he: A Novel Page 11

  But not Hal Roach.

  Not yet.

  66

  SEPTEMBER 8, 1927

  FROM: WILLIAM DOANE

  TO: HAL ROACH

  L&H PICTURE PREVIEWED LAST NIGHT NEAR RIOT STOP ONE OF BEST LAUGH PICTURES FOR LONG TIME STOP BECAUSE PICTURE IS VERY GOOD WE FEEL JUSTIFIED WORKING DAY OR TWO LONGER TO MAKE IT STILL BETTER …

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1927

  FROM: WILLIAM DOANE

  TO: HAL ROACH

  LAST L&H PICTURE EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD BY REASON OF GREATLY IMPROVED PERFORMANCE BY PRINCIPALS STOP CURRENT PICTURE HAS GOOD CHANCE TO BEING AS GOOD OR BETTER STOP MCCAREY WALKER MYSELF WISH YOUR OPINION OF A LITTLE LATER ON SUGGESTING TO METRO FURNISHING TO THEM PICTURES WITH THIS COMEDY TEAM IN PLACE …

  67

  At the Oceana Apartments, in a closet, he keeps cheap derby hats to give to particularly deserving visitors. It is something he has always done. Vera, his third wife, would laugh at him for it, but Vera laughed at him for many reasons, none of them good.

  The hat supply needs to be replenished.

  He has not thought of Vera in a year or more.

  He tries not to think of Vera, but she comes back to him at unanticipated moments. He sees her face, and hears her voice.

  You’re nothing, Vera goads him. You stole everything you have from Chaplin. You even took his hat.

  He does not bother to tell her that he did not steal Chaplin’s hat. If he stole anyone’s hat, he stole George Robey’s, just as Chaplin did, although Chaplin also appropriated George Robey’s frock coat and malacca cane, and Dan Leno’s too-small jacket, and Little Tich’s boots. But it does not matter. They are all part of the same continuum, clowns bequeathed greasepaint from dead clowns, comics built from the bones of forgotten men.

  He hears himself talk. He is arguing aloud with the memory of Vera.

  God, these women, he says to the soft approaching light, to the shadow skirting the wall.

  Mae.

  Lois.

  Ruth.

  Vera.

  Ida.

  What would he be without these women?

  68

  He knows Babe is unhappy. Babe did good work on Duck Soup. Babe should not be returning to bit parts and bullies.

  And he, too, did good work on Duck Soup. It might even be his best performance yet.

  Here is the dilemma. He speaks of it to Lois that night: Lois, who is now his wife.

  I wanted to be a star, he tells her. I wanted to be Chaplin. Perhaps I still do. But in all these years, I’ve never been able to do what Chaplin does, or what Harold Lloyd does, or what Buster Keaton does. I have not been capable of constructing a character that can dominate the screen. I don’t think I ever will.

  – Do you want to give up?

  – No, not that.

  – Then what do you mean?

  – That perhaps I cannot do it alone.

  Jimmy Finlayson sits with feet up and eyes closed. Hal Roach’s promises of stardom still ring in Jimmy Finlayson’s ears, but fainter now. Jimmy Finlayson is small, and Scottish, and unlovely, with a marriage to a younger woman behind him. Hal Roach may not make Jimmy Finlayson a star, but Jimmy Finlayson tries not to be overly concerned, for what is it to be one star among many, to brighten or dim at the wave of the master’s hand?

  That is to be no star at all.

  Now he and Jimmy Finlayson sit side by side, Jimmy Finlayson apparently asleep.

  But Jimmy Finlayson is not asleep.

  That boy, says Jimmy Finlayson, using a stockinged foot to wiggle a toe in the direction of Babe, who is practicing golf swings in the noonday sun.

  – What boy?

  – That boy.

  Jimmy Finlayson is only five years older than Babe, depending upon the age Jimmy Finlayson professes himself to be at any particular moment, but he thinks the difference might as well be fifty years. Jimmy Finlayson was born old.

  – What about him?

  – That boy is tired of playing the bully.

  – I noticed.

  – Do you know the origin of the word ‘bully’?

