doing nothing is not his headline act. I racked my brain to think up something for him to do, and at last set him to cutting out colored prints and pasting them on cardboards for the cabin walls. Old Daddy admired the results immensely and suggested that we paper the cabin completely with them. ‘People will come to see you,’ he said, ‘and it will take all their time to look at the pictures.’
Having kidded my poor cripple into keeping quiet all day, I proceeded to step on his foot. Half-blind with weariness, I missed my step and banged him. After he had come to I went out on the raft and indulged in Grade-A hysterics. These are the silent kind. Your body writhes and your feet and hands twist together and you cry — great, blubbering, swollen tears.
‘Dear God,’ I begged the stars, ‘do something for us!’

(To be continued)