章节正文
"Say, you mustn't hand out things like that, Jean!"
he protested, when they were quite out of sight and
hearing of the others. "Let me give you a tip, girl.
If you've got any photo-play ideas that are worth talking
about, don't go spreading them out like that for Bobby
to pick and choose!"
"Pick to pieces, you mean," Jean corrected.
help it; he's putting on some awfully stagey plots, and
they cost just as much to produce as--"
"Listen here. You've got me wrong. That plot of
yours could be worked up into a dandy series; the idea
of a story running through a lot of pictures is great.
What I mean is, it's worth something. You don't have
to give stuff like that away, make him a present of it,
you know. I just want to put you wise. If you've got
anything that's worth using, make 'em pay for it. Put
'er into scenario form and sell it to 'em. You're in this
game to make money, so why overlook a bet like that?"
"Oh, Gil! Could I?"
"Sure, you could! No reason why you shouldn't,
if you can deliver the goods. Burns has been writing
his own plays to fit his company; but aside from the
features you've been putting into it, it's old stuff. He's
a darned good director, and all that, but he hasn't got
the knack of building real stories. You see what I
mean. If you have, why--"
"I wonder," said Jean with a sudden small doubt of
her literary talents, "if I have!"
"Sure, you have!" Gil's faith in Jean was of the
kind that scorns proof. "You see, you've got the dope
on the West, and he knows it. Why, I've been watching
how he takes the cue from you right along for his
features. Ever since you told Lee Milligan how to lay
a saddle on the ground, Burns has been getting tips;
and half the time you didn't even know you were giving
them. Get into this game right, Jean. Make 'em pay
for that kind of thing."
Jean regarded him thoughtfully, tempted to yield.
"Mrs. Gay says a hundred dollars a week--"
"It's good pay for a beginner. She's right, and she's
wrong. They're featuring you in stuff that nobody else
can do. Who would they put in your place, to do the
stunts you've been doing? Muriel Gay was a good
actress, and as good a Western lead as they could
produce; and you know how she stacked up alongside you.
You're in a class by yourself, Jean. You want to keep
that in mind. They aren't just trying to be nice to
you; it's hard-boiled business with the Great Western.
You're going awfully strong with the public. Why,
my chum writes me that you're announced ahead on the
screen at one of the best theaters on Broadway! `Coming:
Jean Douglas in So-and-so.' Do you know what
that means? No, you don't; of course not. But let
me tell you that it means a whole lot! I wish I'd had
a chance to tip you off to a little business caution
before you signed that contract. That salary clause
should have been doctored to make a sliding scale of it.
As it is, you're stuck for a year at a hundred dollars a
week, unless you spring something the contract does
not cover. Don't give away any more dope. You've
got an idea there, if Burns will let you work up to it.
Make 'em pay for it."
"O-h-h, Gil!" came the throaty call of Burns; and
Gil, with a last, earnestwarning, left her hurriedly.
Jean sat down on a rock and meditated, her chin in her
palms, and her elbows on her knees. Vague shadows;
of thoughts clouded her mind and then slowly clarified
into definite ideas. Unconsciously she had been growing
away from her first formulated plans. She was
gradually laying aside the idea of reaching wealth and
fame by way of the story-trail. She was almost at the
point of admitting to herself that her story, as far as
she had gone with it, could never be taken seriously by
any one with any pretense of intelligence. It was too
unreal, too fantastic. It was almost funny, in the most
tragic parts. She was ready now to dismiss the book as
she had dismissed her earlier ambitions to become a poet.
But if she and Lite together could really act a story
that had the stamp of realism which she instinctively
longed for, surely it would be worth while. And if she
herself could build the picture story they would later
enact before the camera,--that would be better, much
better than writing silly things about an impossible
heroine in the hope of later selling the stuff!
