by Kage Baker
We all groaned to find ourselves back in the twentieth century again, viewing more of the Uplifters’ nasty handiwork. Griffith came right out and said it this time, that When Women Cease to Attract Men, They Often Turn to Reform as a Second Choice. We booed and threw popcorn as he showed how these villainous spinsters were responsible for bootlegging, secret poker games, and flirting in alleyways. Meanwhile, the Little Dear One was working her own reformation on the Boy, extracting his promise to quit his criminal gang, and her victory dance was truly savage and bizarre. And premature: for no sooner had the Boy quit his gang than the Musketeer of the Slums got him framed for theft, and the Boy was whisked off to prison.
Babylon again! We cheered, but there was trouble brewing; the wicked High Priest was still interminably plotting, prophesying doom if people didn’t leave off this Ishtar nonsense and return to Bel-Marduk. Enter Nabonidus, Belshazzar’s crazy old father, excitedly showing off his latest archaeological discovery and remembering to mention that Oh by the way, Cyrus the Persian is massing with his armies to destroy us.
“Notice the subtext of implicit condemnation of intellectual pursuits,” observed Imarte.
“Whatever,” I said. “Wow, these must be the Persians!” It was the war camp of Cyrus. Griffith showed us milling soldiers, engines of war, and chariots of fire. The exotic hordes of Cyrus, the Medes, the Persians, the Ethiopians. (“Look, real black guys this time!” Einar said. “Most of the Negroes in Birth of a Nation were white guys in blackface.”) There were some bone-gnawing white European males designated merely as Barbarians, then Cyrus himself, shouting orders from his war chariot, turning sharply right, left, right, a big martial profile from a wall painting. He looked like a Klingon member of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
“Damn,” yelled Porfirio, because in mid-spectacle we were hauled back to the twentieth century, where the Little Dear One was now the Little Mother. There was some touching footage of her playing with her baby, but we knew tragedy was in the offing, and, sure enough, the evil Uplifters were at it again: Griffith showed them descending on slum neighborhoods like stiff harpies, and nailing the Little Mother when they caught her with some whiskey she was taking as a cold remedy. When they came for her baby, the Little Mother fought back with such frenzy that they smashed her to the ground senseless, hefty muscular broads as they were. We saw her clutching feebly at one baby sock, dropped in the struggle, all she had left of her child.
“Emotionally involving,” admitted Imarte, “though overall I think Chaplin handled the same theme more effectively.” I resisted an urge to shush her, because it was an upsetting scene after all, but then Griffith went and threw in the kitchen sink by showing us a Suffer Little Children to Come unto Me tableau, with Jesus and what must have been half the child population of Hollywood, happy little extras earning a day’s wage.
Then, thankfully, we were back in France, watching the Catholics cower as the Huguenots ran around wild in the streets and smashed a perfectly good plaster statue. We can’t have this kind of thing going on! announced Catherine de’ Medici. Time to do something about those pesky Protestants.
But we escaped to Babylon again, and Cyrus jumped athletically into his chariot and ordered his armies to march on Belshazzar’s city. And here was Belshazzar, mustering up the city guard, pausing only to bid a fond adieu to his Princess Beloved. She bid him one heck of a fond adieu herself:
“My Lord, like white pearls I shall keep my tears in an ark of silver for your return. I bite my thumb! I strike my girdle!” Juan Bautista read, and began to giggle helplessly. “If you return not, I go to the death halls of Aflat!”
“That’s Allât,” Imarte corrected him primly, which only made the rest of us snicker more. We watched as the Mountain Girl decked herself out in her brother’s second-best armor and rushed out to help defend her city, just like Xena.
“Get ready, guys,” said Einar, “this is one of the great cinema battles of all time.”
