Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

It resulted from this that only an intelligence comprehending the whole plan and scope of both story and continuity could have kept track of the scenes as photographed and rated each rightly at its proportional value. Even in the ranks of studio veterans, minds of such force and grasp are few and far to seek. The Linda Lee company hadn't been at work two days before Lucinda began to feel in relation to the story like one lost in a fog, helplessly dependent upon the guiding hand of Barry Nolan, and none too well satisfied that he knew his way about as well as he pretended to in that beclouded labyrinth.

Neither was confidence in his infallibility encouraged by a habit to which he, like most directors, proved lamentably prone, of improvising improvements on the story as he went along. All of a sudden, while directing a scene, Nolan was wont to break out in a profuse inspiration, and incontinently some well-remembered bit of business or episode from an old stage success would be interjected into or substituted for incidents really germane to the original plot. That this practice as often as not produced results in conflict with the fundamental mechanics of the story, if it missed throwing them out of kilter entirely, seemed to be a consideration of minor consequence.

Thus Nolan laboured long and passionately to persuade Lucinda it would benefit the story to engraft on it a scene wherein she would figure as a lonely prisoner in a garret, menaced by hordes of hungry rats. This regardless of the fact that there was no garret in the original story, nor any room for one, and no reason why the young person portrayed by Lucinda should be imprisoned in one, but solely because Nolan happened to fancy a resemblance between her and an actress whom he had several years before directed with great success in a garret scene with rats ad lib.

That the rats didn't work their way into the picture eventually, whether Lucinda wanted them or not, was mainly due to Nolan's misfortune in failing to think of them before his star began to show symptoms of what he called the swelled-head; that is to say before, having worked several weeks under his direction, Lucinda began to suspect that Nolan wasn't really sole custodian of the sacred mystery of motion-picture making, and to assert herself modestly as one whose views ought to have some weight with a director whose pay came out of her own pocket.

Nor is she to this day ready to believe that Nolan, left to himself, would not ultimately have overborne all opposition and had his willful way with the rat episode.

But it was neither because of this instance, nor because of other arbitrary changes that Nolan made in the story, that Lucinda first learned to mistrust his ability, but because of the appalling ignorance which he betrayed concerning what she believed should be matters of general knowledge, such as rudimentary principles of social usage.

Since the story they were concerned with had to do with people of fashionable New York transacting the business of life in their homes and public rendezvous, Lucinda thought it important that their manners should conform to approved convention; but Nolan was so little learned in such matters, and his impatience with them was so wholehearted, that she presently abandoned all effort to correct him, and in a fatalistic spirit endeavoured to comfort her misgivings with his customary rejoinder to advice in any form: "Ah, what's it matter? Ninety per cent. of your audiences are solid bone from the neck up, and the rest wouldn't think they'd got their money's worth unless they found something to beef about in a picture. Why worry about little things like that? Life's too short, and we're wasting time!"

So Lucinda schooled herself to suffer in silence when she saw men of alleged gentle breeding offer women their left arms to escort them from the drawing to the dining rooms of Fifth avenue or when two bickered in public as to which should escort to her home a woman married to a third, and when Nolan posed a pair of lawless lovers in the foyer of a restaurant and instructed them to register unutterable emotion by holding hands, in the view of hundreds, and swelling their tormented bosoms until (as Fanny described it) they resembled more than anything else a brace of pouter pigeons shaking the shimmy.

She held her peace even when Nolan directed a father and his son, both presumptive adepts in the social life of New York, to pause on meeting, when each was decently turned out in morning-coat and top hat, strike attitudes of awed admiration, solemnly wheel each other round by the shoulders and, wagging dumbfoundered heads over the sight of so much sartorial splendour, exclaim – in subtitles to be inserted in the film – "Some boy!" "Some Dad!"

And when a woman in a scene with Lucinda parted from her, uttering an injunction put in her mouth by Nolan, "Don't forget, dearie – tea at the Ritz at one o'clock," Lucinda, conceiving this to be a slip of the tongue, said nothing. But when later she viewed in the projection-room that sequence of scenes roughly assembled, with what are termed "scratch titles," in place, and read the words as quoted, and on making enquiry learned that they had been copied verbatim from Mr. Nolan's continuity, she ventured to remonstrate.

"But, Mr. Nolan, tea is a function for four o'clock or later all the world over."

"That's so, Miss Lee? Well, what d'you know about that? Guess I must've been thinking about luncheon."

