Upstairs revealed a much more old-fashioned and cheerful warren of tiny bedrooms spread across two floors as well as the five promised bathrooms. Renee immediately claimed a room with double windows that looked out over the front veranda. A four-poster bed, not old enough to be Colonial but trying very hard to look important, dominated the center of the room. It had been made up with a satin quilt and several pillows. All the pillowcases were lushly trimmed with lace.
My sister eyed with disfavor the oil lamp sitting on the table closest to the bed. “Why is that there?” she said to Sydney, who poked his head into the room to see how she was settling.
“What where?” he said.
“That oil lamp. Don’t you have electric lights upstairs?” Renee said.
“Oh, they turn off the electricity at midnight unless someone has paid to keep it on longer. I’ll have Fred or Max call the plant manager. We’ll want power on the nights that we are filming.”
“Every night,” said Renee. “I don’t want to be stumbling about in the dark after sunset. Neither do you. You’re usually up until midnight or later working on your papers.”
“Yes, yes. But for tonight, you might need to use the candles or the lantern. Mrs Mayhew always puts a fresh box of matches in the nightstand,” said Sydney. “It is so wonderful to be back. I can feel my family history inspiring so many ideas, so much that’s never been seen before.”
Renee sighed and muttered something about a modern hotel, never mind family history.
I continued to explore, looking for a room to sleep in. Toward the back, I found a place where somebody had added more rooms, building out over the kitchen and the old back porch. The hallway had an odd half-step as I went past the bedrooms to a tiny screened-in sleeping porch. The cot there was made up, just like the four-poster bed in the room that Renee claimed, with a bright crazy quilt and well-worn sheets. Under one window, an old bookcase was filled with battered favorites. I pulled out The Emerald City of Oz, The Window at the White Cat, and The Lightning Conductor to pile on the bed. I’d read all three several times at the orphanage. It felt like discovering old friends at Sydney’s house.
Renee stepped down onto the sleeping porch while I was re-reading the endings of all three books and trying to decide which one to start from the beginning again. “You always choose the funniest corners,” she said. “It’s like that apartment of yours.”
I loved my efficiency unit on the second floor of Renee’s building, with my east corner windows at the end of the kitchenette. The building super cleared out the table that was there and moved my drafting table into that corner. Since I usually ate downstairs with Renee or at the studio, I kept the kitchen drawers and cupboards filled with my sewing and art supplies. With a Murphy bed that folded up into the wall when I needed more room for pinning costumes together on fidgeting actresses, the apartment suited me. But Renee felt it lacked dignity and, over the last year, kept trying to talk me into a larger apartment on the ground floor near her. She pointed out more than once that she could afford it on the salary that she negotiated with the studio. I reminded her that there was no reason for her to be paying my rent. My apartment looked right for my position at the studio.
“I like it,” I said to Renee about the screened-in room, stating the obvious as I slid my suitcase beneath the cot. I set my handbag and sketchbook on the table next to the bed. “It will be airy, and I can hear the birds singing in the woods.” At the moment, all we heard was the cawing of crows, but I refused to give up my ideal image of a country house stay, with birds singing at dawn.
Renee gave an exaggerated shudder. “Birds. Just another reason to regret this idea. Do you remember those seagulls when we filmed The Siren’s Net?”
One of Sydney’s earliest nightmare films cast Renee as a strange creature who either was the daughter of a mad lighthouse keeper or came from another world beneath the waves. I made Renee a long wig, one that cascaded nearly to her knees. I knotted shells and large fake pearls into her braids. Sydney wanted to suggest that her hair was the net that dragged men under. The press raved about the “blonde siren” who lured men to their watery deaths. One reviewer said, “At first it appeared that the only persons who looked likely to escape drowning by the end of the picture were the director and his cameraman.” And my favorite part of the review: “Miss Love wears such remarkable gowns as she walks along the seaside that all the women patrons in the audience may wish to shop wherever the siren does.”