  – I do not.

  – I will enlighten you. It means ‘sweetheart’.

  – It does not.

  – I tell you, it does. It comes from the Dutch.

  Jimmy Finlayson still has not opened his eyes.

  That boy, Jimmy Finlayson concludes, is a sweetheart.

  Yes, this may be true.

  But Babe is not a boy. Babe is a man, and endures the troubles of a man.

  Babe has small vices. These are the things Babe does:

  Babe drinks – a little.

  Babe gambles – more than a little.

  Babe plays golf – a lot.

  Babe, like Larry Semon, wants to be better. Babe, like Larry Semon, wants more.

  But Babe worries about the next job. Babe does not want to be fired by Hal Roach, forced to creep off to Joe Rock to become a Ton of Fun on Poverty Row. Babe will take what is offered by Hal Roach, and set aside his ambitions, just as Babe will take what is offered by Myrtle, and set aside his happiness.

  Because Babe fears that, for the second time, an error has been made; that Babe, once again, has married the wrong woman.

  69

  At the Oceana Apartments, he writes a letter to a film historian. He wishes to take issue with a point. He has made so many pictures, some now lost, that he understands how mistakes may occur. But while grateful for the kind words about Putting Pants on Philip – he writes – and acknowledging the important role it played in finally bringing Babe and him together, he would like to point out the significance of the earlier Do Detectives Think? It was the moment that Hal Roach began to understand, and he, too, began to understand.

  Stupidity is all.

  Stupidity, and derby hats, and ill-fitting suits.

  Glances to the camera.

  Loyalty, and optimism, and immense, misguided self-belief.

  Love.

  Mostly, though, there is foolishness.

  In art as in life.

  70

  In October 1927, a heavily pregnant Lois beside him, he witnesses The Jazz Singer.

  Al Jolson is no screen actor – Photoplay has that correct – and those critics who declare it to be little more than an extended Vitaphone disc with pictures are not far off the mark, but the response of the Audience is unlike any he has encountered before. The Audience cheers not only the songs but also the dialogue. The Audience applauds the miracle of speech and movement. What is said, or how it is said, is unimportant. All that is of consequence is that it is said, and the Audience can both see and hear it being said.

  Afterwards, Lois can’t stop talking about the picture over coffee and pie, as though a Vitaphone needle has injected her also.

  But he is ruminating. He is brooding on his craft.

  Already this year he and Babe have made some of their most ambitious and successful pictures yet:

  Do Detectives Think?

  Putting Pants on Philip.

  The Battle of the Century.

  Call of the Cuckoo.

  The Second Hundred Years.

  And Hats Off.

  It is to Hats Off in particular that he now turns. The new lightweight cameras make the picture possible. They allow Babe and him to be filmed carrying a washing machine up a flight of steps at Vendome Street in Silver Lake, all in the misguided hope of selling it to Anita Garvin. But with sound, that picture could not have been made. He can discern this flaw in The Jazz Singer. The Jazz Singer is fixed to stages. It is filmed theater.

  Safety Last! could not have been made in the era of sound.

  The General could not have been made in the era of sound.

  Sunrise could not have been made in the era of sound.

  The Crowd could not have been made in the era of sound.

  If talking pictures are to be the new reality – and, once unbound, the genie cannot be returned to the bottle – it means that ambition will be constrained by t
his technology, at least for a period.

  Hal Roach, faced with the prospect of spending money, does what Hal Roach always does under these circumstances. Hal Roach rails. Hal Roach wails. Hal Roach tries to bury his head in the sand, like the ostrich that gave Billie Ritchie cancer.

  But even Hal Roach knows.

  Hal Roach will spend the money in the end, all for sound.

  He speaks to Babe of it. Babe, too, has witnessed The Jazz Singer. Babe understands.

  The problem – if problem it is, if problem it is to be – is that finally, after many years, each has found a character. For him, it is idiocy without harm, stupidity without malice, love without deceit. For Babe, it is a combination of the myth of his father and a version of himself unmoored from self-doubt and liberated from a surfeit of intelligence. Yet each character alone would not be enough: only together, bound by the inability of one to survive without the other, shackled by a desire to escape this interdependence while secretly acknowledging its impossibility, do they come to life.

