"Blazing the Trail"

Part Six

Back in New York we found things humming, with Olcott in charge; and there was a new cameraman whose praises he was singing, George Hollister. Serious dependable old George, who quickly proved his aptitude for a place with us and remained as long as the Kalem Company was in existence.

In May my mother came from Kansas City to visit me until her departure for Germany to join my sister in September. She was shocked at my appearance and, mother-like, over the difficult tasks demanded of me. She was all for carrying me off with her to Europe for a year, but I had had one experience of idleness the previous summer and would not consent. Then suddenly the matter was compromised for us.

At intervals ever since my return from Europe I had suggested to Mr. Marion that Kalem make pictures in Ireland, a country which, though I had never seen it, appealed tremendously to my imagination.

My suggestion was usually greeted with smiles if not open laughter.

Then without warning- and in those days of the pictures almost everything came without warning- I was summoned to the office.

"When can you and Olcott start for Ireland?" demanded Mr. Marion.

"Tomorrow, if necessary," I replied without hesitation.

"Good. The Baltic sails on Saturday. Better see Mr. Lindsey, the passenger agent, and engage passage for yourself, Olcott and Hollister.

I did more, I induced the North German Lloyd Company to refund the money my mother had paid for passage in September, and purchased four tickets instead of three for Queenstown, for August 6.

We were to be gone six weeks including the two Atlantic crossings, and were to take three pictures which I was to write en route, but not an inkling as to plot was given me.

We found out cabins filled with flowers and baskets of fruit; a merry crowd was on the pier to wave us farewell and in four days after the idea was conceived we sailed away, the first picture company, small though it was, to be sent out of America to take pictures.

At sea we did not relax even for a day. Soon The Lad from Old Ireland was down on paper and as it was to be a "transatlantic" picture with scenes laid in Ireland, on the high seas, in New York on our return, and back again in Ireland, we proceeded to take the steerage pictures immediately. The ship's officers gave us every assistance, even working in the scenes.

For our second picture we hit upon the serviceable idea An Irish Honeymoon, which would require only Sid and myself. Moreover we could sandwich scenes for the second picture between those taken for the first, and incidentally, we hoped to produce a good travel picture.

Upon landing before we could begin regular work on The Lad from Old Ireland we had to solve the problem of costumes. Cork did not boast a costumer, but we were advised to visit the old clothes market. There in a huge barn of a place we found stalls overflowing with cast-off clothes of every kind, boots and tawdry new goods, a motley array indeed. Wrinkled old men and women, with an occasional buxom red-cheeked colleen, presided at each stall and beguiled us with their brogue and flattery.

We found just what we were looking for- baggy old homespun trousers, hobnailed shoes, corduroy coat and cap for Sid, and for me a full gathered skirt, elbow-sleeved coarse cotton "ballyshirt" and the small plaid shawl which all the poorer Irish girls wear today.

We journeyed out from Cork in a jaunting car, or side car as the natives called it, that quaint vigorously uncomfortable vehicle which at that time had not even begun to give way to the motor. How many wicked miles have I ridden in those jaunting cars!

We were not long in finding an ideal location; indeed our trouble was in selecting which of the quaint cottages we would use, for the landscape was universally bewitching. Our final choice was most fortunate, for there we found a dear old dame of eighty years whom Mr. Olcott immediately requisitioned for the grandmother of the picture. The hens scratched in the cobblestone dooryard, fat geese waddled about, and two clean white pigs, beloved members of the household, wandered in and out of the open door.

When we had finished making scenes which promised unusual beauty on the screen the oldfolks kissed our hands and bade us an emotional farewell; and the old Grandmother hobbled into the cottage and brought forth two of her treasures which Mama and I had so admired, huge old willow-ware platters which had been in her family before she was born.

One and all the jarvies had discounted the beauties of Cork.

"Ah," said they, "ye should go to Killarney. Up Killarney way it is the loveliest of all Oirland. Though meself, I've nivir been thare."

So to Killarney we went, to make views for An Irish Honeymoon. Stopping at Kate Kearney's cottage, now a tavern, then on through that mighty cleft, the Gap of Dunloe, to the head of the three lovely lakes we returned by a rowboat propelled by strapping boatmen who timed their strokes to Irish songs, or babbled weird explanations and wove fantastic tales in their thick brogue. We stepped ashore at beautiful old Ross Castle, ruined and ivy-covered, reminiscent of braver days.

Small wonder those first Irish pictures made a sensation in America and added greatly to the glory of Kalem.

Our main object in going to Dublin was to visit Glencairn, home of the ex-Tammany chief, Richard Croker.

