American Dreams (33 page)

'Huh?' Purvis reared back in time to avoid contact. Dumbfounded by her move, he hesitated just long enough for her to whip her foot up in a high kick that hit him where it mattered. He cursed, doubled over, clutching himself.

Kelly yelled at Ferguson, 'The camera!' Ferguson threw the tripod over his shoulder and dashed to the Ford. He shouted to Eddie to follow and crank the engine.

Eddie whirled the crank so hard, he could have broken his shoulder.

Purvis was still lurching around; she'd hit him harder than she knew.

Kelly jumped forward and pounded the back of his neck with both fists.

Purvis dropped to his knees.

Page 219

The Ford's engine caught. Eddie leaped back and the car careened down the street. Ferguson skidded left, around the corner of a general store out of sight. A plume of dust slowly settled. A couple of locals drawn by the gunshot gawked from a barn door a block away.

Buck stared at his tooth-marked wrist. 'You nigger bitch.' He hauled his arm back to smash Nell's face with the gun barrel. From behind, Fritzi grabbed the gun. Eddie ran up, snatched it from her, and bashed Buck on the head twice, then propelled him with a kick in the rear. Buck sprawled against the porch rail and slid off, out of action.

As Kelly ran to the rear of the Oldsmobile, the blade of a big pocket knife flashed.

By this time Purvis was upright again. His eyes were different now, savage as a tiger's as he yanked the silver pistol out of its harness. Eddie stepped up beside Fritzi, pointed Buck's revolver at the detective.

'Throw it down. If you don't I'll shoot.'

Fritzi assumed Eddie was as frightened as she was, but he was doing a magnificent job of concealing it. Glaring, Purvis dropped the pistol in the dirt. Kelly shouted, 'Everybody in the car.'

Owen Stallings and Sam Something and old Noble and the extras bumped each other like a pack of clowns to get to the StoddardDayton.

They were so comic, Fritzi thought there should be a camera running.

Eddie grasped her elbow to move her along. Passing Purvis, she had a brief terrifying look into his eyes.

'You did this, girlie. You'll pay for it.'

204

Pictures

'Shut up, you thug,' Eddie said as they ran.

Kelly jumped in the car; Eddie spun the crank. Four spins and the engine started. Eddie took the passenger seat with Fritzi on his lap. Sam Something, Owen, and one of the extras jammed the backseat. Nell hung on the left running board, Noble and the other extra on the right one. The Stoddard sagged and responded sluggishly as Kelly wheeled it into a turn.

Fritzi heard scraping noises, and hoped they didn't peel the bottom off the car.

They passed Purvis beating his sombrero against his leg and kicking the Oldsmobile's left rear tire, deflated to match the one on the right. Fritzi understood the pocket knife. Through the choking dust Kelly yelled, 'Get a horse, Pearly.' He whinnied. Purvis fired a shot at them. Sam Something
Page 220

squealed as the bullet pinged off the rear bumper.

Fritzi bounced up and down on Eddie's lap, her heart pounding, her blond hair flying. Suddenly she cried, 'The carpenter'

'Oh, God, that's right, Bill's waiting in the woods,' Eddie said.

'Forget him,' Kelly said. 'He'll find his way home.'

After a mile Kelly stopped, said to the extras, 'You two get out. Take off those clothes and throw them in the car.' When they complied Kelly paid them from a wad rolled up in a rubber band. As the Stoddard puttered off, they stood on the shoulder in their underwear, forlorn.

Stardom had been snatched from them by fate in the person of Earl Purvis.

39 Onward, If Not Exactly Upward

They finished The Lone, Indian's Gold in two days in the country near Mamaroneck. No one troubled them. Presumably the Patents Company hadn't yet recruited a snitch corps in Westchester.

Bill Nix, the carpenter-prop man, wasn't with them. The day after Purvis's attack, he had gone to Kelly to protest his abandonment. Words grew hot. Never long on patience, Kelly fired him. 'No loss,' Eddie said.

After the excitement in Coytesville, filming was uneventful, in fact dull.

Eddie, who had praised her profusely for protecting the camera, invited Onward, If Not Exactly Upward

205

Fritzi to join Owen in the projection room of the K&T exchange to see the results - a thousand feet of film assembled into a coherent fifteen-minute story.