What the reviewer didn’t record was that the seagulls, perhaps attracted by the shells in Renee’s wig, or perhaps by Fred’s famously greasy bacon sandwiches, harried us for one memorable afternoon at the beach until even Sydney lost his glossy look and fled wild-eyed back to the cars.
We didn’t make another picture outdoors for nearly a year. Renee also turned down Mack Sennett’s proposition to be a bathing beauty on the grounds it meant filming near the shore and those malevolent gulls. That didn’t discourage Sennett. He kept sending her flowers and reminding her that he always had room for another beauty in his casts.
Betsy popped her head in the door. “Are you taking this room? It’s darling.”
I nodded. “Where are you?”
“One floor up. I’m sharing with Pola. We decided those were the best mattresses. And it’s right next to a bathroom. You know I never mind sharing with her. She’s always so calm and never takes any time at the mirror.” Pola Vasily had worked for years in vaudeville before films. She took every “matron” role that Sydney dreamed up, usually the mother or the housekeeper of the hero. Her favorite parts required her to be murdered early in the plot, so she could spend the rest of her time on the set knitting stockings. She also made endless scarves. We all had a few pieces given to us from Pola’s generous work bag.
“Max is on this floor, in the room next to Sydney. Jim, Paul, and Hal took a bedroom with an attached sitting room next to us and are going to rotate who sleeps alone on the couch by the strength of who snores the loudest. Fred’s down the hall from them, converting what looks like a broom closet into a workshop with a cot. He liked the shelves,” Betsy crooked a finger at both of us. “I was sent to tell you that Sydney is having a talk downstairs. Before the New Yorkers arrive.”
Sounded like everyone was settled, although I wondered if there would really be enough bathrooms. We weren’t a large crew but we’d filled the house quickly. Luckily everyone could double up on roles in front or behind the camera. Our films often seemed like we had large casts but we weren’t DeMille or even Sennett. Sydney liked to work with a small hand-picked company and fill in with locals when available. In Los Angeles, with an extra on every corner, it wasn’t so big a deal if we needed additional players. But in Arkham, we might have to do everything ourselves.
Pola and Betsy, of course, could transform themselves into a range of ladies, from the matron to the flapper. Hal played the wise father or the malevolent uncle, and loved being a butler too. Jim could be made up into young crooks, servants, and men about town. Paul played the older versions of those roles. He helped Fred with the lights and could even double as a cameraman. Paul had been an electrician before the War, according to Fred. I never knew much about Paul. He was one of those men who tended to grunt when you asked him a question.
“So are you ready to meet the New Yorkers?” Betsy asked us as we made our way down the hall
“Ah, the New Yorkers,” said Renee. “The screaming Lulu and her partner. I suppose Sydney wants to tell us about them.”
Betsy giggled. “I think we’re about to be lectured on being professional and all that. Or maybe Sydney just wants to boast some more about this house. Oh, Fred said that he found sandwiches in the kitchen and might be persuaded to share.”
“For sandwiches,” said Renee, “I’ll come down.”
I hurried after the pair, realizing that I was also hungry. My morning cup of coffee and bread roll on the t
rain seemed such a long time ago. As I followed Renee, I noticed a small alcove that I’d missed on my earlier exploration. Hidden behind a half-drawn chintz curtain was the landing for a small staircase. It twisted up to the second floor and also went down. I took the downward twist only to find myself in a sizable pantry, well stocked, with one door leading to a side terrace and another, upon opening, into the kitchen. In the kitchen was Fred, balancing a large tray of sandwiches and trying to hook a coffee pot under his arm.
A sour-faced woman, who introduced herself as Mrs Mayhew, and another tiny little lady, who said “Call me Ethel,” were clustered by the stove.
“It’s a beast, Mrs Mayhew, that stove. Should have been pulled out years ago,” said Ethel.
“It is indeed, Mrs Roxbury, a beast of a stove,” said Mrs Mayhew. “But I trust you’ll be able to keep it under control. Three meals a day for five dollars a week, I think we agreed. I will be bringing the supplies each morning from the farm and twice a week will come with my girls Maggie and Hilda to sweep out the place.”