Automatically her thoughts swung over to the actual
building of the scenes that would make for continuity
of her lately-conceived plot. Because she knew every
turn and every crook of that coulee and every board in
the buildings snuggled within it, she began to plan her
scenes to fit the Lazy A, and her action to fit the spirit
of the country and those countless small details of life
which go to make what we call the local color of the
place.
There never had been an organized gang of outlaws
just here in this part of the country, but--there might
have been. Her dad could remember when Sid Cummings
and his bunch hung out in the Bad Lands fifty
miles to the east of there. Neither had she ever had a
brother, for that matter; and of her mother she had
no more than the indistinct memory of a time when
there had been a long, black box in the middle of the
living-room, and a lot of people, and tears which fell
upon her face and tickled her nose when her father held
her tightly in his arms.
But she had the country, and she had Lite Avery, and
to her it was very, very easy to visualize a story that
had no foundation in fact. It was what she had done
ever since she could remember--the day-dreaming
that had protected her from the keen edge of her loneliness.
CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW KIND OF PICTURE
"What you doing now?" Robert Grant Burns
came around the corner of the house looking
for her, half an hour later, and found her sitting on the
doorstep with the old atlas on her knees and her hat far
back on her head, scribbling away for dear life.
Jean smiled abstractedly up at him. "Why, I'm--
why-y, I'm becoming a famous scenario writer! Do
you want me to go and plaster my face with grease-
paint, and become a mere common leading lady again?"
"No, I don't." Robert Grant Burns chuckled fatly
and held out his hand with a big, pink cameo on his
little finger. "Let's see what a famous scenario looks
like. What is it,--that plot you were telling me awhile
ago?"
"Why, yes. I'm putting on the meat." There was
a slight hesitation before Jean handed him the pages
she had done. "I expect it's awfully crude," she
apologized, with one of her diffident spells. "I'm
afraid you'll laugh at me."
Robert Grant Burns was reading rapidly, mentally
photographing the scenes as he went along. He held
out his hand again without looking toward her.
"Lemme take your pencil a minute. I believe I'd have
a panoram of the coulee,--a long shot from out there
in the meadow. And show the brother and you leaving
the house and riding toward the camera; at the gate,
you separate. You're going to town, say. He rides
on toward the hills. That fixes you both as belonging
here at the ranch, identifies you two and the home ranch
both in thirty feet or so of the film, with a leader that
tells you're brother and sister. See what I mean?"
He scribbled a couple of lines, crossed out a couple,
and went on reading to where he had interrupted Jean
in the middle of a sentence.
"I see you're writing in a part for that Lite Avery;
how do you know he'd do it? Or can put it over if he
tries? He don't look to me like an actor."
"Lite," declared Jean with a positiveness that would
have thrilled Lite, had he heard her, "can put over
anything he tries to put over. And he'll do it, if I tell
him he must!" Which showed what were Jean's ideas,
at least on the subject of which was the master.
"What you going to call it a The Perils of the
Prairie, say?" Burns abandoned further argument on
the subject of Lite's ability.
"Oh, no! That's awfully cheap. That would stamp
it as a melodrama before any of the picture appeared
on the screen."
Robert Grant Burns had not been serious; he had been
testing Jean's originality. "Well, what will we call it,
then?"
"Oh, we'll call it--" Jean nibbled the rubber on
her pencil and looked at him with that unseeing,
introspective gaze which was a trick of hers. "We'll call
it--does it hurt if we use real names that we've a right
to?" She got a head-shake for answer. "Well, we'll
call it,--let's just call it--Jean, of the Lazy A.
Would that sound as if--"
"Great! Girl, you're a winner! Jean, of the Lazy
A! Say, that title alone will jump the releases ten
per cent., if I know the game. Featuring Jean herself;
pictures made right at the Lazy A Ranch. Say, the
dope I can give our publicity man--"
Thereupon Jean, remembering Gil Huntley's lecture
on the commercial side of the proposition, startled his
enthusiasm with one naive question.
"How much will the Great Western Film Company
pay me extra for furnishing the story I play in? "
"How much?" Robert Grant Burns blurted the
words automatically.