  So this is to be his identity, shared with, and defined by, another. He feels his features settle into the mask. He breathes. There is no sense of constriction or loss.

  This is as it should be.

  This is right.

  Meanwhile, away from the cameras, he and Babe prepare for the day when they may be permitted – or forced – to speak.

  71

  At the Oceana Apartments, he recalls Hats Off. He has not seen it in decades.

  No one has.

  Hats Off has been lost. The Rogue Song, a picture he and Babe made with Lawrence Tibbett, is also gone. Someone at MGM informs him that old nitrate film stock in the studio vault has ignited, incinerating who knows how many pictures, The Rogue Song included.

  He liked Lawrence Tibbett. Lawrence Tibbett could sing.

  But Lawrence Tibbett is dead. Lawrence Tibbett – arthritic, alcoholic – stumbles in his apartment in July 1960 and hits his head on a table. Lawrence Tibbett possessed a copy of The Rogue Song, but it decomposed after Lawrence Tibbett died.

  Which is unfortunate, he thinks, but apposite.

  Other pictures he made are missing music and effects, or entire scenes. When he inquires about them, he receives the written equivalent of a shrug, if he receives any reply at all. These things happen, they tell him. Pictures get mislaid. Pictures get damaged. Pictures go up in flames. He accepts this, just as he remembers that distributors once destroyed prints after pictures finished their runs.

  Yes, he says, yes. Thank you for letting me know.

  The truth is that no one cares enough.

  But he would just like to see Hats Off one more time.

  He would just like to see The Rogue Song one more time.

  He has seen so many of the rest, over and over. He always watches them when they come on television. Yet countless details of these others, the lost pictures, he has forgotten. To view them now would be to watch them anew.

  To view them would be to see Babe again.

  To view them would be to be with Babe again.

  72

  In December 1927, his wife gives birth to their first child. They name her Lois.

  He holds his daughter in his arms, and finds himself returning to Chaplin, and how Chaplin once held his firstborn in his arms, his baby son.

  Just like this, just as he now holds Lois.

  And of how that child, Chaplin’s child, lived for just long enough to be named, and no longer.

  He wants to call Chaplin. He wants to tell him.

  I understand, he wishes to say. I am sorry for all your pain.

  But he does not make the call.

  And later, he will remember this moment. He will remember it as he holds his own infant son, and will wonder at the entanglements of fate.

  73

  Hal Roach has his faults, principal among them being a profound imbalance between the length of his arms and the depth of his pockets. Jimmy Finlayson claims that Hal Roach orders his trousers to be made that way, and is forced to sit down just to reach his small change.

  Which Hal Roach then uses to pay his employees.

  It is now clear that Jimmy Finlayson is never going to be a star. Such an outcome was, by Jimmy Finlayson’s own admission, always unlikely, but a man can hope, and a man can dream. A new hierarchy has been established at Hal Roach Studios, and Jimmy Finlayson sits below two men in derby hats. But these two men remain loyal to Jimmy Finlayson, just as Hal Roach does.

  Hal Roach is loyal to those who are loyal to Hal Roach.

  As long as they don’t ask for a raise.

  Jimmy Finlayson does not ask for a raise. Jimmy Finlayson works, and smiles, and accepts his fate.

  But sometimes, it hurts just the same.

  74

  He and Babe are Hal Roach’s new stars. Their names headline their own pictures. The Los Angeles Evening Herald describes them as ‘the most promising comedy team on the screen today’.

  In 1928, Hal Roach pays the most promising comedy team on the screen today a combined total of $54,316.67. Hal Roach pays him $33,150 and Hal Roach pays Babe $21,166.67.

  Over at Paramount, Harold Lloyd is making $1.5 million per picture.

  Hal Roach also forces Babe and him to negotiate their contracts separately, and ensures that one contract expires six months before the other. Hal Roach is slipperier than a barrel of eels.

