Chapter 2
How to make movies
David, Ali's love, wanted to come over and join us: he had not seen Alicia for many months now and the pair couldn't live so long apart. We all feared Dave would take Ali away from us and ruin the act, but it was plain to see she had no intention of quitting music or the stage no matter what. However, her strong resolution was easy while she was alone; we were not quite sure she'd feel the same way once she was married and started having children.
Nevertheless, Dave insisted to meet us in California, since he had to go anyway to attend to a little business. He could not meet us earlier than that since the group followed a different route across the country than the one he took, tracing the south border. We were all very excited about reaching California, especially Lisett, since her dear grandmother lived there at the time.
However, California was still far ahead in our schedule and Ali grew restless waiting to see her loved one again. In fact, she had been so affected by this separation that her songs now were melancholic and cloying; we even began to fear our public would not like our new music, and it was hard for me to get any comedy out of such sad tunes.
But the music was the last thing to worry about at the time. Our first big concern was Lisett. In the West a girl like her got quite a reputation fast and her attitude threatened to give us all a bad name. She had to stop flirting when we started to get bothered by men at the entrance of the theatre and followed around the city to our hotel. I told her straight out that I didn't want to get into serious trouble and even she got worried when one of her dates needed a few punches on the nose to get the hint when she said "no" (a word she seldom employed, it's true, but when she said it she did mean that and was no fun to see a dork insisting)
For a while we had to keep away from men of all sorts as we realised they had very opinionated ideas about women.
So, having Ali sighing on the window for her beau from dawn to dusk, and Lisett dateless for the first time in her life, the atmosphere in our gang was far from cheerful. And me, Lilly Haley, still thinking of Bobby.
Every city we visited was dull and boring for us: we were all in a terrible mood, anxious, depressed, uninspired...
We continued our tour, feeling rather unhappy with the business of looking cute and smiley every night when we were feeling so tired of everything; but, at the same time, cheerful at the prospect of meeting old friends in California at the end of our journey. Even if we would not stay long before we started our tour East, back to New York again, but at least our schedule in Los Angeles was not so tight so we could take a few days off -and, indeed, we needed them.
I was really trying to enjoy the trip, but it was quite uneventful. Besides performing and rehearsing nothing ever happened and I did nothing interesting. Also, Los Angeles was not a very lovely place in those days. Hot and boring. All my distractions were walking a bit for site see when we arrived, going to cafés for ice cream or a drink with the girls sometimes at nights after our act, or see a flicker at some local theatre: the same things I did in all the other cities we visited.
By some strange reason I still can't explain, I developed a steady and very slight enthusiasm about flickers. I still didn't actually like them but it was a good way to waste a few minutes when I had nothing else to do. And the ticket was cheap, so why not?
And, oh, yes, the Blue Terror was still mischievous and working! And now that the actors had no idea I was sabotaging their art it was easier to work on my humour. I had to back off on that diversion however, one day that I chanced to be picking on a Keystone extravaganza with some of my best wit... and somebody started throwing popcorn at me from behind.
And as I carried on with my jokes, and the audience continued to laugh at them, the popcorn rain became a furious storm until I got the hint and had to leave the room, brushing the snacks off of my hat, hair and dress. I assumed the author of that attack had been a very loyal fan, but no! Actually it had been the doing of the very star of the picture! And once I stepped out into the daylight she chased me from the theatre daring me to pick on her face to face.
Fortunately she was only kidding, so we ended up shaking hands without tearing each others eyes. But she suggested that I could invest my time in something more productive than sabotaging her movies and she invited me to pay a visit to the studio and get a closer view of how they were made.
I wasn't mad about movies, and scarcely interested in learning the "tricks" of production, but any new distraction would be welcome.
My new acquaintance, Mabel Normand, seemed to be the undisputed female star of all the Keystone comedies, and the queen of comedy films in general. I always thought she had a real talent and I still think the movies didn't let her display her personality properly: the Keystone films were in those days, insipid and chaotic, funny, sometimes, but not real comedy, from my point of view.
