The Jade Necklace

No, I’m not with the Griffin people anymore. I’m in the picture business⁠—Colossal Films Incorporated. Class, hey? I don’t know what you’d call my job; I’m a kind of a half secretary and half valet to Bauer, L. N. Bauer, you know, the big boss. The big fella⁠—that’s what they call him around the joint, either that or L. N.

I don’t get much more dough than the Griffin people gave me, but honest to God, the things that happen up there would make a book if somebody wanted to write it. You take for instance what they’ve been pulling off just the last couple of months⁠—well, you won’t believe it, but I’m telling you it happened.

Of course you saw Danny Darling, the show Dennis Byrne was in. Al Smith pretty near had to call out the militia to keep the flappers from smothering him every time he left the theater. Well, the Supreme people signed him up to a contract at $7,000 a week, win, lose or draw, figuring he’d make any film sheik look like a cartoon. And when L. N. and Wolf, our vice-president, when they heard about it, they went around for a day or two with their faces so long that their chin tripped them up.

Finally Wolf said there was only one thing to do and that was go and grab some other beautiful Mick, get him all the publicity possible and beat the Supreme people to their first Byrne release. The next question was who, and there didn’t seem to be any answer. A few Irish juveniles were in different shows around town, but none that were liable to make the women forget Byrne. They’d have hired a policeman or a white wings if they could have found one pretty enough, but this Byrne is a tough baby to equal, let alone top.

Well, L. N. cabled to a friend of his in Dublin, a fella in show business there, and asked him to recommend who was the handsomest actor in Ireland and the fella cabled back that there was a young actor named Maurice Kavanaugh who was the handsomest actor in Ireland or anywhere else. L. N. cabled Kavanaugh, asking him what he’d take to come to America and do a picture and Kavanaugh named the modest little stipend of $8,000 a week. I think he was afraid of the ocean. But what does L. N. do but cable him to come at that figure and he showed up at the office two weeks later, as sweet a looking young divil as ever vamped a colleen bawn.

Bauer and Wolf all but kissed him. Now they had Supreme at least tied if not beat. Just under six feet tall, built like Dempsey, black, wavy hair, blue eyes, perfect features and teeth so white that you had to wear smoked glasses when he smiled. Every time he walked in or out of the joint, all the stenographers swooned.

“We’ve showed them up again.” That’s what L. N. said.

“Yes,” says Wolf, “but we haven’t got a story for him and for all we know, Harrison”⁠—that’s the big guy at Supreme⁠—“for all we know, Harrison’s all set with a story for Byrne and ready to shoot.”

“I know different,” says L. N. “I got it pretty straight that they’ve been hunting high and low for a story and haven’t found anything that even comes close.”

So Wolf said: “They’re that much ahead of us, though. We’ve still got to look through a lot of junk that they’ve probably eliminated already.”

“Don’t you worry,” says Bauer. “We won’t waste time on stuff that’s no good. I’ve got a couple of friends of mine⁠—you know; fellas like Paul Wells and Quinn Martin⁠—that whenever we’ve wanted a certain type of story to fit a certain star, they’ve always told me and told me right. Remember when we needed a vehicle for Kate Hollis and I called up Martin and he said ‘Jane Eyre’ without a minute’s hesitation, and you know what a sensation it was. I’ll get a hold of he or Wells right now and tell them who we’ve got and one of them is bound to come across.”

But Martin and Wells were both on their vacation and couldn’t be located. That same day, Harry Salsinger, that works on the paper, he happened to drift in the office and Bauer said to him, he said:

“Harry, do you know any good Irish stories?”

So Harry says: “Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard this one or not, but one night Pat and Mike got lit and went up to a supper club⁠—”

He didn’t get any further with it. L. N. explained that he wasn’t looking for a gag, but a real Irish romance that you could use as a vehicle for a fine-looking Paddy. Harry made a couple of suggestions⁠—I forget what they were, and L. N. couldn’t spell them so he didn’t write them down.

