 |
Back
to Motion Picture Autobiographies
Case
6: The Effects the Movies Have Had on Me
"Wendell,
c'mon out to the show and see Charlie Chaplin." That little request heralded
my movie experiences. I obtained the consent of the parents and the necessary
dime or nickel and started to see a movie for the first time. The feature was
a north woods picture of logs, bad men and women, a beautiful innocent girl
and a dashing just - in - time hero. He coupled a superhuman strength, used
to advantage against the villains, with a human kindness and love towards the
girl. Young and impressionable, I entered into the spirit of the picture. I
cheered the hero and hissed the villain and wept with the heroine. In fact I
wept so hard that I beat it for home and mother. My tender nature couldn't see
these hardened crooks lock up such a sweet young thing and beat her at every
turn. I forgot all about Charlie Chaplin and his part of the picture and made
a vow that if movies were like that it would be a long time before I would see
another. I worried about the cruelty of these heartless loggers for days and
days and fretted to think that such acts could go unpunished. If I had stayed
until the end of the picture I would probably have seen the situations cleared
up and everybody the receiver of his or her just desserts. My introduction to
the movies was far from the rosy reception I had expected. I got off to a bad
start.
I
feel sure that I must have gone to the movies after that I have forgotten and
the past is rather vague for some time. I remember being attracted by the title
of "Little Women" [1919] - I thought it would be a picture of pygmies or fairies
at least and was quite disappointed to find that it was only a story of ordinary
people. I didn't enjoy the show at all for it was way beyond my years. I again
had a reversion and wondered how people could spend their money so freely on
such trash.
The
next few years were a little more fortunate in their effects on me. I got my
first taste of a real thriller. The cowboy hero rode a horse with the ease of
the saddle and did unheard of things in escaping the claws of the desperado
band. He received only a few beatings this time and I stayed to see him pay
them back three fold after a desperate hand to hand fight with the main villain.
I felt a little better. I enjoyed his calm braggadocio, his easy handling of
his six - shooters. I believe that was my first introduction to firearms. I
had always played with a bow and arrow and had a vague unanswered urge in my
being. The sight of the guns aroused that slumbering emotion and gave voice
to another desire. I thrilled to see them shoot the spots out of playing cards
and light their trusty partners' cigarettes with their guns. I began then and
there a continuous playing of questions about guns and a ceaseless crying after
a gun of my own. At the age of eight or nine I was the proud possessor of a
BB gun. I did as many tricks with that gun as accuracy would permit and with
a maximum of practice and a minimum of training I got so that I could hit the
target fairly often. Of course the target was large and close but that didn't
take away from the feeling of pride and mannishness that those few bulls eyes
created. I was on the road to bigger and better things. I have never gotten
over my desires for firearms and I feel that it was due a great deal to the
influence of the movies that I became so rabid on the question of guns. I still
have a gun, a little higher powered than the old BB, and 1 still take pride
in hitting the bulls eyes. A little smaller and a little farther away. The feeling
of latent power in a gun is a thrill that I shall always experience when I pick
up a good gun. I might have had that feeling without the effect of the movies,
but I'm not sure. I have enjoyed a gun and whether it is a good effect or not
I can't say either. I have never hurt anybody and I have developed an appreciation
of wild life that I might never have noticed without those hunting experiences.
Hand
in hand with the cowboy thriller went the serial. They always left the hero
in an impossible situation that kept me worrying all week and coming back to
see ended. I was a whole hearted sucker and came to see the story to a finish.
A long story of a pirate treasure that had been buried, mapped and left on a
desert island, drew me. The map was cut into six pieces and divided among the
members of the crew so that no one member could get it without sharing with
the rest. Scarface Bender was the crook and his attempts to get the other five
pieces of the map formed the basis of the plot. Acting against him was William
Duncan who had come in from the outside to help the girl whose father had been
killed by Scarface in an attempt to get his piece of the map. It ran along in
a very interesting fashion and left the girl being burned at the stake, under
a falling rock, in a closed room with a time bomb, or some similar impossible
situation that kept my inquiring mind busy all week trying to solve. I followed
the adventures of Pearl White in a thriller just as long and just as impossible,
Ruth Roland in "The Adventures of Ruth" [ r 9 r 9] kept me in suspense for a
whole season. An adventure where she was given a key every Saturday and initiated
into . some new mystery cult that her father had died for. Marie Walcamp starred
in a picture, "The Red Glove" that took my weekly tribute and Tom Mix, William
S. Hart, Elmo Lincoln and Charles Ray all were friends of the screen. The comedy
roles were generally taken by Fatty Arbuckle, Larry Semon, or Charlie Chaplin.