  But he is happy, and Babe is happy. Hal Roach may be cheap, even though the studio’s distribution deal with MGM has made Hal Roach a millionaire, but Hal Roach does not interfere, or keeps any interference to a tolerable level. And anyway, for the first half of 1928 Hal Roach cannot interfere, except by way of telegrams – which can be ignored, or may conveniently go missing – because Hal Roach is traveling the world with his wife, Marguerite.

  Within budget restrictions, he can now do as he wishes.

  So he creates. The ideas pour from him. He is secure in his character. He does not fight against it, not after all those years spent trying to determine what form this character should assume. He sacrifices money for freedom. He purchases his artistry from Hal Roach.

  Dollar by dollar, cent by cent.

  I want to shoot chronologically, he tells Hal Roach.

  Hal Roach is back from his voyage. The sea air has given Hal Roach time to come to terms with the inevitability of sound recording. Already the studio is being torn apart and rebuilt. All is change.

  – Chrono-what?

  He waits. Hal Roach knows what ‘chronologically’ means, but Hal Roach worries that big words may cost more than little ones.

  Why would you want to do that? Hal Roach asks.

  – Because it will make for better pictures.

  – What’s wrong with the current ones?

  – They could be better.

  Hal Roach appears to be chewing a wasp. Hal Roach loves money, but it may just be that Hal Roach loves making good pictures more.

  – Chronological is expensive.

  – Not so much. I can keep the costs down.

  The wasp is fighting back. Hal Roach bites down hard upon it. The wasp is dead, but Hal Roach can still feel its sting.

  – You shoot one chronologically. We screen it. Then we decide.

  By ‘we’, Hal Roach means Hal Roach, or Hal Roach thinks this is what is meant. But Hal Roach will listen to Leo McCarey, who directs the pictures, and Hal Roach will listen to George Stevens, who shoots the pictures, and Hal Roach will listen to Richard Currier, who cuts the pictures.

  And maybe Hal Roach will listen to him too, just a jot.

  Just enough.

  He talks to Babe.

  – Hal says we can shoot in order.

  Babe sighs. Babe looks to the sky. Somewhere in the distance, Babe can dimly perceive a new set of golf clubs flying away, and Babe can see his gambling pot shrinking, and Babe can hear Myrtle asking why she can’t have that dress she saw in Blackstone’s, because if shooting chronologically costs Hal Roach money and does not
succeed, then Hal Roach will ensure that every dime is recovered from their hides.

  Okay, says Babe.

  This is how they work.

  There is a script, even if it will never be heard.

  There is a story, even if it is only a framework for gags.

  The difference between them, he has come to realize, is that Babe is an actor while he is a gagman. The script is more for Babe’s benefit than his own, although it forces him to apply a structure to what is to come. He writes gags all the time, recording them on pads of yellow paper. They fountain from him, too many for his own use. He feeds them to others on the lot, content just to see them used.

  He and Babe rehearse. This he has learned from vaudeville: perfection lies in repetition. Babe is sometimes a reluctant participant. Babe will practice a golf swing until Babe can no longer lift his arms, yet Babe quickly grows weary of reprising a scene. But Babe’s instincts are perfect, and Babe can improvise. When the time comes to shoot, Babe is never less than prepared.

  There is no genius. There is only the work.

  There is no art. There is only the craft.

  This is what Hal Roach’s money buys.

  75

  They fall by the wayside, these others. The advent of talking pictures silences them.

  In the years that follow, the ignorant will claim that careers were lost because of voices, because the images on the screen were incompatible with the sounds that emerged from their mouths.

  And the ignorant, as always, will be wrong.

  Mary Pickford, no longer able to play the neophyte, accepts her Oscar and retires to become an alcoholic and a recluse, communicating with the world only by telephone.

  Clara Bow’s nerves are shot, and the rumor spreads that she has venereal disease.

  Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings return to Europe.

  Pola Negri and Mae Murray make bad marriages.

  William Haines, a fairy, refuses to make any marriage at all.

  Karl Dane is dropped by MGM and ends up selling hot dogs outside the studio, then kills himself.