he: A Novel(34)

Hal Roach is loyal to those who are loyal to Hal Roach.

As long as they don’t ask for a raise.

Jimmy Finlayson does not ask for a raise. Jimmy Finlayson works, and smiles, and accepts his fate.

But sometimes, it hurts just the same.





74


He and Babe are Hal Roach’s new stars. Their names headline their own pictures. The Los Angeles Evening Herald describes them as ‘the most promising comedy team on the screen today’.

In 1928, Hal Roach pays the most promising comedy team on the screen today a combined total of $54,316.67. Hal Roach pays him $33,150 and Hal Roach pays Babe $21,166.67.

Over at Paramount, Harold Lloyd is making $1.5 million per picture.

Hal Roach also forces Babe and him to negotiate their contracts separately, and ensures that one contract expires six months before the other. Hal Roach is slipperier than a barrel of eels.

But he is happy, and Babe is happy. Hal Roach may be cheap, even though the studio’s distribution deal with MGM has made Hal Roach a millionaire, but Hal Roach does not interfere, or keeps any interference to a tolerable level. And anyway, for the first half of 1928 Hal Roach cannot interfere, except by way of telegrams – which can be ignored, or may conveniently go missing – because Hal Roach is traveling the world with his wife, Marguerite.

Within budget restrictions, he can now do as he wishes.

So he creates. The ideas pour from him. He is secure in his character. He does not fight against it, not after all those years spent trying to determine what form this character should assume. He sacrifices money for freedom. He purchases his artistry from Hal Roach.

Dollar by dollar, cent by cent.

I want to shoot chronologically, he tells Hal Roach.

Hal Roach is back from his voyage. The sea air has given Hal Roach time to come to terms with the inevitability of sound recording. Already the studio is being torn apart and rebuilt. All is change.

– Chrono-what?

He waits. Hal Roach knows what ‘chronologically’ means, but Hal Roach worries that big words may cost more than little ones.

Why would you want to do that? Hal Roach asks.

– Because it will make for better pictures.

– What’s wrong with the current ones?

– They could be better.

Hal Roach appears to be chewing a wasp. Hal Roach loves money, but it may just be that Hal Roach loves making good pictures more.

– Chronological is expensive.

– Not so much. I can keep the costs down.

The wasp is fighting back. Hal Roach bites down hard upon it. The wasp is dead, but Hal Roach can still feel its sting.

– You shoot one chronologically. We screen it. Then we decide.

By ‘we’, Hal Roach means Hal Roach, or Hal Roach thinks this is what is meant. But Hal Roach will listen to Leo McCarey, who directs the pictures, and Hal Roach will listen to George Stevens, who shoots the pictures, and Hal Roach will listen to Richard Currier, who cuts the pictures.

And maybe Hal Roach will listen to him too, just a jot.

Just enough.

He talks to Babe.

– Hal says we can shoot in order.

Babe sighs. Babe looks to the sky. Somewhere in the distance, Babe can dimly perceive a new set of golf clubs flying away, and Babe can see his gambling pot shrinking, and Babe can hear Myrtle asking why she can’t have that dress she saw in Blackstone’s, because if shooting chronologically costs Hal Roach money and does not succeed, then Hal Roach will ensure that every dime is recovered from their hides.

Okay, says Babe.

This is how they work.

There is a script, even if it will never be heard.

There is a story, even if it is only a framework for gags.

The difference between them, he has come to realize, is that Babe is an actor while he is a gagman. The script is more for Babe’s benefit than his own, although it forces him to apply a structure to what is to come. He writes gags all the time, recording them on pads of yellow paper. They fountain from him, too many for his own use. He feeds them to others on the lot, content just to see them used.

He and Babe rehearse. This he has learned from vaudeville: perfection lies in repetition. Babe is sometimes a reluctant participant. Babe will practice a golf swing until Babe can no longer lift his arms, yet Babe quickly grows weary of reprising a scene. But Babe’s instincts are perfect, and Babe can improvise. When the time comes to shoot, Babe is never less than prepared.

There is no genius. There is only the work.

There is no art. There is only the craft.

This is what Hal Roach’s money buys.





75


They fall by the wayside, these others. The advent of talking pictures silences them.

In the years that follow, the ignorant will claim that careers were lost because of voices, because the images on the screen were incompatible with the sounds that emerged from their mouths.

And the ignorant, as always, will be wrong.

Mary Pickford, no longer able to play the neophyte, accepts her Oscar and retires to become an alcoholic and a recluse, communicating with the world only by telephone.

Clara Bow’s nerves are shot, and the rumor spreads that she has venereal disease.

Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings return to Europe.

Pola Negri and Mae Murray make bad marriages.

William Haines, a fairy, refuses to make any marriage at all.