By Saturday the scenario was ready, the cast chosen, the cameraman and staff engaged. In the scene docks I had found the walls of a couple of tenement interiors that had been used in the King Baggot serial, and these were being knocked together at one end of the big stage. They comprised a hallway, a kitchen-living room and a bedroom.
I had added a prologue to the story, planting the heroine's childhood, her environment and antecedents. Her out-of-work father, her dying mother. Her father's bad companions, Slim, the elephantine pickpocket, and the Bowery thugs and gangsters of those days.... The father caught housebreaking and sent up for ten years, and the orphan child taken under Slim's wing and taught the tricks of his profession.
Miss Mersereau was a little worried about not coming into the story soon enough, so we compromised by casting her to play her mother in the prologue, which gave her a chance to show her versatility.
Our big set was one of those dives that flourished in the days of Chuck Connors and Gyp the Blood. It was being built with a platform behind it so that the feet of people passing on the sidewalk above could be seen through the barred fan-shaped windows.
On Saturday night Big Bill, my assistant, who also played Slim, and I took the downtown Third Avenue L. We visited tenements, bars and dives, on the lookout for atmosphere. We ended up at the Chatham bar about eleven, and within half-an-hour were buying drinks for most of the tin-ears on the Bowery. Paddy Sullivan, Hogan, Tommy Houk, among others. At midnight Kid Broad blew in very dignified in a Derby hat a couple of sizes too small for him, having won his fight in Jersey City on a foul in the fourth round. He did not appear more battered up than usual.
"Take a slant at that map, will you.... Hello Kid, whatcha havin'?...Beer fer the Kid, Joe," said Big Bill nudging me.
"Nutin' doin'," said the Kid, "just had a wine an duck supper."
A defective pallet made him talk as if he had a clothespeg clipped on his nose and his tongue attached to his lower lip.
"Where you get that stuff?" said Big Bill. "High hattin' yer pals cause that old man fouled you in the fourth round?"
"No pal, you got me wrong," said the Kid. "I ain't no high hat. Gimme a beer, Joe, to show me pals I ain't no high hat."
A hunchback with a malignant eye came over to the bar. The barflies made way for him.
"Hello, Humpty."
"Hello, fellas."
Big Bill took him by the arm.
"Rex, I want you to meet my pal, Humpty Jackson. If you got anything against a guy all you got to do is put Humpty wise. He'll fix him."
Mr. Jackson handed me a card with what appeared to be a price list.
| 1 ear... | $25. |
| 2 ears... | $40. (same party) |
| 1 eye... | $25. |
| 1 nose... | $25. |
| Other parts... | $25—$50 |
"Let me know anytime I can help you out," he said affably and left us.
"What is he, a plastic surgeon?" I said.
"Hell no!" said Bill. "He don't do it himself. But if some guy gets funny with you, Humpty's gang will take an ear offov him—or a nose. The prices is marked."
"The hell you say," I said, wondering how Jimmy Young or Milton Hoffman would look without a nose.
A slender youth with reddish hair and a Reggis Morris tie passed.
"Selig," said Bill. "Be something doing round here tonight if he runs into Humpty. They ain't talking....Hey!" he yelled suddenly, grabbing me and hauling me out of the line of fire.
Everyone got to their feet, forming a circle around the bar where Kid Broad, very green in the face, was vomiting violently in the direction of a cuspidor. When the Kid had finished Bill took a look at the cuspidor.
"Where you get that wine and duck supper stuff?" he said. "Ain't nothin' here but beer and pretzels."
The Kid wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You—you think I'm a fool, to let the duck come up?" he inquired.
"Bill" I said after a while. "We need about sixty people for that dive set. I want to line up a few more types for foregrounds and closeups. Paddy Sullivan, the Kid and Humpty are fine. Put them on the list. I'm taking a walk around and see if there's any more."
Someone had taken me by the elbow.
"Hello, kid," said a quiet familiar voice. I turned abruptly but did not recognize him at once. Suddenly it came to me.
"For Godsake, Buffalo!" I said. "I'm sure glad to see you. What are you doing here?"
"I'm sure glad to see you, kid," he said. "What you doing here?"
"Come and sit down," I said. "How's things?"
"Bad," said Buffalo. "Working-out a couple of fighters, but there ain't no dough in it."
As we went over to a table I noticed he was walking on his heels. He had aged a lot, and his head shook a little when he talked, like a man that is punch-drunk. Sparring partners are just human punchbags, and he had been taking it plenty since the Belle Dock days. His eyes had a vague expression, but they brightened up when I told him of my own good luck.