"Yes. How much? If it will jump your releases
ten per cent. they ought to pay me quite a lot more than
they're paying me now."
"You're doing pretty well as it is," Burns reminded
her, with a visible dampening of his eagerness.
"For keeping your cut-and-dried stories from falling
flat, yes. But for writing the kind of play that will
have just as many `punches' and still be true to life,
and then for acting it all out and putting in those
punches,--that's a different matter, Mr. Burns. And
you'll have to pay Lite a decent salary, or I'll quit right
here. I'm thinking up stunts for us two that are
awfully risky. You'll have to pay for that. But it will
be worth while. You wait till you see Lite in action!"
Gil would have been exuberant over the literal manner
in which Jean was taking his advice and putting
it to the test, had he overheard her driving her bargain
with Robert Grant Burns. He would have been exuberant,
but he would never have dared to say the things
that Jean said, or to have taken the stand that she
he protested, when they were quite out of sight and
hearing of the others. "Let me give you a tip, girl.
If you've got any photo-play ideas that are worth talking
about, don't go spreading them out like that for Bobby
to pick and choose!"
"Pick to pieces, you mean," Jean corrected.
help it; he's putting on some awfully stagey plots, and
they cost just as much to produce as--"
"Listen here. You've got me wrong. That plot of
yours could be worked up into a dandy series; the idea
of a story running through a lot of pictures is great.
What I mean is, it's worth something. You don't have
to give stuff like that away, make him a present of it,
you know. I just want to put you wise. If you've got
anything that's worth using, make 'em pay for it. Put
'er into scenario form and sell it to 'em. You're in this
game to make money, so why overlook a bet like that?"
"Oh, Gil! Could I?"
"Sure, you could! No reason why you shouldn't,
if you can deliver the goods. Burns has been writing
his own plays to fit his company; but aside from the
features you've been putting into it, it's old stuff. He's
a darned good director, and all that, but he hasn't got
the knack of building real stories. You see what I
mean. If you have, why--"
"I wonder," said Jean with a sudden small doubt of
her literary talents, "if I have!"
"Sure, you have!" Gil's faith in Jean was of the
kind that scorns proof. "You see, you've got the dope
on the West, and he knows it. Why, I've been watching
how he takes the cue from you right along for his
features. Ever since you told Lee Milligan how to lay
a saddle on the ground, Burns has been getting tips;
and half the time you didn't even know you were giving
them. Get into this game right, Jean. Make 'em pay
for that kind of thing."
Jean regarded him thoughtfully, tempted to yield.
"Mrs. Gay says a hundred dollars a week--"
"It's good pay for a beginner. She's right, and she's
wrong. They're featuring you in stuff that nobody else
can do. Who would they put in your place, to do the
stunts you've been doing? Muriel Gay was a good
actress, and as good a Western lead as they could
produce; and you know how she stacked up alongside you.
You're in a class by yourself, Jean. You want to keep
that in mind. They aren't just trying to be nice to
you; it's hard-boiled business with the Great Western.
You're going awfully strong with the public. Why,
my chum writes me that you're announced ahead on the
screen at one of the best theaters on Broadway! `Coming:
Jean Douglas in So-and-so.' Do you know what
that means? No, you don't; of course not. But let
me tell you that it means a whole lot! I wish I'd had
a chance to tip you off to a little business caution
before you signed that contract. That salary clause
should have been doctored to make a sliding scale of it.
As it is, you're stuck for a year at a hundred dollars a
week, unless you spring something the contract does
not cover. Don't give away any more dope. You've
got an idea there, if Burns will let you work up to it.
Make 'em pay for it."
"O-h-h, Gil!" came the throaty call of Burns; and
Gil, with a last, earnestwarning, left her hurriedly.
