Читать книгу My Hollywood Diary - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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Tuesday afternoon.

THE last few hours in New York were rather hectic. I had an interview every ten minutes. Carl and Harold came and discussed contracts. I was interviewed by a reporter from Canada, and I saw Stanley Reinhardt. I was to have seen his mother on Sunday, but she didn't come. (As I dictate this in the train we have just passed Sing-Sing.)

I saw two men who were representing a motion picture annual; they wanted me to take a page advertisement. They couldn't catch me with that racket, not if they tried in years, as they say.

As we were leaving the hotel, Anne McEwen turned up. She is a nice little thing, rather bright and bird-like, and apparently she's having a rotten time. Michael will remember her; she was terribly kind to him, and she and Fayette, whom he will also remember, bought me the silver-backed hairbrush which was so scientifically left behind.

She wanted to know if there was any chance of doing any Press work for me, and if she could get an article from me; and it struck me that it wouldn't be a bad idea, after I'd found out exactly what she was getting, to have her at Hollywood as a sort of Press agent, not to advertise me but to check the articles that are written about me.

After I'd left her—and a little bleak she was—I sent her a wire from the station, telling her to come on to Hollywood, and to draw the wherewithal from Carl.

At the very last minute I saw Heather Thatcher and a very pretty girl on the station. Mrs. Haynes, I think her name is. She is English and a lovely creature. But our conversation was a succession of shouts through the window. It was just like old Heather to come down, race all along the train, get the wrong carriage, and turn up at the last second, panting for breath. She is a great girl, Heather.

I have got a very comfortable drawing-room, and Bob has a compartment next door, which he is allowing Robert to share. I think we shall have quite a busy and amusing trip across. I don't think I shall be able to do enough to send you from Chicago, but, anyway, it will be worth while sending even a little bit, because I can get it out of the way, and it's no effort to dictate a couple of pages and, so to speak, dispose of them.

Mrs. Edgar Wallace, for whom these vivid impressions were recorded daily.

Behold us at the moment, sitting in our comfortable compartment, with a couch made up with a white sheet and two pillows, a table between Bob and me, and tea and buttered toast disappearing at intervals.

It looks as if we're going to do some work on the way over, for we haven't been out of New York six hours, and I've done two articles in addition to my article for you.

Robert is quite pop-eyed, and has been staring at the lordly or Hudson—whichever way you look at it—for hours on end, and has been making rapid and illegible notes on the backs of envelopes.

So far as I can discover from Bob, they are just the names of the towns through which we pass, and as he has gathered the town from the advertisements in lights, which are often displayed twenty miles from the town, his log is likely to be of no value to any traveller who tries to follow the trail he has blazed.

It is now 8.30. I have had some tea brought in, and I can get tea all night from the club car. Isn't that wonderful?

I am working on the play to-morrow, and sending it back to Chicago to have it typed. You will get the revised version sooner, because I will send you on the little bits even though they are not fitted in, and tell you where they go.

I will get another crack in to-morrow morning if there is anything to report, and I shall post this at Chicago.

Good night, everybody.

Wednesday, 2nd December, 1931.

I HAD a wonderful sleep, on two box mattresses, and didn't even waken up when they pushed us around at Buffalo. The food is marvellous on the train.

Last night we passed through a snowy landscape. Snow was falling heavily as we came through the streets of Syracuse. This morning there isn't a cloud in the sky. It was a cold night and the ground is covered with frost. The scenery is typical, more or less flat prairie, dotted with wooden shacks; little towns consisting of the usual wooden farmhouses, the inevitable motorcars packed in front of each, and this is the scenery we shall see all day, for beyond Chicago is the corn belt.

I am very pleased with the work we did yesterday. Once we get settled down on The Chief, which is the name of the crack train of the Santa Fe, we shall be able to slip into it. As I shall fill up odd moments by writing to you, you will gather the amount of work we do by the size of your letter from Los Angeles.

After we get to LA my letters will come by air mail across the continent, so that really I shall be within about eight or nine days' communication of you. I hoped to do some work this morning, but it is such a lovely, lazy morning that I've done nothing, not even shaved yet, though we're exactly an hour and a half from Chicago.

Having slept on it, I am quite sure I've done the right thing in telling Anne McEwen to come over. She'll be a sort of extra secretary and take a lot of humdrum stuff off Bob's hands. Her main value, of course, will be to check up the extravagant statements that are made by the small army of motion picture people who live around Hollywood.

By the way, I am just reminded that we are passing through Indiana. Have you ever read "The Gentleman from Indiana"? It's a great story.