"There ain't nothing you could use me for," he said like a man used to being turned down.
"Sure I can use you," I said. I called Big Bill over.
"Bill, this is a pal of mine. I want to put him to work when we start. We can use him in the scenes, but I'd like to get him something steady. We got to figure out something."
"Leave it to me, Boss," Bill said. He told Buffalo to come out to the studio in the morning.
"Better yet, Buffalo," I said, "come here and we'll go to Fort Lee together."
I gave him my address.
"So long, Buffalo. We'll fix up something."
He drew me aside.
Looking down at the floor he said: "You ain't got...."
"Sure," I said, slipping him a couple of greenbacks. "See you at nine o'clock."
"Thanks, kid," he said. "You sure saved my life. So long."
While the church bells of Fort Lee rang, Big Bill, Buffalo and I were hard at it getting atmosphere into the tenement sets to be shot Monday. I put Buffalo to breaking windows and repairing them with putty and brown paper. Bill and I strung clotheslines outside them that gave an authentic air to the vista of tenement fire-escapes beyond them. In the hall we stuck a garbage can with garbage in it and around it, salvaged from the restaurant and everywhere else we could find any. A couple of half starved cats were in a cage offstage ready to be used when the moment came. Big Bill, who had a genius for soiling things, from his shirts to tablecloths, got an atmosphere of squalor in the hall, kitchen and bedroom that rivaled Little Italy or the Ghetto at their atmospheric best and made the Bowery appear hygienic in comparison. On Monday morning we started shooting. Bill and Miss Mersereau and a child—played by a lovely wide-eyed child who worked with the assurance of a Broadway veteran—the interpreters. Bill, dirtier than the set, was initiating the little girl in the art of pocket-picking; but in the scenario the child proved more adept than her professor, who reached the corner saloon with his own empty.
When I got back on the set after lunch I saw Julius approaching in a large size Derby hat. With him were a tall beardlessly Lincolnesque man and a very small swarthy man whose teeth were all I could distinguish at that distance. When they got to the set Julius came over to me.
"I'm going to introdooce you to our president, Mr. Laemmlae," he said.
"Which is he," I said looking across at them, "—the long guy?'
"Are you crazy?" said Julius, "You never seen Mr. Laemmlae?"
"Bleased to meet you," said small swarthy Mr. Laemmlae. "There is a very bad sm-vell here, Julius. What a dirty studio! You got no help around here to keep the blace clean?"
"Hey you!" shouted Julius, hailing a grip. "Put that garbage can out in the yard! What you think this is anyway!"
The grip started for my artistically dressed garbage can.
"Stop him, Buffalo!" I yelled, just in time.
The grip never reached it, having encountered the heel of Buffalo's hand en route.
"Who's that fellow?" shouted Julius pointing at Buffalo.
"Who you think you are anyway hitting people around here?...Throw him out of here" he ordered the grip who was sitting on the floor rubbing his jaw.
Buffalo came forward.
"Throw him out of here, I tell you!" yelled Julius at the grip, backing away...."You hear what I'm telling you?"
I interrupted, explaining to Julius, to Mr. Laemmlae and to the tall man, that if the grip had moved the garbage can we would have had to shoot the morning's work over. I drew their combined attentions to a large DON'T TOUCH sign at the head of the stairs,
The Lincolnesque personage seemed to be enjoying everything, and said to me with an Irish brogue:
"Julius forgot to introduce us, so I'm taking the responsibility on myself. I'm Mr. Powers."
"P.A. Powers?" I asked. "I've heard of you."
"If you don't watch out, you'll be having the board of health after you," he said, sniffing.
"Authentic atmosphere," I said.
"Let's get out of it for a minute, there's a girl over here I want you to use if you got any small parts," he said.
A slender young lady with blue eyes and a milk and white skin was waiting for him.
"Mr. Ingram—Miss MacRae," he said introducing us. "Do what you can for her, Ingram, she photographs well," he said. "When you're in town sometime come up to my office for a chat."
"I've just been talking to Miss Mersereau. She tells me she has a lot of confidence in you," said Mr. Laemmlae joining us, throwing up at me a kindly but doubtful glance. "I hope she is not mistaken."
He gave me his hand cordially.
"You see how he shook hands with you?" said Julius to me, aside.
"In front of witnesses too," I said.
"He's a very democratic man. He don't care who it is, he'll shake hands with anybody," said Julius.
"That's right," I said. "I heard he's not particular. He's related to you, no?"
"Sure," said Julius. "I'm his brother-in-law."