The room was cramped, just a few straight chairs, a screen, and a pervasive smell of overflowing spittoons. Eddie introduced Fritzi to the other partner, B. B. Pelzer. ('People call him Benny, but never to his face,' Eddie had warned ahead of time.) B.B. was a short, round man with a lot of curly gray hair and a warm, paternal manner. He grabbed Fritzi's hand between his, like a fish he was buying at market.

'Pleased to meet you, you're working with a fine boy' He gave her hand a vigorous shake before sitting down. He rested his elbow on a small table
Page 221

and put his hand to his head, as though worrying over what he was about to see. Fritzi shared the feeling. To watch herself act would be a new experience.

Kelly slipped into the last row, saying nothing. Eddie said, 'Okay, Hap.'

The operator, as he was called, switched off the lights.

A girl seated next to Eddie said, 'I spliced some extra footage on the end.

I think you'll enjoy it.' Eddie didn't object. The girl seemed extraordinarily young, like the whole industry.

Hap turned on the clattery projector. The moment Fritzi saw herself she let out a nervous giggle. She was mortified by her big feet, her angular elbows, her flying hair. Her movements were jerky, her emoting more like scenery chewing. She could hardly stand it. She covered her face and peeked through her fingers.

Of course, the rest of the cast gave similar exaggerated performances; the style suited the melodramatic plot. Owen seemed taken with his acting, beaming at his image and at one point saying loudly, 'Oh,' that's rather good.'

Eddie watched attentively, making occasional comments to the girl.

Fritzi had quickly developed respect for Eddie. He had a clear sense of purpose. He knew he wasn't putting Hamlet or An Enemy of the People on film, but he'd worked energetically and thoughtfully to make his little picture fast-paced and suspenseful.

Fritzi noticed something she'd missed before. On the porch of Rambo's Hotel, someone had placed a wooden plaque bearing the company's racing pony symbol. Very peculiar.

Fifteen minutes seemed like fifteen hours as she sat squirming in the dark. At the fade-out she risked a quick look at Kelly. He had the same dyspeptic sneer she'd noticed when he came in.

206

Pictures

Abruptly, a new scene appeared - the shot in which she had rushed out the door and fallen. Horrified, she watched herself adjust in midair and finish with the somersault. All of them laughed, even Kelly.

As Hap put the lights on, Eddie patted her arm. 'You're quite a comedienne.'

'Not

intentionally.'

'Ought to be some way we can use it.' Let's hope not.

Kelly rose, said, 'Okay,' and walked out. Why such a sour man was in
Page 222

the entertainment business she couldn't imagine. B. B. Pelzer rushed up to her and again made a sandwich of their hands.

'Say, Eddie's right, you're a sketch. 1 liked you in the picture. Talented little gel. Like to see more of you at Pal.'

She asked Eddie about the partners. He said Pelzer had been an optician in Hoboken before he got interested in pictures. He and his brother-in-law, a salesman in New York's garment district, had started Pal. Within a year Kelly had bought out the brother-in-law's interest. The company was organized with a hundred shares of stock. B.B. and his wife, Sophie, controlled fifty-two percent.

Kelly had once owned livery stables but foresaw dwindling profits and eventual insolvency when autos came in. He switched to manufacturing stereopticons, with a subsidiary to supply the picture cards. That parlor craze waned when nickelodeons proliferated, so Kelly changed trades again.

'Kelly is the cross we bear. Benny's the other way. Generous to a fault.

Drives Kelly crazy.'

Pal Pictures ground out a minimum of two one-reelers every week, plus an occasional reel split between two playlets, one a comedy, the other a drama; split reels were popular. Pal's production quality was uneven. In moments of gloom Eddie called the pictures sausages. 'And not very good sausages, at that.'

The board displaying the Pal pony appeared at least once in each picture. 'Lot of thievery in this business,' Eddie explained. 'Crooked ni'ckelodeon owners, sometimes crooks in an exchange. They strike a print and sell the picture as their own. Companies protect themselves by including their identifying marks.'

Thanks to B.B.'s enthusiasm and Kelly's endorsement after the Coytesvillc trouble, Fritzi worked fairly regularly during the following Onward, If Not Exactly Upward

207

winter and spring. Always wary of the detectives, they filmed in rented lofts in Manhattan and Brooklyn. For exteriors they went back to Mamaroneck, or out to rural Long Island. Some days they didn't start until mid-morning because of the secrecy with which the camera was moved. Fritzi never learned where Ferguson concealed it at night.