I wondered what Max would make of the cost of the cook, to say nothing of Mrs Mayhew’s supplies and girls, but decided that was the studio’s problem.
“I’ll take that,” I said to Fred, grabbing the coffee pot
“Thanks,” replied Fred. “Max took the cups in already.”
I followed Fred and the sandwiches into the spacious main room. A deep fireplace occupied one whole end. Sydney arranged himself in front of the fireplace, one arm along the mantel in a pose that I recognized from a past photo essay entitled “The Great Showman at Home.” Over the mantel hung an oil painting, very dark, showing a man with Sydney’s features but in a fine uniform tunic with a fur-edged jacket slung over his shoulder like a cape. Both tunic and jacket were adorned with silver braiding and several rows of buttons. Below the portrait hung a curved sword, oddly blackened and burned about the tip.
“My friends,” said Sydney. “My fellow artists. My most brave adventurers into the wilderness of Arkham.”
I settled into a cozy chintz chair and took a large bite of chicken sandwich. From the introduction, I expected Sydney to tell us the plot of the movie and exhort us to reach new heights of creativity. The coffee was black and bitter, and strong enough that I guessed Fred had made it or that Ethel had Fred’s attitude towards the liberal use of coffee beans.
“It is fitting that we gather here, under the gaze of my most revered ancestor, that daring French hussar who brought his little family to Arkham following his own grand adventures with the Emperor Napoleon in Egypt.”
“I was in a film about Napoleon,” Betsy whispered to me as she settled in the chair next to mine. “Maid to Josephine.”
Sydney glared at her. Betsy mimed “sorry” to him and the great man continued his speech.
“It was Saturnin Fitzmaurice who battled in the shadow of the mighty pyramids, and later served as part of his emperor’s envoy to the young American Congress. It is his stories that my grandfather so lovingly preserved within our library. It was Saturnin’s discoveries and the descriptions in his journal that inflamed my youthful imagination. From his writings, translated from the tablets unearthed by this very sword,” he flung up a hand to point at the fire-blackened blade, “we will draw our latest script and create a story in silver and shadows to enthrall and terrify audiences around the world.”
Sydney paused. From long habit, nobody said anything. The pauses were for dramatic effect only. We knew he disliked being interrupted in full flow. Besides, we all wanted to know the plot.
Gravel crunched beneath tire wheels. A long melodious horn blast sounded outside the windows. The New Yorkers had arrived. Sydney swung around with a wide smile to stride from the room and greet them on the veranda.
Fred swallowed the last quarter of his sandwich in one enormous bite. “So,” he said to me, “how do you unearth something with a sword?”
“It looks like somebody used it as a poker,” I said, eyeing the soot stains along the blade. It was thoroughly blackened, and I wondered if the chimney smoked. But I liked the look of the uniform still vaguely visible in the painting over the fireplace. I considered taking such braid and trim, and adding it to the hero’s coat for a continental dash. “Fred,” I said, “who is playing the hero?”
Fred shook his head. “Max never said.”
I thought about the actors who had accompanied us. Sydney liked to switch the actors playing his heroes from film to film. Sometimes, instead of a romantic hero, he wrote in a charming but hidden male villain manipulating events until caught.
Hal wouldn’t do for such roles. He was too short, too round, too bald, and too old to fit the studio’s idea of a romantic lead, good or bad, which was a pity because he had more charm than most.
Skinny Jim Janson played everything from jewel thieves to rustlers, but again looked too juvenile for a lead. If a villain, Jim was the second villain, the one that was easy to spot in Sydney’s scripts.
Same for Paul Kopp, who either played an obvious heavy or a detective. He often showed up just for the denouncement in the final act, which was good as he worked best as Fred’s back up for the camera and lights. Fred, after one unbelievably bad scene in Siren, never acted in any picture. He was a genius at capturing emotion on film and a complete bomb at portraying it on film. Besides, he hated having anyone crank the Bell and Howell except himself. Said it took days to get 242 feeling right if Paul or someone else turned the handle. He had an older Pathé that he preferred to give to Paul.