I cared little about the people in the pictures as a rule and only went when
the title was sufficiently gory or otherwise attractive, and when I was in the
good graces of the family. They have never been highly in favor of the movies,
arguing that I could find much better ways of spending my time and in amusing
myself, but they have always been lenient in letting me go. For a school teacher
to have the movie habit was bad and for his family to have it would have been
worse so we were limited quite a bit compared to other children.
I
recall how easily I was impressed at that time. If the title labeled a picture
as a comedy I laughed until I was in a dangerous mood, whether it was funny
or not. I was easily excited and cheered and whistled with the best of them
when the sheriff arrived just as the fuse was nearing the bomb. I had always
heard that the movie actors were a bum lot and that they were a low class of
people so I got a morbid kick out of the movies that I never told the family
about at all. I think that the superior attitude I took was bad but unavoidable.
I felt that I knew something that the family didn't and I gloried in the fact.
The beauty of Mary Pickford, the alluring roles of Theda Bara, the heroine parts
of the serial thrillers I have mentioned, were always a secret longing. Oh for
a girl that could ride a horse like Pearl White, or for one with the face of
Mary Pickford or the body of Theda Bara. Then life would have been complete.
My imaginary trips to Hollywood were numerous, and triumphant. I always gypped
the famous heroes and brought back their beauties to my lair, forever. Whew!
The Gish girls were just coming into their prime and I remember their propaganda
film "Hearts of the World" [rqr8] as one of the most realistic pictures I have
ever seen. I remember seeing a trench full of soldiers buried by an enemy shell
and one leg that had nut been buried twitched convulsively. It turned itself
into my memory. I can draw the picture perfectly. Many of the pictures were
taken at the front and I hoped that each one was real. I recall when Lillian
Gish was being put to work in the fields by the conquering Hun. She couldn't
lift a basket of potatoes and was whipped until the blood ran out of her mouth.
I never will forget that either. Blanche Sweet played in another war propaganda
film that was based on a story by Rupert Hughes, "The Unpardonable Sin" [1919].
The population of the town was lined up across the street and shot down by a
machine gun en - masse. This story gave me plenty of opportunity to glut
my war - distorted soul. I broke out in a cold sweat to see this crowd of people
shot down; I raged and fretted that I was powerless to help these unfortunates.
I enclosed another secret in my innermost self when the German soldier found
the sister of Blanche asleep in her bedroom. He jumped with a fiendish light
in his eye, cautiously looked around the corners and then came back to carry
out his desires. He left with a rather excited gleam in his eye and a rather
fearsome jump in his step. The girl was bruised and her clothes torn in a suggestive
manner and even at my immature age it made certain impressions on my sexual
self that I had not noticed a great deal before. I used to think about being
a German soldier just so I could go out and procure this forbidden fruit, this
universal urge was so strong. The girl died and that made me feel like going
out and killing half the female population of Germany in the same way. My reaction
to the propaganda film was quite in keeping with the frantic and insane attitude
that everyone showed at that time so I guess it was nothing to worry about.
I can still recall those pictures with remarkable accuracy and I have a hard
time getting over the thrill I first felt when I saw the machine gun sweep down
the mob or saw the torn and bruised body of the girl lying twisted and dead.
I recall plainly one apparently meaningless incident. Wesley Barry was telling
of the story of the massacre and stirring a cauldron of stew at the same time.
He was touched with the remembrance of his mother and broke off with tears in
his eyes to remark "Aw hell, let's eat." I have no particular reason for remembering
that passage but like many others it has remained in an obscure place waiting
for an occasion like this to bring it out. I must have seen it when I was only
nine or ten at the most.
At
about that time I began to get that sophisticated air that all boys get with
the first knowledge of girls and boys and their differences. I began to feel
that it was a weakness to show any kind of emotion at a movie and looked with
scorn upon any one who let his feelings get away with him to such an extent.
I spoiled a good many pictures that way_ because I would continually harden
myself to any point and fail to get' the reaction that would have made the picture
of interest. I kept re=, minding myself during any touching scenes that I was
seeing only a picture and that it was nothing to cry about. I generally covered
my real feeling with laughter for those who were really enjoying the picture.
