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Page 75
"If you will pardon me, MISS Faye," she cried out in a voice
which carried over to us and with cutting accent upon the "Miss,"
"I think that in this scene at least we should BOTH be facing the
camera. If I understand the scene in the script at all it is
intended to show the conflict between the two women over the one
man seated between them. Jack Daring is to be swayed first by
Stella Remsen, then by Zelda. At least this once I think the
daughter of old Remsen and his ward are playing roles of equal
importance."
For a moment I smiled, realizing that Marilyn was not going to
let Enid "take the picture away" from her as we had seen the new
star do in one of her first scenes with the leading man. Then I
sobered, realizing that it was the outer reflection of the deep-
running passion of these people. The cloud of Stella's death was
over them still.
Enid responded, but in tones too low for us to hear. A new flush
of red in Marilyn's face, however, demonstrated the power in the
lash of the other girl's tongue. Werner hurried over to them, not
masking his own irritation any too well. Without a word he began
rearranging the table, moving it slightly so that while there was
no great difference in its position he had yet made a show of
satisfying Marilyn. In effect he pleased neither. The two pretty
faces closest to the camera were a study in discontent.
"I don't wonder that moving-picture directors are nervous,"
Kennedy remarked. "Film manufacture must keep everyone under
constant tension."
"What do you make of the feeling between the different people?" I
asked. "Did you notice Millard and Gordon, and now Enid and
Marilyn?"
"There's something under cover," he rejoined; "something behind
all this. I get the impression that our suspects are watching one
another, like as many hawks. At various times most of them have
glanced over at us. They know we are here and are conscious they
may be under suspicion. Therefore I particularly want to see how
those two girls act when Mackay arrives to arrest Werner."
The director, stepping back to his place, took a megaphone from
his assistant for use in the rehearsal.
"Now you must act just as though this were a real banquet," he
shouted. "Try to forget that the Black Terror is lurking outside
the window, that an attack is coming from him. Remember, when the
shot is fired you must all leap up as though you meant it. Here!
You--you--you--" designating certain extra girls, "faint when it
happens. That's not until after the toast is proposed. I'll
propose the toast from my table and it will be the cue for
Shirley, outside. Now don't get ahead of the action. You
amateurs, don't turn around to see if the camera is working.
We'll go through the action up to the moment I propose the
toast." The buzz of conversation rose slightly as though an
effort was being put into the gayety. I glanced about at some of
the people who were cast for only this one scene, wishing I could
read lips, because I was sure many of them talked of matters
wholly out of place in this setting. At the same time I kept an
eye on the principals and upon Werner.
Finally the director was satisfied, after a second rehearsal.
"All right," he bellowed, throwing the megaphone from the scene.
"Shoot!"
At the same instant he dropped to his place and apparently was a
guest with no interest but in the food and wine before him.
At the cameras-there were three of them-the assistant director
kept a careful watch of the general action. In actual time by the
watch the whole was very short, a second measuring to sixteen
pictures or a foot of film as I explained afterward to Kennedy.
The entire scene perhaps ran one hundred or one hundred and fifty
feet.
But on the screen, even to the spectators in the studio, the
illusion in a scene of the kind would be the duration of half an
hour or even more. This would be helped by close-ups of the
individual action, especially by the byplay between the
principals, taken later and inserted into the long shot by the
film cutter.
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