* * * * *
In front of Caudebec Inn the “Red Devil” is snorting and getting impatient to be started on her way to the station, for the actors are strolling down the road ahead of her. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Predmore are just finishing the final “settling up” of the board bill. Little Mrs. Predmore looking tinier than ever—she seemed to shrivel during our strenuous weeks—is gratefully sighing as she bids us farewell. She was glad to see us come, and she was glad to see us go.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, out in Hollywood, the Japs are still raising carnations, and a few bungalow apartment houses are just beginning to sprout on the Boulevard; but otherwise the foothills continue their, as yet, undisturbed sleep beneath the California sunshine.
CHAPTER XVII
“PIPPA PASSES” FILMED
There was a frictional feeling in our return to prosaic studio life after the glorious freedom of the country. But the new “projections”—the pictures that had been printed and assembled in our absence—would take the edge off and cheer us up some; we were all a-thrill about seeing the first run of the pictures we had taken in the country; and we were eager about the picture we were to do next.
During our absence we would have missed seeing not only our own releases but those of the other companies, which, our day’s work finished, we used to try to catch up on. Mondays and Thursdays had come to be release days for Biograph pictures. Then at some theatres, came whole evenings devoted to them. On these occasions exhibitors would put a stand outside saying “Biograph Night.” After the first showing it was a difficult job to locate a picture. From Tenth Avenue to Avenue A, we’d roam, and no matter how hot, stuffy, or dirty the place might be, we’d make the grade in time.
“Pippa Passes,” which was to make or unmake us, was all this time hanging fire. Mr. Griffith was getting an all star cast intact. The newly recruited James Kirkwood and Henry Walthall gave us two good men who, with Owen Moore and Arthur Johnson, were all the actors needed. For the women, there were Marion Leonard, Gertrude Robinson, and myself. And little Mary Pickford whom our director had engaged with Pippa in mind (?). When the day came to shoot Browning for the first time, it was winsome Gertrude Robinson with black curls and dark blue eyes who was chosen for the rôle of the spiritual Pippa. David thought Mary had grown a bit plump; she no longer filled his mental image of the type.
When at last we started on “Pippa Passes,” things went off with a bang. Each of the four themes—Morn, Noon, Evening, Night—would be followed by a flash of Pippa singing her little song.
It was “Morn” that intrigued. To show “daybreak” in Pippa’s little room would mean trying out a new light effect. The only light effect so far experimented with had been the “fireside glow.” The opportunity to try a different kind so interested Mr. Griffith that before he began to “shoot” Pippa, he had a scheme all worked out.