Jean sat down on a rock and meditated, her chin in her
palms, and her elbows on her knees. Vague shadows;
of thoughts clouded her mind and then slowly clarified
into definite ideas. Unconsciously she had been growing
away from her first formulated plans. She was
gradually laying aside the idea of reaching wealth and
fame by way of the story-trail. She was almost at the
point of admitting to herself that her story, as far as
she had gone with it, could never be taken seriously by
any one with any pretense of intelligence. It was too
unreal, too fantastic. It was almost funny, in the most
tragic parts. She was ready now to dismiss the book as
she had dismissed her earlier ambitions to become a poet.
But if she and Lite together could really act a story
that had the stamp of realism which she instinctively
longed for, surely it would be worth while. And if she
herself could build the picture story they would later
enact before the camera,--that would be better, much
better than writing silly things about an impossible
heroine in the hope of later selling the stuff!
Automatically her thoughts swung over to the actual
building of the scenes that would make for continuity
of her lately-conceived plot. Because she knew every
turn and every crook of that coulee and every board in
the buildings snuggled within it, she began to plan her
scenes to fit the Lazy A, and her action to fit the spirit
of the country and those countless small details of life
which go to make what we call the local color of the
place.
There never had been an organized gang of outlaws
just here in this part of the country, but--there might
have been. Her dad could remember when Sid Cummings
and his bunch hung out in the Bad Lands fifty
miles to the east of there. Neither had she ever had a
brother, for that matter; and of her mother she had
no more than the indistinct memory of a time when
there had been a long, black box in the middle of the
living-room, and a lot of people, and tears which fell
upon her face and tickled her nose when her father held
her tightly in his arms.
But she had the country, and she had Lite Avery, and
to her it was very, very easy to visualize a story that
had no foundation in fact. It was what she had done
ever since she could remember--the day-dreaming
that had protected her from the keen edge of her loneliness.
CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW KIND OF PICTURE
"What you doing now?" Robert Grant Burns
came around the corner of the house looking
for her, half an hour later, and found her sitting on the
doorstep with the old atlas on her knees and her hat far
back on her head, scribbling away for dear life.
Jean smiled abstractedly up at him. "Why, I'm--
why-y, I'm becoming a famous scenario writer! Do
you want me to go and plaster my face with grease-
paint, and become a mere common leading lady again?"
"No, I don't." Robert Grant Burns chuckled fatly
and held out his hand with a big, pink cameo on his
little finger. "Let's see what a famous scenario looks
like. What is it,--that plot you were telling me awhile
ago?"
"Why, yes. I'm putting on the meat." There was
a slight hesitation before Jean handed him the pages
she had done. "I expect it's awfully crude," she
apologized, with one of her diffident spells. "I'm
afraid you'll laugh at me."
Robert Grant Burns was reading rapidly, mentally
photographing the scenes as he went along. He held
out his hand again without looking toward her.
"Lemme take your pencil a minute. I believe I'd have
a panoram of the coulee,--a long shot from out there
in the meadow. And show the brother and you leaving
the house and riding toward the camera; at the gate,
you separate. You're going to town, say. He rides
on toward the hills. That fixes you both as belonging
here at the ranch, identifies you two and the home ranch
both in thirty feet or so of the film, with a leader that
tells you're brother and sister. See what I mean?"
He scribbled a couple of lines, crossed out a couple,
and went on reading to where he had interrupted Jean
in the middle of a sentence.
"I see you're writing in a part for that Lite Avery;
how do you know he'd do it? Or can put it over if he
tries? He don't look to me like an actor."
"Lite," declared Jean with a positiveness that would
have thrilled Lite, had he heard her, "can put over
anything he tries to put over. And he'll do it, if I tell
him he must!" Which showed what were Jean's ideas,
at least on the subject of which was the master.
"What you going to call it a The Perils of the
Prairie, say?" Burns abandoned further argument on
the subject of Lite's ability.
"Oh, no! That's awfully cheap. That would stamp
it as a melodrama before any of the picture appeared
on the screen."
Robert Grant Burns had not been serious; he had been
testing Jean's originality. "Well, what will we call it,
then?"