I never even tried to act. That was Renee’s talent. Mine was to make everyone look good in their clothes and makeup.
My theory, never expressed to Renee, was that Sydney’s constant rotation of leading men was to prevent her from becoming part of a couple for one of the studio’s publicity pitches to the press. She was Sydney’s muse and his alone. Although his marriage and her own reasons for concealment kept them from being an obvious couple around town, much to the distress of more than one publicity agent.
The men who consistently worked from film to film with Sydney never posed a romantic threat, at least in Sydney’s eyes. As for the women, I suspected he kept with the same ones because they understood his tricks. It wasn’t unusual. All directors had their “regulars” for supporting characters. Working with Betsy, Maggie, and Pola was comfortable for Sydney. He never liked change and insisted on loyalty and even some secrecy on set, to better surprise the public when our terror pictures opened. Maggie leaving us for the Hollywood picture had been a blow to Sydney. I heard him tell Max earlier in the trip that he wouldn’t work with her again. Sydney could, and did, carry grudges.
Still Renee was his only leading lady once he started directing his own pictures. He always wrote her into the leading role as either femme fatale or ingénue. Although, by 1923, Sydney liked her best as a mystical and deadly otherworldly creature. The press and the public loved her in those roles too. When she played the wolf woman, the studio staged a photo with Renee standing over the bones of her devoured victims. It was a clear copy of a Theda Bara publicity photo. Later we heard that Bara’s studio wasn’t happy that our studio was pushing Renee as a new breed of vamp. Although Bara’s career was nearly over by then.
Bringing in an outside actress, and a New York stage actress, like Lulu McIntyre, marked something new. I wondered if Sydney was assigning her the hero or villain role that normally went to a male actor. Or, as I feared, Lulu might be meant as a replacement for Renee in the supernatural category. A hidden villainess, perhaps.
“Maybe our male hero would be another New Yorker?” I said to Fred. “Or would Sydney cast a local as the hero?”
“Could be.” He turned in his chair and yelled at Max. “Didn’t you say something about a theater in Arkham? Any actors coming from there?”
Max wandered over, distracted by trying to watch Sydney and the New York ladies through the window
. “Yes. Sydney directed something locally, several years ago, before he came to California. But we may not need more actors. Sydney says this script is very focused on just a few characters, the sisters in particular.”
“Will we need more costumes?” I asked, thinking about what we had shipped from Los Angeles. Most were general items that we used on our regular troupe and fitted for them. Hal’s butler outfit and his dining out suit, Pola’s matron dress and another longer dress for being the wife of a distinguished gentleman, usually Hal, at a party. Various ensembles for Betsy, from the parlor maid to the flapper on the sidewalk. Same for Paul and Jim, outfits that turned them into anything from servants to menacing toughs. And, of course the cape.
“Will we be using the man in the hood?” I said.
“Can’t have a Sydney Fitzmaurice film without him,” said Fred, and he wasn’t joking.
The hooded man scene was our signature scene and made a horror film a Fitzmaurice terror picture.
Sydney loved that cape, which could cover a large man from foot to head, and had a deep hood that hid the wearer’s face. I made it for the very first picture that we ever filmed with him. It was yellow material, lined with gray, and we could turn it inside out, depending on how Fred wanted it to film. Over the years, I draped that one costume over multiple actors to make them look far more mysterious and menacing than they were. Luckily the camera didn’t show how many times I’d hemmed it up or down, depending on who had to wear it. That cowled and caped figure always stood somewhat out of focus in each of Sydney’s pictures. Also the hooded man just watched the scene for a moment or two, and then disappeared. A few enterprising reporters asked Sydney when he was going to reveal all about this recurring character, but he just laughed and told them to come to the next picture.
Mask of Silver Page 6