I haven't thought up any picture for anybody yet, but that will come along between now and Friday night. Being in a drawing-room on the train, one is absolutely secluded, and I haven't the least idea what one of my fellow-passengers looks like. In a drawing-room you have a couch, two seats, a table, a private lavatory, and about seven electric lights, and you can control the heating. By day they leave out a couple of pillows and cover the seat with a sheet so that you can sleep if you wish.

That, I think, is all, because we shall have to pack up our typewriter.

Wednesday morning, and December.

IT was cold but sunny when we got to Chicago. We had to transfer across four blocks to the Dearborn station to catch the western flier, which, as I told you before, is called The Chief. I will attach a map to show you how we go.

We were met at the station by a representative of the R.K.O., who attended to everything, paid porters, had his car to take us across, in fact was a great blessing. His name is Branson, in case you come out and have to be personally conducted.

I sent you a wire that I had left Chicago in case you might think I'd been put on the spot. Capone is in gaol, and from the prison has been conducting the strike of cinematograph operators. He is the virtual head of the union. They bombed twelve theatres and killed three operators, and yesterday the theatres bought him off and ended the strike, paying $175,000. He stipulated that all indictments against his assistants should be withdrawn, and that is how it goes in Chicago.

His case is going up to the Federal Court for review, and I don't think they have a leg to stand on. The question is whether a man may be convicted for an offence in the sense that he has got money by illegal means unless you can prove that he has obtained that money at all by any means, legal or illegal, and I don't think any court of appeal could possibly uphold the judgment.

He is serving eleven years.

Wednesday evening.

THE day—I am writing at half-past eight, which is 2.30 a.m. Thursday in England—has been naturally a dull one. I haven't been working, owing mainly to the fact that I'm not feeling inclined.

We had a perfectly gorgeous day from the weather point of view. At about half-past four in the afternoon we came suddenly upon the Mississippi. It was quite a thrill. A great stretch of muddy yellow water, more like a lake or like a river that has overflowed its banks, spotted with black snags or carbonised tree trunks. It was almost as imposing as the Congo, though naturally the vegetation was not green but a shade of cinnamon brown. We crossed it at a place called Fort Madison, and at this spot I began to write a scene in the play. One gets bored with the interminable maize fields, or, rather, the untidy stalks from which the maize has been picked or plucked, garnered, gathered or harvested. Missouri, the country through which we are now passing, seems to be much more prosperous-looking and better organised than the State of Illinois, or even, if the truth be told, than the State of New York.

So far we have come through New York, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and now, I imagine, we are on the edge of Kansas, because we are due in Kansas City in another hour. To-morrow we cut across a corner of Colorado.

If one likes to spend a night in Chicago there are only two consecutive nights to be spent in the train. You might remember this if it so happens that the doctor allows you to bring out Penny. It is the most comfortable trip. The drawing-room and the compartment adjoin. It struck me it would be marvellous for you to be in the drawing-room and Penny and Miss Ayling in the compartment. You are waited on by the most cheerful lot of Negro porters you can imagine. The food is too much for me; it is so perfectly cooked, and a grilled chicken they brought me to-night almost tempted me to be a hog.

Robert is more pop-eyed than ever. He is very satisfactory in the sense that every ten minutes he expresses his gratitude that he has been allowed to realise one of the ambitions of his life. The other, which is to get married, he can realise for 7s. 6d.—or is that the price of a dog licence? He is improving hourly, and you can almost see and hear his mind broadening.

He told me yesterday that he spends hours thinking how he can serve me best, and I honestly believe that this is true. I would say, taking the chance of a hell of a smack in the eye, that he is entirely satisfactory. What he will do when we get him to Hollywood I don't know. Bob has promised to watch over and guard him. I doubt it.

As I say, the Mississippi was a thrill. To-night some time we cross the Missouri, and that, I hope, will be the end of all this river nonsense.

After all, the Thames takes a lot of beating.

To-morrow we go back an hour at Dodge City and then there will be seven hours between us. I had several ideas for pictures. I thought out a good plot to-day and remembered also an old plot for a serial which I feel may germinate while I am in Hollywood. If it works out as I think it will, it'll be a hell of a good mystery story.

Carl Brandt, by the way, goes to a devil of a lot of trouble, and he's the best serial specialist in America.

I think I can say that Bob is enjoying the trip as much as I am. Naturally I am looking forward to Hollywood to discover just where I am. I believe the general idea is that I shall do two pictures. Whether I do or not remains to be seen. If I only had to do two pictures, I'd come back next week. My intention is to make myself more or less useful, not to say indispensable.

There have, however, been changes. The new man, under Schnitzer, a fellow called Selnik [sic, Selznick] is quite young, and, I am told, "inclined to be gloomy", whatever that may mean. I presume it means he is artistic, and that's all to the good, because it's grand for somebody to be that way when so many of us are only just competent.