I still found myself interested in the same films but I got a different reaction
I think. I began to go to see the actor now instead of the picture. I recall
one season where one actor was in two pictures. He took the part of the dashing
hero in one serial and the part of a German spy in the other. I was in a quandary
and found it hard to enjoy either film. I remember him taking a leap after a
moving boat in which his lady friend was being carried away in his hero picture
and I recall a scene in the war picture. He was painting, holding the brush
close to the bristles (bad technique), and some American spies were admiring
his work, supposedly, while their eyes took in every detail. In the midst of
the scrutiny a side door opened and a young man with his chest perforated with
bullets, his shirt and coat a mass of blood, his face a mess, broke in and gasped
in his dying breath, "There are a million more." The scene remained fixed in
my mind. The shock and perhaps the picture of the man himself burned it into
my memory.
Love
stories were still quite beyond my years and I never went unless I was misled
by the title. I couldn't enjoy watching a gent kiss and fondle a girl that I
would have given an eye tooth to know and touch. I couldn't put myself in his
place enough to enjoy it at all. It made me all the more conscious of my youth
and inexperience and I may add made me more daring in my relations with girls.
I imitated the blase attitude of all the Handsome Harry's that I had seen captivate
the screen girls, but to no avail. I seemed to use the wrong technique somewhere
and I never was successful in kissing a girl until my senior year in high school.
I probably could have gratified that desire before then if I had not been too
particular. In the meantime I began to appreciate the love scenes and worked
marvels with my desires. I put myself in the old boy's place with great gusto
and heaved and sighed with every kiss or contact. I went to many movies just
for that unsatiated desire that was given a little outlet in the imaginary nearness
of a female companion. I was never very socially inclined and never cared a
great deal for the company of girls. Consequently I never had any and had to
content myself with imaginary companions. I always felt a restraint when I got
out with a real article and in my dreams and fantasy I never limited myself
at all. The movie queen with all the atmosphere and the music was quite a factor
in determining my present attitude towards women in general. I began to realize
that women were quite as human as men and that they had just as many reactions
to certain stimuli as we did. It helped break down the reserve that I had always
felt and I soon learned to thrill at the proper time and that the thrill comes
in thinking about the act, not in doing it. The thrill of expectation. My imagination
played all kinds of tricks with cut scenes and I'm not so good inside as I am
outside.
I
grew out of the idea that it was a sin to show emotion and began to see that
to enjoy the film it was necessary to let one's self go with the picture from
beginning to end, sway with the crowd and really let the picture work its will.
I go now with the feeling that I am to be the plaything of the picture and try
to make the scenes belong to me. I really enjoy the picture much more fully.
Before I had been killing the central requirements for the enjoyment of the
picture.
I
have heard lots of comment on the fact that people get criminal ideas from the
movies. I am sure that such is the case. I remember in the distant past a crook
using a long wooden curtain rod as a fish pole with which he reached out of
his window and into a neighboring one swiping a pair of trousers from the radiator
in that room. I can still see him carefully empty the pockets and replace the
trou. The scenario writers suggest many criminal ideas and the history of many
crimes can be traced to a movie where the scene was originally enacted. Another
idea that remained with me was the use of a cigarette paper for spy's notes.
I had heard of Nathan Hale and his false soled shoes but this was a new one.
I recall the rival spies on the porch watching a few zeppelins drop their calling
cards. The famous spy that could "unscramble eggs" asked the other if he had
any rice paper. I forget how they finally settled the fight and how they got
away with the "papers" but I remember the idea. I tried to write on some papers
myself but was disgusted to find that I tore them to pieces with every attempt.
My
more recent movie experiences have been of a more varied type, and the fixed
reactions that I labeled my efforts with are not suitable now. I am affected
by the mood I am in myself, by the attitude of the crowd, by the type of picture.
If I am in a dreamy mood I want to see something like "Camille" or any rather
dreamy love story. After a football game I want a comedy and nothing else. In
a restless crowd I want a mystery story because the restless, breathless, silent
motions in the crowd are more at home in a picture that continually scares one.
I like to study the methods employed now in order to produce a certain resultant
effect on the audience. I get a few ideas now and then about the morals and
lack of morals of our age. The people seem to be interested in movies that depict
the present conditions and in that respect [the motion picture] is the mirror
of our lives. It is an exaggerated mirror no doubt but it shows the crowd mind.
A historical novel or a famous story of any kind will generally find me a spectator.
I go for the rest and relaxation that comes from the effortless amusement that
can be had from a movie. I find it a pleasant way to take it easy after a hard
week' of work and studies and activity.
|
|