The plot did spin around sheer anarchy: chases, kicks, strikes and fights was pretty much the centre of the story. The pantomime was exaggerated and often unnecessary, the situations were not very original and all the actors spent their time just making faces in front of the camera. In short: my opinion of the film comedies was rather cold.
Anyway, it was interesting to take a peek at the way they were made so I was looking forward to visit the studio. It wasn't easy to find though: I had to ask a lot of passers-by after I got off the tram.
Even after that experience I still didn't think much of movies. It was a brand new modern technology, but I considered it far from qualifying as art. They didn't even bother designing, writing or rehearsing anything! Basically it was just the director gathering the actors around the set and telling the camera when to roll and when to stop, and the actors actually improvised hoping to get something funny... It didn't look like serious work to me, but everyone else in that place was very concentrated.
It only gave me the impression that making movies was far too easy.
To try a new comic outfit, the "stars" simply put on whatever they had handy in the dressing room, combining it in the most absurd way, and ran around the stage to see if they got a laugh from the rest of the gang. Nothing was planned or studied: everyone just trusted their instinct; the way they worked at the studio was exactly like the result on the screen: anarchy.
Mabel showed me around the studio and introduced me to Mr. Sennett, ("Nappie" as she called him, since he liked her to call him Napoleon, but she deliberately made him mad) who was getting ready to start a new movie that day. I only exchanged a few words with him and he sent Mabel to get ready, while they waited for the "Limey" (a new English bloke they had just hired) to get changed.
I stayed out of their way while the assistants prepared the set and camera. They didn't have much to do with the lights, since the studio was open and they photographed all in daylight, using a big sort of canvas to diffuse the sun.
I sat near the camera to witness the shooting, now that my interest was growing a bit. The actors eventually came to the set, including the "Limey" fellow who got quite a laugh from Sennett and the others, walking around like a penguin, twirling his cane and showing off his new costume; the most ridiculous thing ever put together: big baggy pants, long shoes and a small derby.
Surrounded by all these people in strange clothing and overdone movements, funny walks and twisted faces I felt as if I was in another dimension, in another planet; for a minute I almost lost the sense of reality. The Blue Terror was perfectly silent this time: I remembered from Mabel's popcorn attack that movie artists were quite touchy about their work so I held in my critics.
Anyway, the penguin-walking fellow kept us all laughing during the scene. I noticed he was quite different from the other comics. Most of Sennett's guys mainly imitated the style of other former famous Keystone stars; it was obvious that this English lad was new in the gang: he didn't seem to fit in that fashion. Though I must say I liked his style better; and so did the extras, as they were all giggling and repeating "Crazy Chas" shaking their heads as they arranged things here and there after the take was over and the crowd dispersed.
"Crazy Chas" was off to the dressing room right away so I didn't get to meet him personally but I had a quick introduction with other of the actors like Ford Sterling, and even the "Fatty" guy that happened to be there too. I shook hands with the camera man that told me a bit about the way the movies worked and how they got the images printed on the film (like I understood much of that technical lesson!). And then I thought it was time for me to take myself away from the set. I had to make the rehearsal for the night show and still felt "on the way" in that place where everybody seemed so very busy.
I invited them all to see our number that night, and I suppose they probably went, but I didn't have time to stay after the show and greet them, since we were all so tired that the girls wanted to get back to the hotel and straight to bed right away since we had to rehearse new numbers the next morning. Anyway, if any of the Keystone staff attended to our act they might not have known me on the stage that night: we were playing a "Greek" number and I played a muse with a mask make-up: a lot of white powder and big painted eyes, that really changed my face into a doll-look.
And since the experiment had been successful in that first try we decided to spice up our number with a little bit of theatrical nonsense in every song. So after that, we introduced costumes, make up and different characters for each song, and modified our dance routines to suit the new personalities we represented.
So now that we were ready to start the tour once again, we had enough work practising in the train as we headed for our first stop on the "way back", which was San Francisco, where David was waiting to join us. Kit was madly excited, but the others became rather sad: we had reached the end of the tour and now we were going back. We had no idea what would happen when we got to New York again. Our director had not written to us about any new contracts and we had no idea what would happen when the tour was over.
However that was still a long way ahead. There were still several months left before that happened, so many things could take place during that time.
