The first day there was no work at the studio I took the subway to 66th Street. Ralph Barton had a book on insane asylums that I wanted to borrow. He was out, but I got the book from Rye Atwell. I spent the next couple of nights reading it and making notes on the inhuman treatment of inmates, including strait-jackets, cold douches, padded cells and undernourishment. Then I composed a letter to myself from my father's aunt, who was dead. But I was afraid my handwriting would give me away, so I had an old English lady who some times worked extra at the studio write it out for me. I had her use black-edged paper to make it look more authentic; and promised to see that Sol Harrison gave her work if I got the job.
Mr. Ridgely was delighted and said the letter was a human document, and he would certainly show up insane asylums in Hard Cash. He said, too, I could help him on the scenario, which took a week. He gave me two $5.00 paychecks and when the picture started, made me his assistant. Before we began shooting I spent a lot of time with John Collins planning the sets. John sent me with Jack Chisholm, the head property man, to choose some old English furniture at the antique stores, and a few pictures and knick-knacks of the period, which had never been done before at Edison where the same stock furniture, pictures and plaster busts were used in every film. When Mr. Plimpton heard this he kicked about the unnecessary expense and some friend of mine told him it was my idea, so he held it against me. I helped John Collins dress the sets, and after Mr. Ridgely had put the finishing touches to them himself he was very pleased.
I told Mr. Ridgely what I thought about the cameraman using too much light on the faces, and explained what I had learned from Mr. Lawrie about form and composition. At first he was not convinced, but when I drew a blocked head in a flat light and showed it to him, and then shadowed it in on one side he got the idea and decided to try it out. The cameraman agreed with me and arranged the lighting in the first scene the way I had suggested. As a result there was depth in the setting and modeling in the faces. When Mr. Plimpton saw the rushes he thought it was a night scene and asked why it was not tinted blue. When he heard it was a day scene he made Mr. Ridgely take it over, which did not make things any easier for me.
One morning, while we were rehearsing a scene, I remarked to the cameraman that the lighting was flat. I did not know that Mr. Plimpton was standing behind me watching the rehearsal. I was called into his office a little later, and he told me if I wished to continue working at Edison I had better keep my mouth shut and my nose out of what did not concern me. I had cost the company enough money on retakes already, he said, and since Mr. Ridgely had started renting furniture all the other directors wanted to do the same.
The location we used for the scenes of the lunatic asylum where the hero of Hard Cash was kept against his will was a fort that dated from before the Civil War and had practically fallen into disuse. It was occupied by a sergeant and a few coast artillerymen. I found some fine camera angles under arches that supported the old gun emplacements, and curious shots through barred windows with beams of light streaming in through the roof and through gaps in the walls. I was afraid to draw Mr. Ridgely's attention to them, but I led him past them a couple of times. I made up my mind to make use of them if I ever directed a picture myself.
Mrs. Breen had been after me and I had been after Sol to give her work. She was called for these asylum episodes and looked very realistic. But she was angry because she could not wear her aigrettes. All they gave her was a nightdress and a shawl. When she complained to me I asked her if she wanted her aigrettes singed, because there was a fire scene at the end.
Before the end of the picture Mr. Ridgely and I had a falling out about the way a small scene I had to play should be played. He may have been right, but I said what he wanted me to do did not feel natural and I wanted to do it my own way. All of which was unwise, because the director is the one responsible and, anyway, the player cannot see what he is doing until it is on the screen, when it is too late, unless there is a retake, We parted company that evening and I was paid off. I saw John Collins and he said to me:
"Williams is starting Why Girls Leave Home, it's a burlesque on the old roadshows. He needs someone to work on the scenario with him. I think you'll get on better with him than with Dick, he's a very calm man."
So he introduced me to Mr. Williams who made comedy pictures, and before that had been a burlesque director in the legitimate.
Mr. Williams was very stout, and agreeable to me at first. He brought me over to the parlor in his boarding house to help him write the scenario. He gave me a pencil and paper and started dictating to me, As he dictated the scenes he kept laughing to himself. I wondered what he was laughing at. When I tried to get a word in, he said: "Sssh," and kept on dictating. By the time we stopped for lunch I had writer's cramp.
"Well, what do you think of that for comedy?" he said when we sat down to the table.
"Pretty punk, if you ask me," I said.
He got very red at once.
"When I need your advice I'll ask for it," he said.
"Excuse me," I said. "I thought that's what you were doing."
"I don't need no advice from you," he said, taking off his glasses. "I've been a stage director for thirty years and when I need advice it won't be from you."
"Well, Mr. Ridgely often took my advice," I said.
"Mr. Ridgely and Mr. Williams is another person," he said, very dignified, hitting the table with the handle of his knife.
"He's supposed to be the best director we have," I said.
Mr. Williams did not like that, and I could see he was trying to think of something unpleasant to say.
"I notice he let you out," he said at last.
"That doesn't say he's not our best director," I said.
"Well, he let you out," said Mr. Williams.
After that he did no more talking, but kept very red and I could tell we were not going to get along together.
Mr. Williams was out to keep the cost of his pictures down, and put me on a straight salary basis of $15. a week. This was not so good, as Mr. Ridgely had given me a $5. working check everyday, because, as well as being his assistant, I played in extra scenes with wigs and beards and moustaches, and was three or four different lunatics when the asylum caught fire, as well as working one of the blow-flares.
"I don't get an extra check if I play?" I said.
"You do not," said Mr. Williams.
"Mr. Ridgely—"
"I don't want to hear no more about Mr. Ridgely," said Mr. Williams. "Take the job or leave it."
I had a feeling he would have dropped me right then, but he had heard I had been sent to the studio by Charles Edison so he wanted a good excuse before doing it.
I went to work for him with bad grace.
The first setting in the picture was the interior of a small town theatre. The longshots were taken first. Then, from the stage, shots were made of the audience laughing and clapping.
Before the next scene they had to get the property man— myself—in blue jeans, with a walrus moustache and a putty nose and a big hammer, perched up behind the proscenium arch with a sack of confetti. Below, on the stage, the villain was to meet the poor heroine he had deserted, with a baby in her arms, in a snow storm. By way of burlesquing the road shows the property man was to drop all the snow over the heroine and the hammer on the villain's tall hat which had a reinforced crown. The rehearsals went all right. But when they made the scene with me up over the works on a cross beam, the artists did not get in the same places and I let the snow fall on the villain. Mr. Williams began yelling through the megaphone at me.
"Farther over! Farther over!"
"I can't!" I yelled back, "they're not in the same places!"
"Farther over! Farther over!" he shouted through his megaphone.
I tried to climb farther over and lost my balance. I managed to hang onto the beam, but the sack of confetti fell on the villain and the hammer hit the heroine on her hat which had not been reinforced like the villain's. Mr. Williams rushed over and bawled me out while I hung from the beam by one leg and my arms.
"Get a ladder—you want me to break my neck?" I yelled at him.
He started in again on me when I got down. But the cameraman said:
"It wasn't his fault, Mr. Williams, they didn't take their places. Here are the chalk marks."
That only made Mr. Williams angrier and at the end of the day I was paid off.