"But your subtitle introducing the restaurant sequence later on says 'Tea at the Ritz.'"

"That's right. I remember now, I meant tea, not luncheon. It's that way in the book."

"But in the restaurant scenes the tables are covered with cloths and the waiters are serving all sorts of dishes, course meals."

"What's the matter with that?"

"Why, nothing is served for tea but tea itself and toast and perhaps little pastries."

Nolan grinned sheepishly and scratched his head. "I guess we're a terrible lot of roughnecks out here on the Coast, Miss Lee – not onto fine points like that. But it's all right: we'll change the subtitles to read luncheon instead of tea."

"But you've just shown me lunching at another restaurant. It isn't reasonable to make me eat two luncheons in one day."

"That's easy. We'll make the subtitle read: 'Luncheon at the Ritz the next day.'"

"I hate to keep on objecting, Mr. Nolan, but the situation depends on these people meeting at tea the very day they lunched together."

"Well, if we can't fix it with a subtitle, we'll have to change the situation, then. We can't go back and shoot those scenes all over again, it'd cost too darn much; and anyway we haven't got time."

Having kept the Linda Lee organization awaiting his convenience for five weeks after the date upon which he had agreed to begin directing for it, Nolan was now with the utmost sang-froid trying to jam through in one month an undertaking for which he would, going his normal gait, require all of two; partly because he was being paid by the job instead of by the week, in part because his services for the next picture had not been bespoken and he was flirting with a bid from the East, an offer contingent upon his being able to leave Los Angeles not later than a set date, finally and not in the least part for another reason altogether, a peculiarly private one.

He wasn't happy in his present circumstances, his vanity was deeply wounded, and the wound was not likely to heal so long as he must continue in the humiliating position to which he had been reduced by Lucinda's insusceptibility to his charms of person. Nolan had all along looked forward to this engagement with considerable animation, because Lucinda was a type new to him and he counted on learning about women from her, too. The trouble was, he hadn't in the least suspected that she was to prove not only new but unique in his experience. He knew what it was to be resisted, and didn't mind that so much, finding it at worst flattering. Once or twice since becoming a director he had even met with the appearance of indifference, and had had the fun of showing it up for what it really was. But this was the first time in many years that any woman with whom he had been brought into professional contact had proved not so much indifferent to him as unconscious that he boasted any attractions calling for even such negative emotion. Nolan needed some time to appreciate that this unprecedented and outrageous thing could really be, and when he did he was hurt to his soul's marrow. By nature buoyant, he found himself growing morose; by reputation the best-tempered of directors, he heard himself snapping at his subordinates like the veriest martinet of them all. Worse yet, Lucinda seemed not even to reckon him a genius at his calling. An unheard-of state of affairs and one intolerable to a man of his kidney. He wanted more than he had ever wanted anything to be quit of her for good and all and at the earliest possible moment.

For the indignities which he felt had thus been put upon him in a fashion wholly uncalled-for there was, of course, reparation proffered in Fanny Lontaine's indisputable awareness of him. And even as Lucinda, Fanny too was clearly "class." On the other hand, she had a husband, undeniably an ass, puffed up out of all reason with self-importance, but still and for all that a husband. Besides, having set his heart on a star, Nolan conceived it to be inconsistent with his dignity to content himself with a satellite. So he sulked and could not be comforted.

Necessarily the picture suffered through the languishing of his interest; and Nolan, foreseeing the professional and public verdict, did his best to forestall it by privately letting it be known he'd been a dumb-bell to tackle the job of making an actress out of a rank amateur, only for the jack involved he would never have tried it. And then the story they'd asked him to do – ! One of these society things, you know: no punch, no speed, no drama, nothing but five reels of stalling, clothes and close-ups, padding for a lot of lines; a regular illustrated dialogue. What could you do with a story like that, anyway?

More openly, in the course of time, as he grew acutely self-conscious of inability to cope with what he chose to deny, the dramatic possibilities intrinsic in the story of a father who falls in love with the woman loved by his own son, a woman whom he has sworn to expose as unworthy to be his son's wife, Nolan spoke of the production in the studio as "this piece of cheese."

His name ranked high on the roster of America's foremost photoplay directors. Whenever one of the Los Angeles cinema houses booked a picture of his making the bill-boards of the town heralded in twenty-four sheet posters the coming of "A Barry Nolan Production"; frequently the lettering of this line over-shadowed that in which the name of the star was displayed, invariably it dwarfed the name of the story.