He wasn’t kidding. Thousands of costumed extras stormed those magnificent walls, battered those glorious gates, and, by God, life-sized siege towers were actually pushed into place by real elephants, because Griffith hadn’t had any other way to move them. The Priests of Ishtar assumed odd positions and prayed to their goddess for deliverance. They made burnt offerings, the flame and smoke of their sacrifices flowing up with the flame and smoke of the battle. The Mountain Girl sent a rain of arrows down on the attacking hordes. The burly Two-Sword Man, fighting with (surprise) two swords, swopped off a Persian head as neatly as I’ve ever seen it done on film. More shots of the Mountain Girl fighting valiantly for her Prince, intercut with the Princess Beloved peering fearfully out the window at the battle, posturing dismay and terror with palms angled stiffly, and you knew she didn’t deserve Belshazzar the way our plucky heroine did. The catapults of the attacking host launched rocks on the defenders, and the defenders pushed one of the siege towers outward, outward, until it tilted and fell, all eight stories, with a crash they must have heard in San Pedro. And now the battle was going on into the night, with flames along the battlements to rival the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind.
“Look at that!” said Oscar. We stared at the secret weapon of Babylon, an armored tank that Jules Verne might have designed if he’d been around in Belshazzar’s day. It was huge, with spiked wheels that rolled it implacably forward and long nozzles that shot out jets of flame. How absurd, how improbable, how marvelous! We all applauded.
“A blatant anachronism,” Imarte said, but we ignored her. Who were we, cyborgs in the Old West, to talk about anachronisms? We cheered as the engine of destruction laid waste to the Persians, burning and bringing down more siege towers in flaming ruin. The forces of Cyrus were routed! Wild celebration in Babylon! Dances of joy and bliss! What a spectacle!
Intermission.
“Rats,” I said, as Einar crawled over to the projector to change reels.
“Stay cool,” he said, groping for the film can. “The best is yet to be.”
But when the silver world returned, we were in the twentieth century again, with more tragedy building: the Musketeer of the Slums now had his lustful eye on the forlorn Little Mother, intimating he might be able to rescue her baby from the clutches of the Uplifters. He was jealously shadowed by the Friendless One, however. The Boy got out of prison, but this did not discourage the Musketeer from his dastardly plan—
“Thank God,” said Porfirio, because the Cradle appeared again, and Griffith told us we were about to behold the Feast of Belshazzar, “Imaged after the Splendor of an Olden Day.”
Einar gave a whoop of excitement. “This is it, Babylon the Great! For those of you who were wondering what could possibly top the magnificence of that battle scene . . .”
But he didn’t need to say anything more, because there before us was the first long shot of Hollywood Babylon in all her glory, and it took my immortal breath away. A central court so huge, it beggared all comprehension of scale, with gods and goddesses stories high, rearing elephants in stone, and thousands of tiny figures there below us on the wide stairs as the camera moved slowly in on the scene. How had he done it? And still the camera moved in, and yes, there were real people on those painted stairs, and your eye had to believe that this was no matte shot, no miniature, this truly was the ancient and massive splendor that had died away from the world, caught on silver nitrate by giants who were in the earth in those days.
The camera took us up the great stairs through the mad bacchanal, with all the little incidents to catch attention: the grim Two-Sword Man fondly stroking a white dove, the temple priestesses dancing stiff like wall paintings come to life, the Priests of Ishtar chanting praise to Her. I heard Imarte sniffling: was she crying? And here were Belshazzar and the Princess Beloved in all their glory, scarlet and purple, emerald and gold, glowing through the austere silver print.
Now we saw the Mountain Girl confidently expecting to walk into the banquet hall, but of course sh
e was turned away, the little ragamuffin. Next we saw the High Priest of Bel, scheming to make his defeat a temporary one, summoning the Rhapsode and ordering him to ready the chariots for a secret visit to the camp of Cyrus. But what was this? Did the warrior-poet-singer-missionary balk at this base treachery? No! He looked confused, he abased himself, he ran off to do the High Priest’s bidding. He wasn’t really going to be a dupe and betray Babylon, was he? Surely he would form some clever plan to thwart Cyrus, the High Priest, and the rest of them. It wouldn’t work out, of course, unless Griffith had decided to change history . . . but, having created such a potentially interesting hero, was Griffith really going to waste him? I drained my martini and fumbled around in the dark for the cocktail shaker. I had to pry it loose from Imarte’s grip: she was staring at the screen as if mortally hurt, and she was crying. Son of a gun.
The Mountain Girl was thirsty, too; she was purchasing a drink of goat milk to celebrate, squatting down and milking the goat herself. Something about the motion must have reminded her of Belshazzar, for she promptly got that moony unrequited-love look on her face, with intercut shots of Belshazzar at his feast, and back to her tugging on the pendulous squirting udders. Einar and Porfirio were rolling on the floor, choking with laughter, and Oscar had his handkerchief up in front of his face.