I don't want you to think that I am setting my mind on you bringing Penny out here. I merely mention it in passing. I set no great hopes on even your coming out, because I realise that it would be a terribly long way to go for Penny, and you'd hardly be out of England before you'd be worrying whether she'd fallen down the mountain side or was being engulfed in an avalanche.

I am certainly not going to rush back if I find I am doing the job right. It wouldn't be fair to you to go there with the absolute intention of returning at the end of two months. A lot will depend on how I go here, and a lot more on how you are going there. Once we get over Christmas and New Year's Day we'll get a better and clearer angle. Of course, there is the possibility that Penny will be so well that she could afford to come out in February and come home the long sea trip in March on the "Empress of Britain".

These are the merest idle speculations, and are on a par with telling Pat and Michael when they go back to school from their summer holidays that we'll have a grand time at Christmas, just to cheer them up. In this case I am cheering myself up, though my state of mind is quite equable and I am not at all depressed. In fact I could have knocked Willie Bruce's head off when he said, "Tell Jim the boy is very lonely".

Well, I guess that's all for to-night. To-morrow morning I will write the story of our arrival in Kansas City, and how the crowds were on the station to meet us, and what they said to me, and what I said back to them, and of all that befell.

It is rather interesting, as we come across the country, to see at intervals of forty or fifty miles the flashing lighthouses in the wilderness that guide the aerial mails across the continent.

Thursday morning, December 3rd, 1931.

WE reached Kansas City on time and pulled out five or ten minutes late, which I presume they have made up in the night. I went to bed at eleven, not expecting to sleep so soon. It is rather a bore when you know you've got an extra hour and you've got to put your clock back in the morning. However, I must have been asleep almost immediately, and when I woke the clock said half-past five. Six and a half hours without waking is good going.

I went to sleep again till half-past seven, which is half-past six, and woke up to take a last glimpse of the State of Kansas.

We are now—8 a.m., 4 p.m. English time—cutting across a corner of Colorado, flat, prairie-like country, lightly powdered with snow.

At this season of the year the colouring is a sort of deep beige. There are some lovely sprawls of river. I don't think there is anything more beautiful than the green and purple of frozen water in the early morning. Naturally all the vegetation is burnt up, and what isn't beige is saffron.

Curiously enough, the towns, with their wide main streets, all about as wide as Portland Place, are more solid-looking than the towns back East. We have now passed the Middle West and have run into what is known as the mountain area.

I can't tell you how invigorating the sight of the sun is in this cloudless blue sky, and the clarity of the air.

Practically I haven't been outside a train since 2.45 on Tuesday afternoon, and it is curious how one hardly notices this fact. The journey, so far from being trying, is a grand rest; in my opinion it's got the ocean beaten to a frazzle.

The double windows of the compartment do not admit of real fresh air coming in, and I should imagine that about ten minutes of real fresh air in this part of the world would be quite enough.

As one of the Pullman porters said: "We don't open the windows in the summer because it's too dusty, and we don't open the windows in the winter because it's too cold."

The only thing I miss is having any communication with the outer world, and apart from you that's grand, because there's no telephone, no appointments, nothing.

Thursday evening.

AT about eight o'clock we ran into mountains, in the sense that they came into view. A very clearly defined mountain with a white summit, seen across a perfectly level plain, is an amazingly beautiful sight. I suppose the mountains must have been from 60 to 70 miles away; it was two hours before we came abreast of them.

The country practically remains the same, part of the Californian desert; sparse cattle country interspersed with big, rocky massifs, and all the same dingy yellow. More or less it is quite interesting.

I got out of the train for the first time on the borders of New Mexico at a place called Raton. The air was simply wonderful; no cloud in the sky, and even the snow has now disappeared. We are about a quarter of an hour from Las Vegas, another New Mexican city.

In many ways the country strongly resembles South Africa; the same vast, rolling pampas with mountains on the skyline, and the same flat-topped hills.

I want to insist that the air is so terribly dry that it must be a heaven-sent place for people with chest trouble. In fact, we passed a little sanatorium in a fold of the hills, isolated from everywhere. It looked like a collection of chicken houses, but then, most of the towns here seem to be made from a paper pattern and not to have worn too well.

We are promised another day to-morrow through the desert. We do most of our mountain climbing in the night. Los Angeles, of course, stands on the desert.

I am not rushing the play, because although I feel I could do it, I'd rather have it well in my mind, and the chances are that I shall have it typed in Hollywood and not in New York as I intended, and post you a copy direct from here so that you can get parts made.

I have not done any of the work I intended doing, and I think I am perhaps wise. What I am trying to do now is to think up skeletons of stories for pictures. I may yet do the play, but I am not sort of fretting about it.

I expect you will be rather in despair about answering these long letters, but, of course, I don't expect you to, unless you also can get into the habit of dictating the daily round.