After witnessing several of these offerings, Lucinda began to wonder why…

XXX

But that distrust of Barry Nolan's competency which troubled Lucinda's mind almost from the very outset of their association had yet to crystallize on the Saturday when Summerlad was expected home; and her disposition toward the director was rendered only the more amiable when, toward noon, he informed her that he wouldn't need her again till Monday morning.

Nevertheless it threatened to prove a long afternoon to an impatient woman, and Lucinda, wanting company to help her while it away, promptly petitioned for Fanny's release as well.

Fanny, however, was busily employed, as she had been ever since early morning, waiting for Nolan to put her through a scheduled five-minute scene which would round out her full day's work. But Nolan graciously promised to set her free in another hour, and then – to get rid of Lucinda's presence, which instinct was already beginning to warn him was silently skeptical of his claims – artfully suggested that she might like to review the rushes of yesterday's camera-work.

Assuming that she would find the projection-room empty, Lucinda made her way to it without bothering to remove her make-up, but on opening the door saw a fan-like beam of turbid light wavering athwart its darkness, and would have withdrawn, had not Zinn's thick and genial accents hailed her from the rear of the long, black-walled, tunnel-like chamber.

"Come right on in, Miss Lee. We'll be through in a minute. Just running some of the fillum come through from Joe Jacques yesterday. Maybe you'd like to see it. 'Sgreat stuff that boy Summerlad's putting over this time."

Murmuring thanks, Lucinda groped her way – bending low, that her head might not block the light – to one of the arm-chairs beneath the slotted wall which shut off the projection-machines in their fire-proof housing.

When her vision had accommodated itself to the gloom, she made out several figures in other chairs, sitting quietly behind ruddy noses of cigars and cigarettes. At a table to one side the glow of a closely shaded lamp disclosed an apparently amputated hand hanging with pencil poised above a pad, ready to note down anything the traffic of the screen might suggest to Zinn. The latter was conversing in undertones with somebody in the adjoining chair, and the rumble of their voices was punctuated now and again by a chuckle which affected Lucinda with a shiver of uncertain recollection. But she couldn't be sure, in that mirk she could by no means make out the features of Zinn's companion or even the shape of his head, and the surmise seemed too absurd…

She was none the less perturbed to a degree that hindered just appreciation of the admirable work of Lynn Summerlad, whose shadow, clad in the rude garments of a lumberjack, was performing feats of skill and daring against a background of logging-camp scenery; and thanks to her misgivings, as much as to the custom of taking and retaking again and again even scenes of minor importance, had grown well weary of watching Lynn bound frantically from log to log of a churning river to rescue Alice Drake from what seemed to be desperately real danger in the break-up of a log jam, when abruptly the shining rectangle of the screen turned blank, the beam of clouded light was blotted out, and a dim bulb set in the black ceiling was lighted to guide the spectators to the door.

Then, with a fluttering heart, Lucinda identified her husband in Zinn's companion; and anger welling in her bosom affected her with momentary suffocation, so that she was put to it to reply when Zinn, leering hideously, presented Bellamy.

"Shake hands with Mr. Druce, Miss Lee: new tenant of mine, going to work here same as you, just signed a lease for space to make his first production."

"What!"

At that monosyllable of dismayed protest, Lucinda saw Zinn's little eyes of a pig grow wide with surprise; which emotion, however, might have been due quite as much to what Bellamy was saying.

"But I am fortunate, Mr. Zinn, in already having the honour of Miss Lee's acquaintance." Bellamy took possession of her hand. "How do you do, Linda? So happy to see you again – looking more radiant than ever, too!"

"Is that so? You two know each other! Whyn't you tell me?"

"Wasn't sure it was this Miss Lee I knew until I saw her."

"Well, well! Ain't that nice! You ought to get along together fine, both working in the same studio and everything."

Lucinda found her voice all at once, but hardly her self-possession. "It isn't – it can't be true! Bel: it isn't true you're – !"

"Afraid it is, Linda." Bel's smile was lightly mocking. "The picture business has got me in its toils at last. Only needed that trip out here to decide me. Now I'm in it up to my ears. Something to do, you know."

"But not – not as an actor?"

"Bless your heart, no! All kinds of a nincompoop but that. No: I'm coming in on the producing side, forming a little company and starting in a modest way, as you see, on leased premises, with the most economical overhead I can figure. If I make good – well, I understand Mr. Zinn is willing to sell his studio, and I'll be wanting one all my very own."