CHAPTER SEVEN
BENTLY BROWN DOES NOT APPRECIATE COMEDY
Luck unhooked his hat from his knee, brought his laughing jaws togetherwith that eloquent, downward tilt to the corners of his mouth, sat upstraight, considered swiftly the possibilities of the next half hour, andpaid tribute in one expressive word of four letters before he wentcrawling over half a dozen pairs of knees to do battle for his picture.His picture, you understand. For since he had made it irresistible comedyinstead of very mediocre drama, he felt all the pride of creation in hiswork. That was his picture that had set the Acme people laughing,--theywho had come to carp and to talk knowingly of continuity and of techniqueand dramatic values, and to criticize everything from the sets to thephotography. It was his picture; he had made it what it was. So he wentas a champion rather than as a culprit to face the powers above him.
Martinson and Bently Brown were waiting for him near the door. They werenot going to stay and see the next picture run, and that, in Luck'sopinion, was a bad-weather sign. But he came up to them cheerfully,turning his hat in his fingers to find the front of it before he set iton his head. (These limp, wool, knockabout hats are always more or lessconfusing, and Luck was fastidious about his apparel.)
"Ah--Mr. Brown, this is Mr. Lindsay, ah--director who is producing yourstories." Martinson's tone was as neutral as he could make it.
Luck said that he was glad to meet Mr. Brown, which was a lie. At thesame instant he found the stitched-down bow on his hat, and from therefelt his way to the front. At the same time he decided that there wasgoing to be something doing presently, if Mart's manner meant anything atall. Mart was a peaceable soul, and in the approaching crisis Luck knewhe would climb hurriedly upon the fence of neutrality and stay there; andLuck could fight or climb a tree as he chose.
They went outside, and Luck turned his eyes sidewise and took a look atBently Brown. He measured him mentally from pigskin puttees to rakish,stiff brimmed Stetson with careful dimples in the crown and a leatherhatband stamped with horses' heads and his initials. In a picture, Luckwould have cast Bently Brown, costume and all, for a comedy miningengineer or something of that sort. You know the type: He arrives on thestage that is held up, and is always in the employ of the monied octopus,and the cowboys who pursue and capture the bandits have fun afterwardswith the engineer,--so much fun that he crawls out of an up-stairs windowin the night and departs hastily and forever from that place. You areperfectly familiar with the character, I am sure.
Luck, after that swift, comprehensive glance, was not greatly alarmed. Inthat he made his greatest blunder. He should have reckoned with thewounded vanity of the little author who believes himself great. He shouldhave reminded himself that Bently Brown was not a comedy mining engineer,but that touchiest of all mortals, the nearly successful author. Heshould have taken warning from the stiff-necked, stiff-backed gait ofBently Brown on the short walk to the office. He should have read dangerin the blinking lids of his pale eyes, and in his self-conscious mannerof looking straight before him.
In the office, then, luck basely deserted one Luck Lindsay, and left himto fight a losing battle. For Bently Brown was incensed, insulted, andoutraged over the manner in which _The Soul of Littlefoot Law_ had beenfilmed. The story had been caricatured out of all semblance to itsoriginal self. Littlefoot Law had been shown as having no soul whatever.Instead of being permitted to make the final, supreme sacrifice of hislife for the honor of his enemy,--which would have revealed to theaudience his possession of a clean white soul in spite of his badcharacter,--he had been made out a little fiend who would shoot you onthe slightest provocation. The girl had been thrust into the background,and the hero had been made into a coward and a paltry villain; they wereall desperadoes upon the screen. Never in his life had Bently Brown beenmade to suffer such an affront. Never had he dreamed that his work wouldbe made a thing to laugh at--
"They certainly did laugh," Luck lazily interrupted. "And believe me, Mr.Brown, it takes real stuff to collect a laugh out of that bunch. It willbe a riot with the public; you can bank on that. By the time I get a fewmore made and released, you can expect to see your name in the paperswithout paying advertising rates." Whatever possessed Luck to talk thatway to Bently Brown, I cannot say. He surely must have seen that thelittle, over-costumed author was choking with spleen.
