(See [p. 204])
The next day we did the abduction. We took ourselves miles from the Mission. We chose a treacherous-looking road along the ocean cliffs. In a ramshackle buggy the bride and groom were speeding on their honeymoon, but bad brother and his band of outlaws were hot on the trail to steal the bride. Our cowboys bringing up the rear were cavorting on their horses; the horses were rearing on their hind legs; and the director was yelling, “A dollar for a fall, boys, a dollar for a fall!” The boys fell, on all sides they fell; they swung off their horses, and they climbed back on, and they spilled themselves in the dust, their horses riding on without them. Some of the boys made ten and some twenty dollars that day, just for “falls.” And not one was even scratched.
The next day was Easter Sunday, and our work being finished, in the gray dawn we folded our tents and silently slunk away.
But the curse of Judas was upon us. When the picture was projected, all was fine—scenic effects beautiful—and photography superb, until—we came to the wedding procession!
Judas, to our surprise, was nowhere to be seen; he had fallen out of focus evidently, but the effect of his anathema was all there. The scene was so streaked with “lightning” we could not use it. At San Gabriel we retook it later, but it never seemed the same to us.
* * * * *
Sierra Madre was another of our choice locations this first trip. Here were wonderful mountains with fascinating trails and canyons deep and long. From Sierra Madre, Mount Wilson was climbed, by foot or donkey, for no magnificent motor road then led to its five-thousand-and-something-foot summit.
At the quarter-mile house we did “The Gold-seekers,” a story of California in the days of ’49, with Henry Walthall striking pay dirt in the west fork of the San Gabriel canyon.
Mary Pickford did one of her Indians here, “A Romance of the Western Hills.” David thought Mary had a good face for Indians on account of her high cheek bones, and usually cast her for the red-skinned maid or young squaw. A smear of brown grease paint over her fair face and a wig of coarse straight black hair made a picturesque little Indian girl of “our Mary.”
Curls and Mary Pickford were not yet synonymous. She played, besides Indians, many character parts with her hair smacked straight back; and she “did” young wives with her hair in a “bun” on the top of her head to make her look tall and married. When Mary wore curls, it meant an hour of labor at night. The curls necessitated three distinct kinds of “curlers,” the ones for the wave on top, others for the long curls, and little curlers for the shorter hair around the face. I often thought Mary Pickford earned her slim salary those days for the time and effort she spent on her hair alone.