More revelry, more splendor. We reclined at the table of a Babylonian noble crowned with flowers; we were invited to partake of spiced wine cooled with snow brought down from the mountains. We watched a Babylonian gallant idly stroking the head of a leopard, which lay bound and snarling through the roses in its jaws. We watched a tame bear being fed party delicacies. We watched a swaying-drunk soldier telling the cameraman about the little monkey that clung to his helmet. And here was the Mountain Girl again, and the Rhapsode coming around a corner to catch sight of her. Still smitten with her boyish charms, he made another pitch for her and was indignantly spurned. But he kept following her around and then—
I groaned and downed my martini in a gulp. So much for the potentially interesting hero. In his efforts to impress the Mountain Girl, the Rhapsode did it, he blabbed about the secret mission to Cyrus’s camp.
What was Catherine de’ Medici doing here? Oh, we were back in France. Pressure was being put on the King to sign the order allowing the Catholics to massacre the Huguenots. Would he do it? No, no, a thousand times no! He ran around the room screaming, he tore his hair, he stamped his feet, he curled up in his throne and kicked his legs. He signed it, though, as his nasty and effeminate brother played with a ball-and-paddle game. Next we saw sedate Protestant joy at the Brown Eyes residence as she and Prosper Latour were betrothed. Ominous foreshadowings as the happy family snuffed their candles before retiring for the night, and Prosper walking back to his lodgings and noticing those groups of soldiers going around chalking X’s on the doors of the Protestants. Did he have a clue? Nope.
“In the Temple of Loooooove!” yodeled Einar, and we were back in Babylon again. Apparently an orgy was in progress. More harem hijinks, more voluptuaries rolling around in perfectly astonishing attitudes of invitation, more dancers on the grand stairway performing some kind of goose-stepping polka, another seminaked girl—
“Watch,” Einar announced. “Long-distance gynecology. You won’t see a shot like this one until Basic Instinct with Sharon Stone, 1992.”
“Dear Lord!” Oscar went into a coughing fit, his eyes bugging out of his head.
Juan Bautista blushed furiously. “Could they do that back then?” he asked.
Einar grinned. “No Hays Code yet, like I said.” Now we saw the Princess Beloved coyly sending a white rose in a little chariot drawn by two white doves across the banquet table to Belshazzar. But not everyone was celebrating: the evil High Priest and other objectionable members of the clergy climbed into their chariots and sneaked away to Cyrus’s camp. Not unobserved. The clever Mountain Girl stole a chariot to follow them, riding like the wind past the Three Fates and Lillian Gish, to—
New York? What were we doing in this cramped tenement, with the Musketeer of the Slums attempting to rape the Little Mother? The Boy burst in and struggled with the Musketeer, while the Friendless One clung precariously to the window ledge outside, trying to get a clear shot. Bang! Huge clouds of smoke, the Musketeer staggered into the corridor to die, the Friendless One dropped the gun into the room and took to her heels, and in no time at all the Boy was on trial for his life in a huge courtroom. The Prosecution was clever—you could tell, because he wore pince-nez—while the Defense Attorney was a stammering novice, so we weren’t left in much suspense about the outcome. Not so the Little Mother, who giggled encouragement across the courtroom at the Boy, at least until the brutal sentence was read, when she screamed and fainted. Somewhere in this scene we went to Jerusalem, briefly, where poor Jesus was struggling with his cross through the howling mob, and then we were back in the twentieth century again, where the Friendless One was trying to get up nerve to confess to her crime.
I had another martini, and it seemed to help. We went back to where Cyrus was greeting the High Priest and his cronies while the Mountain Girl listened in on the conspirators, but then we were interrupted by scenes of various efforts to save the Boy, and there were Model Ts racing back and forth, which inexplicably became chariots racing along the Euphrates, only Einar was explaining that it was really a slough down near Long Beach with some palm trees planted to make it look like the Euphrates, and there was Catherine de’ Medici again!
“What the hell is she doing here?” I heard Porfirio inquire, but it soon became obvious, because Brown Eyes and her family were having a Terrible Awakening as the Catholic forces battered down their door.
