Then comes a pause in the deafening and ominous roar—the house is so still you can hear the clicking of the projecting machine as the film is reeled off.
Yes; we are in the midst of a fearsome forest, and the heroine is just about to merge from the inky blackness with all her troubles—there she is, now!
What was that? A flash of lightning! The drummer redoubles his sonorous roll, ending with a wild, spine-stiffening thump. Some storm. The heroine’s hair is blown so violently you fear it may be torn out by the very roots.[Pg 62]
She falls to the moss-grown forest floor. Livid flash and another thunderous roll. Then the deluge. The heavens open, and while the fanfare is loudest and the lightning is lividest, our fair lady is soaked to the skin with real water and falls to earth, beaten down by the very force of the torrent from on high.
Great scene, that!
Come with us now and see how the game is played. Ah, the movie studio!
Here’s a patch of nice green grass on the studio floor, and back of it a few shrubs and some sizable trees. Up on a scaffold high enough to be out of the camera’s ken are a dozen men, each armed with a huge watering pot.
The heroine stands on the side lines, waiting for the storm to begin. Storm in broad noon of a sunny day? Sure thing. Just watch.
An excited-looking individual holding a bunch of manuscript stands beside the heroine—yes, you’ve guessed it, he’s the movie director.
She gets behind the trees, and the man at the camera crank starts turning. She pushes her way through the tangled wildwood and stubs her toe, looking unutterable anguish the while.