"Oh, we'll call it--" Jean nibbled the rubber on
her pencil and looked at him with that unseeing,
introspective gaze which was a trick of hers. "We'll call
it--does it hurt if we use real names that we've a right
to?" She got a head-shake for answer. "Well, we'll
call it,--let's just call it--Jean, of the Lazy A.
Would that sound as if--"
"Great! Girl, you're a winner! Jean, of the Lazy
A! Say, that title alone will jump the releases ten
per cent., if I know the game. Featuring Jean herself;
pictures made right at the Lazy A Ranch. Say, the
dope I can give our publicity man--"
Thereupon Jean, remembering Gil Huntley's lecture
on the commercial side of the proposition, startled his
enthusiasm with one naive question.
"How much will the Great Western Film Company
pay me extra for furnishing the story I play in? "
"How much?" Robert Grant Burns blurted the
words automatically.
"Yes. How much? If it will jump your releases
ten per cent. they ought to pay me quite a lot more than
they're paying me now."
"You're doing pretty well as it is," Burns reminded
her, with a visible dampening of his eagerness.
"For keeping your cut-and-dried stories from falling
flat, yes. But for writing the kind of play that will
have just as many `punches' and still be true to life,
and then for acting it all out and putting in those
punches,--that's a different matter, Mr. Burns. And
you'll have to pay Lite a decent salary, or I'll quit right
here. I'm thinking up stunts for us two that are
awfully risky. You'll have to pay for that. But it will
be worth while. You wait till you see Lite in action!"
Gil would have been exuberant over the literal manner
in which Jean was taking his advice and putting
it to the test, had he overheard her driving her bargain
with Robert Grant Burns. He would have been exuberant,
but he would never have dared to say the things
that Jean said, or to have taken the stand that she
- series [´siəri:z]
n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词) - running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- overlook [,əuvə´luk] vt.&n.俯瞰；忽略；观察 (初中英语单词)
- director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
- literary [´litərəri] a.文学(上)的 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- earnest [´ə:nist] a.认真的 n.认真；诚恳 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- wealth [welθ] n.财富，财产 (初中英语单词)
- seriously [´siəriəsli] ad.严肃；严重，重大 (初中英语单词)
- intelligence [in´telidʒəns] n.智力；消息 (初中英语单词)
- dismiss [dis´mis] vt.解散；下课；解雇 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- foundation [faun´deiʃən] n.建立；基金；地基 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- meadow [´medəu] n.草地；牧场 (初中英语单词)
- argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
- rubber [´rʌbə] n.(摩)擦的人；橡皮 (初中英语单词)
- commercial [kə´mə:ʃəl] a.商业的 n.广告节目 (初中英语单词)
- visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
- acting [´æktiŋ] a.代理的 n.演戏 (初中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtfully [´θɔ:tfuli] ad.深思地；体贴地 (高中英语单词)
- alongside [əlɔŋ´said] ad.在旁 prep.横靠 (高中英语单词)
- fantastic [fæn´tæstik] a.奇异的；荒谬的 (高中英语单词)
- realism [´riəlizəm] n.现(写)实主义 (高中英语单词)
- countless [´kauntlis] a.无数的 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- plaster [´plɑ:stə] n.灰泥 vt.厚厚地涂抹 (高中英语单词)
- hesitation [,hezi´teiʃən] n.犹豫，踌躇 (高中英语单词)
- proposition [,prɔpə´ziʃən] n.提议；主张；陈述 (高中英语单词)
- decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
- beginner [bi´ginə] n.初学者；创始人 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- warning [´wɔ:niŋ] n.警告；前兆 a.预告的 (英语四级单词)
- unconsciously [ʌn´kɔʃəsli] ad.无意识地；不觉察地 (英语四级单词)
- abandoned [ə´bændənd] a.被抛弃的；无约束的 (英语六级单词)
- originality [ə,ridʒi´næliti] n.独创性；创举；新颖 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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