Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

by Louis Joseph Vance

But these peculiar tribulations rankled neither severally nor even in their sum more distressfully than did the trouble at the studio, where daily the tension of ill-feeling between actress and director grew more taut, as Lucinda's earlier misgivings ripened into articulate dissatisfaction with Nolan's methods and their fruits, and as that sensitive artistic soul reacted deplorably, in terms of begrudged civility at best, and at other times of stubborn Celtic oppugnancy.

Dilatory tactics in directing had become too fast a habit with Nolan to be broken at will, and had forced him to forego his chance at that attractive job in the East. For which, of course, he would never forgive Lucinda. And he was otherwise so fed up with the feeling that he was unappreciated, that he had taken to fuming nastily over every set-back which put off the final "take" by so much as an hour, and indeed was more than once only restrained from "walking off the lot and leaving the picture flat" by the consideration that he had as yet been able to wheedle out of Lontaine a mere niggardly half of his contract fee in advance.

Aware of what was in the air, the supporting players held their collective breath against that explosion which all felt was due at any moment to hoist them into the same element and leave them there, belike, in indefinite suspense. Individually they went with a nice if naïve diplomacy in all their dealings with Miss Lee and Mr. Nolan individually; for who could foresay whose hands would hold the symbols of power when the dust had settled? But the sympathies of the producing staffs, to a man, Lucinda was sensible, were with Nolan; and though this nettled her at times, she consoled herself with the reflection that it was after all only natural, since the best directors, that is to say those with the most artful and resourceful press-agents, hand-pick their lieutenants as a general custom and carry them along as they lightly flit from berth to berth. And she derived a little comfort from the belief that the cameraman was on her side.

Cameramen, being highly trained specialists in an exacting art, are more often than not men of independent minds, iconoclastic in their attitude toward the directors with whom they work. Iturbide was of this tribe. He knew his trade, not Nolan or any other could instruct him in it. If he reckoned the light not right for any take, that scene would wait though Nolan raved and the heavens quaked. In the choice of the right angle for any shot his judgment was final, even Nolan learned in time not to dispute it. And he accomplished his will with a singular economy of words and emotion, the more remarkable in view of the mercurial temper with which tradition accredits the race from whom he sprang. He was Mexican, a tall and rangey body, with eyes as beautiful as a woman's, and much to the silken courtesy of the Spanish whose blood he shared. "No, Mr. Nolan," he would announce in a strongly accented and resonant voice, shaking his head sorrowfully after setting up his camera and assaying the light by peering through a strip of negative film exposed behind the lens—"no, I no take—light no good. Tomorrow we take, maybe light better then." And while Nolan, who as like as not had voluptuously kept a regiment of extra people waiting all day to work in this the last hour of the afternoon—while Nolan spluttered and swore and offered to go down on his knees if prayers would move Iturbide to change his mind, the cameraman would be placidly superintending the demounting of his camera, and pocketing the darling lens whose care he never would trust to hands other than his own. And that scene would not be taken until the next day—not then, if the light were not exactly to Iturbide's liking. Which was one among a number of reasons why his photography was credited with having saved many a picture otherwise without virtue.

Scrupulous always to avoid giving unprovoked offense, in the series of skirmishes which made the final two weeks of Nolan's engagement memorable, Iturbide played the part of benevolent neutral; but if Lucinda were not mistaken in her reading of his eyes, the best of his benevolence was reserved for her.

Historically—and setting aside minor clashes of opinion as mere affairs of outposts—the private war progressed to its conclusion in three stages, which for convenience may be named the Battle of the Supper Club Set, the Affair of the Comedy Feet, and the Last Stand in the Living-Room Doorway.

In the novel from which the picture in production took its name and little else, most of the plot development was worked out in a fashionable supper club, where Lucinda in the character of a professional dancer, figured nightly as what for some reason New York that stays up nights knows by the name of "hostess." The rooms of the club as described bore close resemblance to the premises for years tenanted by the Club de Vingt in East Fifty-eighth street, to whose general plan, however, fanciful embellishments had been added in an effort to make it a frame worthy of the dancer's charms.

Over the lay-out, or scheme, for this set, Lucinda had spent many hours and much thought—before Nolan found time to give the production any attention whatever—in consultation with Harry Lontaine and Mr. Coakley, the talented young man who served the Zinn Studios in the capacity of general technical director: an office which as organized by the motion-picture trade, comprehends those—among others—of architect, landscape-gardener, scene, house, sign and artist-painter, interior decorator, and amateur of the art of every era, from the Eolithic to that of East Aurora. And in the end Lucinda had turned to her work before the camera well-satisfied that Mr. Coakley knew what to do and how to do it, and would assemble an excellently suitable room if left to exercise his own good taste and ingenuity.

The most pretentious bit of building required by the production, the supper club was the last to be erected, and wasn't ready till the beginning of the fourth week of Nolan's reign; as Lucinda learned it was, one evening, when the assistant-director circulated a call for the entire company to work on it the next day.

Accordingly, Lucinda and Fanny strolled over to the main stage, where, behind a flimsy fence of sides—frames of wood and paint-smeared canvas held up by struts—the precincts of the supper-club basked in the cynical glare of Cooper-Hewitts overhead.