Were those automobiles coming to the Huguenots’ rescue? No, we were back in New York, and then we were racing along beside the Euphrates, and—hey! the Friendless One finally confessed! The Mountain Girl was racing ahead of the army advancing on poor Babylon, and the damn Cradle was rocking faster and faster. Two Model Ts chased each other, then it was a race car chasing a train, then the Boy was receiving last rites from a priest, then a priest was hiding a terrified Huguenot child under his cloak, then Belshazzar and the Princess Beloved were pitching woo all unmindful of the train bearing down on them or the Huguenots being slaughtered in the next room. Here came Jesus wearing a signboard, narrowly missed by the race car bearing the last-minute testimony that would reprieve the Boy, who was fainting in the priest’s arms, no doubt at the graphic rape and murder of Brown Eyes by that darned mercenary (“I knew he was gonna do that!” said Juan Bautista). Prosper could have saved her, but he couldn’t get through the crowds of soldiers massacring Protestants, and the same crowd was slowing down the Mountain Girl too, because it took her forever to make her way to Belshazzar’s party to let him know what was going on, by which time it was too late to save Brown Eyes, but at least the governor was willing to reprieve the Boy! And now it was the train racing to get to the prison before the execution, but Belshazzar could get only twelve men to help him defend Babylon, and the Princess Beloved couldn’t get anybody to go with her to the Death Halls of Allat. Oh hell, oh spite!
Prosper was killed, the Mountain Girl was killed, Belshazzar and the Princess Beloved killed themselves, and there was a close-up of the Mountain Girl lying killed, which irised out to show that the forlorn little doves had pulled the rose-chariot up to her lifeless body. Juan Bautista burst into tears, but Catherine de’ Medici was pleased with herself and so was Cyrus, who guffawed crudely right in the camera’s face, as meanwhile everybody piled out of the train and into another car, which raced on to save—gee, who else was left alive?
Not Jesus. A confusing mass with a lot of smoke resolved itself into Golgotha, with the three crosses dimly visible on a dark skyline. So the car raced on, but the Boy was already mounting the scaffold, they were binding his hands, they were binding his legs, they were putting the black hood on him, and men with razors were standing by to cut the cord that would drop the trap.
Would rescuers get there in time?
Surprise! They did. Dazed Boy being embraced by passionately twitching Little Mother. General expressions of joy and satisfaction. “Here comes the summation,” Einar told us.
WHEN CANNON AND PRISON BARS WROUGHT IN THE FIRES OF INTOLERANCE, read the titles, over scenes of battlefield and prison. A lot of angels appeared, dangling in a rather crowded sky, and all the fighting stopped.
AND PERFECT LOVE SHALL BRING PEACE FOREVERMORE. More people staring up in confusion at the angels.
INSTEAD OF PRISON WALLS, BLOOM FLOWERY FIELDS. A Scene showing convicts in their striped uniforms walking through the walls like ghosts and disappearing. Then an exterior shot of a prison doing a vanishing act too, leaving the Hollywood Hills in the distance. Now we saw little children disporting themselves at a church picnic. One bold toddler grabbed a tiny playmate and gave her a big kiss.
“If he tried that in the twenty-first century, he’d be arrested and put in therapy the rest of his life,” said Porfirio gloomily. I was waiting for a final title card that would finish Griffith’s sentence, but instead we saw a lot of people yelling glory hallelujah at the angels and then one last shot of Lillian Gish and her Cradle, endlessly, endlessly rocking.
White light, flickering on a blank screen.
Einar moaned, stretching sensually.
“So, what happened to the Baby?” Porfirio asked.
“What happened to the goddamn Rhapsode?” I asked.
Before either of our questions could be answered, Imarte leaped to her feet, scattering popcorn in all directions.
“I must go there,” she announced. “Now.”
“Where?” Oscar stared at her in bewilderment. We were bewildered too; there hadn’t been a peep out of her in the last few minutes, but now she turned on him with a snarl.
“I must go to Babylon!”
“Imarte, what’d you put in that rahat locum?” said Porfirio, but she pushed her chaplet of roses back from where it had slipped over one eye and fixed him with one of the scariest expressions I’d ever seen.