After she'd done several small parts, Eddie chose her for the leading role in Daring Daisy, in which she played a clever private investigator. In one scene Daisy was supposed to pursue the villain into a restaurant kitchen.

Page 223

Eddie produced a large plaster of Paris ham and improvised a wild chase around a chopping block, action not written in the scenario. When a pistol went off with a puff of smoke, the startled chef swung around suddenly and nearly brained Fritzi with the ham. Following Eddie's direction, she ducked and dropped, doing a full split. The result was approving laughter in the screening room. She understood why he'd insisted she wear riding breeches that day.

<

Eddie and B.B. were so delighted with the picture, they concocted a flat-out farce called Something Fishy. Playing a pet shop clerk, Fritzi was tossed into a tank of water and slapped in the face with a large cod. She worked without complaint but told Eddie afterward that she didn't care to repeat the experience.

Yet there was more to come. The Lone Indian's Gold had produced higher than usual rentals across the country, so Eddie concocted more offerings in the series. Late spring saw completion of The Lone Indian's Courage. They next returned to Westchester for The Lone Indian's Battle, in which Fritzi rode for the first time. The White Plains stable owner who rented horses showed her how to mount bareback by jumping and throwing a leg over, like a Plains Indian. He taught her to vault up over the horse's tail. She fell three times but succeeded on.the fourth attempt.

Eddie asked her to do it again, but fall off, while a bad man menaced her with twin revolvers. 'Land on your derriere, jump up, and cross your eyes. He's stupefied. That gives Owen time to disarm him and punch the stuffing out of him.'

'Oh, Eddie, no. It's low comedy'

'Low comedy's very respectable. Shakespeare uses it all the time. Bring on a clown right before the bloody climax, it breaks the tension and the climax hits twice as hard. Trust me.'

So the bit went into the picture. Fritzi did it with maximum energy, and sat on a pillow all evening.

208

Pictures

Reasonably steady work allowed her to spend $14.95 on something she'd wanted for a long time, a talking machine with a handsome golden oak cabinet and beautifully sculpted flower horn. It played flat discs rather than the older wax cylinders. She splurged for a half dozen twenty-cent records featuring anonymous vocalists performing with tinny orchestras.

Her favorite of favorites was 'A Girl in Central Park,' a new hit composed by Paul's friend Harry Poland. The song came from a Broadway revue called Girls Galore. After a long day's work she would slip off her shoes, roll down her stockings, put the disc on the turntable, crank up the machine, lower the needle, and listen to the soulful tenor.

Page 224

i met a girl in Central Park,

Fair as the morning's fair--'

The song was beautiful but melancholy; the anonymous gentleman never saw the girl again. By the second playing her eyes misted. The seventh or eighth time through, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

40 New York Music

Harry Poland loved his adopted language. He knew it wasn't correct to call it American, but he did so anyway. He thought of American speech as a giant tray of luscious appetizers, each with a special flavor suited to a special moment. A smart and tasty word he relished was spiffy.

He liked to wear spiffy clothes, and was beginning to be able to afford it.

If not yet a byword in Muncie or Boise, the hinterlands, the name Harry Poland was well recognized in the tight little community of New York music publishing.

On a day in the spring of 1910 when Fritzi was making one of her first pictures, he took care to look spiffy for an afternoon visit with his wife. He chose a three-piece single-breasted suit of English cut, narrow trousers with a sharp crease, a blue-striped white shirt with wing collar, a blue tie, a rakish bowler hat, gray spats, and a walking cane.

His destination was the suburban village of Rye, in particular one of its shady streets between the Boston Post Road and Long Island Sound. He New York Music

209

parked his Model T, black and brand-new, in a gravel area in front of the rest home.

Never did he feel chipper in this sad and sterile place where the old and infirm sat in their chairs and murmured to invisible listeners. But he refused to let it show. As he strode up the walk, a tall and vibrant man of thirty, he looked successful and happy.

The April afternoon brought a gentle, warm breeze off the Sound. An attendant wheeled Flavia outdoors, and Harry sat with her under a budding sycamore tree, holding her hand while she stared vacantly into his eyes, groping for his identity. Flavia's hair was thin, spiky, and white. At her doctor's urging Harry had moved her to the home during the winter.