"It was a farce!" The small, yellow mustache of Bently Brown wastwitching comically with the tremble of his lips beneath. "A bald,unmitigated farce!"
"Surest thing you know," Luck agreed, with that little chuckle of his."At first I was afraid the crowd wouldn't get it; I didn't know but theymight try to take it seriously. Now, I know for certain that it will getover. It will be the cleanest, funniest, farce-comedy series that hasever been filmed." Luck sat up straight and pulled a cigar from hispocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. "Say, those boys of mine arecertainly real ones! I wouldn't trade that bunch for the highest-salariedactors you could hand me. Do you know what made that picture such ascream? It was because there wasn't a bit of made-to-order comedybusiness in the whole film. Those boys didn't think about acting funnyjust to make folks laugh. They were so doggoned busy having fun with thestory and showing up its weak points that they forgot to beself-conscious. If I'd had a regular comedy company working on it,believe me, Mr. Brown, it might have turned out almost as rotten a farceas it would be as a drama!"
Had Bently Brown owned under his pink skin any of the primitive instinctswhich he was so fond of portraying in his characters, he would havekilled Luck without any further argument or delay.
Instead of that he spluttered and stormed like a scolding woman. Helifted first one puttee and then the other, and he shook his fist, andhe nodded his head violently, and finally was constrained to lift theleather-banded Stetson from his blond hair and wipe the perspirationfrom his brow with a lavender initialed handkerchief. He said a greatdeal in a very few minutes, but it was too involved, too incoherent tobe repeated here. Luck gathered, however, that he meant to sue the AcmeCompany for about nine million dollars damages to his feelings and hisreputation, if _The Soul of Littlefoot Law_ was released in its presentform. He battered at Luck's grinning composure with his full supply ofinvectives. When he perceived that Luck's eyes twinkled more and morewhile they watched him, and that Luck's smile was threatening toexplode into laughter, Bently Brown shook his fist at the two of them,shrilled something about seeing his lawyer at once, and went out andslammed the door.
"Lor-dee! He'd make a hit in comedy, that fellow," Luck observedplacidly, and lighted the cigar he had been holding. "What's he mean--'sue the company'?"
"He means sue the company," Martinson retorted grimly. "That clause inthe contract where we agree to produce his stories in a manner befittingthe quality and fame of these several stories in fiction; he's gotgrounds for action there, and he's going to make the most of it. He'ssore, anyway. Some one's been telling him he practically made us apresent of his stuff."
"Hell!" said Luck. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Why didn't you say that you were turning that stuff into farce-comedy?"Martinson came back sharply. "I could have told you it wouldn't get by. Iknew Brown wouldn't stand for anything like that; and I knew he could putthe gaff into us on that 'manner befitting' clause."
"It's a wonder you wouldn't have jarred loose from some of that wisdom,"Luck observed tartly. "You never gave me any dope at all on this BentlyBrown person. You handed me the junk he stung you on--and believe me, asdrama he'd have stung you with it as a present!--you handed it to me tofilm. I made the most of it."
"You made a mess of it," Martinson corrected peevishly.
"You laughed," Luck pointed out laconically. Then his eyes twinkledsuddenly. "'Laugh and the world laughs with you,'" he quoted shamelessly,and took a long, satisfying suck at his cigar.
"The world won't step up and pay damages to Bently Brown," Martinsonreminded him, "if that picture is released as it stands. How many haveyou made, so far?"
"I'm finishing
the third; getting funnier, too, as they go along."
"You've got to cut out that funny business. You'll have to retake thiswhole thing, Luck; make it straight drama. We can't afford a lawsuit,these hard times--and injunctions tying up the releases, and damages topay when the thing's thrashed out in court. You'll have to retake thiswhole picture. Nice bunch of useless expense, I must say, when I'vebeen chasing nickels off the expense account of this company andsitting up nights nursing profits! We'll have to cut salaries now, tobreak even on this fluke. I've left the payroll alone so far. That'sthe worst of a break like this. The whole company has got to pay forevery blunder from now on."