I cannot say he was especially cordial. But Mr. Olcott with his most ingratiating brogue, acquired for the occasion, explained to him that the people back in New York were most anxious to see their former lord. In fact Sid gave the impression that they could scarcely be restrained until the moving pictures were shown to them. There was a certain hardness and lack of sympathy about the great old chief that made Sid decide to work fast while he could. So we swept through it with a rush. Sid explained that Mr. Croker must greet us and shake hands as we stepped from the motor, and invite us into the house. He followed instructions implicitly. George grabbed his camera, set it up in the garden, and the three of us sauntered past followed by Mr. Croker's two fine chow dogs, Sid and I conversing desperately, pointing to the mountains, to the flowers, anything to induce him to make gestures and the thing was in the box. I do not think he ever realized just what had happened. I believe if he had been allowed time to think he would have refused to pose.

The honeymoon picture was the object of our visit to London, and we obtained scenes of the most notable spots like Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. It was very embarrassing working before the crowds on the London streets, for moving pictures were a novelty as yet and we were sorely tried and much hampered by the throngs. We solved the problem by engaging one of the big omnibuses. At the rear of the uncovered top deck Hollister set up his camera, Sid and I seated ourselves in one of the front seats and in this way we shot a tour of London.

The third picture grew out of my very natural desire to see my mother and sister who were in Berlin, where the latter was preparing for her operatic debut at Elberfeld-Barmen in September. I make no apologies for yielding to the impulse, for the results would have justified the most selfish motives. It was The Little Spreewald Madchen, one of the loveliest pictures we turned out during this period.

I had heard of the Spreewald as one of the most picturesque spots in Germany, where in spite of its close proximity to Berlin the peasants still clung to their native dress. So on the boat going from London to Flushing I wrote the scenario.

It had a simple plot, but the quaint beautiful settings transformed it into a novelty.

The entire village collaborated with us. The pretty daughter of the burgomaster or mayor loaned me her own costumes to wear as the heroine. And they were gorgeous. Dresses of heavy silks, embroidery kerchiefs, headdresses trimmed in real lace, and stiffly starched little bodices exquisitely hand-embroidered. One complete outfit I wore was valued at a thousand marks but, dear me, the weight of it! The combined weight of some half a dozen petticoats, one of which was heavily padded and quilted, was close to thirty pounds. Heavy wooden-soled shoes worn without stockings and held on by a bit of leather across the front part of the foot made walking difficult and running impossible to one unaccustomed to them. In fact during one of the scenes when I must leap from a passing boat to the bank I had to leave them off entirely.

In Berlin we were fortunate enough to be present at the autumn maneuvers of the German Army. The Pathe Company had acquired the film privileges for the spectacle, but by ingenious maneuvering and concealing of the camera, we managed to get some scenes in the streets as the parade returned to the city. The camera had been set up in a window but Olcott remained outside on a balcony. As the Kaiser, gorgeously uniformed, approached on horseback, our irrepressible director waved an American flag and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Hoch der Kaiser!" Of course his Majesty looked full in the camera and even smiled a little!

We were expected back in New York six weeks after leaving, but it was now early September and the tourist rush homeward had begun. We haunted the booking offices and finally Olcott and Hollister obtained a cabin which had been relinquished because of illness. It looked as if I would be left alone in Berlin and the prospect was not pleasing. But luck again favored me. On the day that Sid and George were to leave for Cherbourg whom should I meet but my "Berlin mother," Mrs. Lucille Graves, whom I have mentioned before as Social Directress of The American Woman's Club. After three years' stay abroad she had been called home. She volunteered to get passage back for both of us and shooed me off to Elberfeld to spend two happy weeks with my people. I was fortunate enough to attend my sister's dress rehearsal and first two performances before joining Mrs. Graves at Antwerp and taking passage on the Manitou of the Red Star Line, a little thirty-five-hundred-ton, one-class steamer headed for Boston, a dilapidated hulk which took two weeks to make the trip.

Kalem sent a delegation to Boston to welcome the truant home, and the morning after reaching New York I was in make-up, acting before the camera in a perfectly constructed interior of the little Irish cottage outside Cork. The grandmother was "doubled" by Mrs. Santley, an easy trick, for she was supposed to be dying and a big frilled cap hid most of the face. The interiors for the Spreewald cottage and the New York scene; of the same picture had also been constructed while I was on the way home. In a little more than two months from the day we had sailed from New York, the three pictures were finished. We had traveled over six thousand miles and had filmed scenes in four countries and on the high seas.

[to be continued]

Original article, 1928.

Gene Gauntier, "Blazing the Trail," Woman's Home Companion, Volume 55, Number 12, December 1928, page 15, 16, 132, 134.

© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

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