Luck's eyes hardened while he listened. He did not call his work ablunder, and the charge did not sit well coming from another.
"Buy off Bently Brown," he advised crisply. "Offer him a new contract,naming this stuff as comedy. Advertise them as the famous comedies ofBently Brown, the well-known author. Show him some good publicity dopealong that line. Give him the credit of making the stories live ones.This series will be a money-maker, and a big one, if ever they reach thescreen. You're old enough in the business to know that, Mart. You saw howthis film hit the bunch, and you know what it takes to rouse anyenthusiasm in the projection room. And take it from me, Mart--this isstraight!--that's the only way in God's world to make that series takehold at all. As drama the stuff is hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. It'sonly by giving it the twist I gave it that it will get over. You do that,Mart. You kid this Bently Brown into being featured as the humorist ofthe age, and pay him a little something for swallowing his disappointmentas a dramatic author. I'll go ahead with my boys, and we'll deliver thegoods. You do that, and you'll be setting up nights counting profitsinstead of nursing them!"
Martinson began to stir up the litter on his desk,--another bad-weathersign. "I can't waste time talking nonsense," he snapped. "I've got plentyto do without that. That stuff has got to be retaken; every foot of it,if you've gone on burlesquing the action. I happen to know that Brownwouldn't consider such a compromise. You've made a bad break, and Ibelieve you made the first one when you brought that bunch of cowboysback with you. If they can do straight dramatic acting, all right; ifnot, you'd better let them out and start over with professionals."
For a peaceable man, Martinson was angry. He had taken some trouble insmoothing down the ruffled temper of Bently Brown, even before viewingthe trial run of the picture. Martinson hated disputes as a cat hates towalk in fresh-fallen snow, and the parting tirade of Bently Brown hadaffected him unpleasantly.
For a full two minutes Luck smoked and did not speak, and as he had doneonce before, Martinson repented his harshness when it was too late."Personally, your version struck me as awfully funny," he beganplacatingly.
"Who gives a cuss how it struck you personally?" Luck stood up withunexpected haste. "You trim and truckle to every one that comes alongwith a gold brick, and that's why you have to sit up nights to nurse theprofits. If you had a little stiffening in your back, the profits wouldshow up better. You paid good money for this bunch of rot, and turned itover to me to whip into a profitable investment. You can make the roundsof the studio and get a vote on whether I've done it or not. Put it up toyour Public; they'll mighty soon let you know whether the film's amoney-getter. If it is, your business as general manager and president ofthe Acme Film Company is to get Bently Brown in line for the productionto go on. A clause such as you mention in the agreement with him shows abigger blunder on your part than anything I've done or ever will do. Ifyou'd had as much sense as Ted, you'd have kept that clause out. If you'dhad half as much brains as the comedy burro out in the corral you'd neverhave loaded up with that stuff, anyway; you'd have seen at a glance thatit was rotten.
"Now, I've shown what I can do with those stories. I've taken your badbargain and put it into a money-making shape. As to the break I made ingetting those boys out here, you'll have to show me--that's all. Theyseem, to have made good all right, judging from the way that film tookwith the crowd. And if you ask my opinion as a director, they beat anynear-professional on the Acme pay roll. My work, and their work, goesright along as it has started--or it stops. If you want those storiesworked up in a lot of darned, sickly, slush melodrama, you can set somesimp at it that don't know any better." Luck stopped and shut his teethtogether against some personal remarks that he would later feel ashamedof having uttered. He turned to the door, swallowed hard, and forcedhimself to a dignified calm before he spoke again.
"You know my phone number, Mart. By seven in the morning I'll expect tohear from you. You can tell me then whether I'm to go ahead with thesestories the way I've started, or whether to pull out of the Companyaltogether. One or the other. I'll want to know in the morning." Thenhe went out.
"Dammit, who's running this company--you or I?" Martinson calledafter him heatedly. But Luck was already standing on the steps andhoisting his umbrella against the drizzle, and he did not give anysign that he heard.