The two big boys kept getting more and more nervous till they had us all jumping sideways and ready to quit; nothing we did suited them. They’re generally pretty good people to work for, but they were so scared Supreme was going to put Byrne over that they began ranting around like a couple of motorcycle cops.

Then one day L. N. was sitting at his desk spelling out the picture news in the morning paper and all of a sudden he gave a yell and told me to run and get Wolf. When Wolf came in, Bauer was so excited that his voice shook.

“Look here!” he says. “Read this! We’ve got to act quick!”

“What does it say?” says Wolf after reading it.

“I’ll read it out to you,” says L. N. “It says, ‘Supreme Pictures is reported to have offered David Wallace twenty-five thousand dollars for the film rights to his novel Harridan. This book is the best seller of the spring season and its author has already been approached by Broadway theatrical managers who believe it could be successfully molded into play form. Which of Supreme’s stars it is wanted for is, apparently, a secret.’ ”

“Well,” said Wolf.

“Well!” Bauer hollers. “Is that all you got to say⁠—‘Well’? I tell you we ain’t got any time to lose!”

“But explain what you mean,” says Wolf. “Supreme Pictures is offering somebody twenty-five thousand dollars for some book and they’re going to make it into a picture⁠—what of it?”

“Didn’t you hear the name of the book?” says Bauer. “Harridan. Who could they want it for but Byrne?”

“Oh, I get you,” Wolf says.

“It’s about time you got me,” said Bauer, “and it’s about time we got a hold of this Wallace and nailed him down.”

“But listen,” says Wolf, “why not buy the book first and read it and see if it’s what we want?”

“There ain’t time to read it now,” said L. N. “While we’re reading it, Supreme goes ahead and buys the rights and we’re sunk. Besides, they’ve read it and they know it fits Byrne or they wouldn’t have made the offer. And if it fits Byrne, it fits Kavanaugh. So we’re suckers if we don’t sew it up.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Wolf. “There’s no use taking chances.”

So they spent that whole day trying to locate Wallace and raving because they couldn’t, but the next morning they did and he showed up in the office and they asked him what he’d take for the rights to his book.

“That depends,” he says. “I wouldn’t want my story changed and I’d want to see the picture before it was released. And I’d like to know if my name would be used.”

“You’re a pretty famous author, ain’t you?” says L. N., who hadn’t ever heard of him. “We’d be glad to use your name.”

“I’m not sure I want it used,” said Wallace. “But if you used the title Harridan, you’d pretty near have to use my name because everybody knows I wrote the book.”

“We’ll certainly use Harridan,” said Wolf.

“And what girl would play in it?” Wallace asked them.

“That will have to be a secret for the present,” says L. N.

Then they asked him again to name a price.

“I tell you I’m a little particular,” he says. “I take pride in my work and I don’t want to see it made ridiculous. Money isn’t everything.”

He was going on with his speech, but Bauer interrupted him.

“Well, we’ll give you fifty thousand dollars cash,” he said.

Wallace fainted and when he came to, his scruples were all gone.

L. N. and Wolf had put another one over on Supreme and they spent the rest of the morning holding hands and slapping each other on the back. L. N. sent me out to buy him a copy of Harridan and after he came back from lunch, he began to read it. But on the first page he crashed right into three great, big, long words, words like “beatific,” “solecism” and “torture.” And the book was over three hundred pages long. So he said he was going on a party that night and would I mind reading the book and giving him a synopsis of it the next day.

I don’t know if you read the book or not. It was about a family that the mother was dead and her two daughters and one son had idolized her and a year after she died, the father had gone abroad and pretty soon he cabled back that he had married a Mrs. Garrett. They didn’t know who she was, but some of their friends knew her by reputation; she was supposed to have been a kind of a loose woman and they said she was old besides and their father must have been drunk when he married her. They were sore anyway on account of him getting married again, so they were ready to treat her like dirt when he brought her home.

Well, she hadn’t been a nun by any means, but she wasn’t old and she was so pretty and so attractive and nice to them that they couldn’t help liking her. The son fell in love with her, but she told him to behave himself and stick to the nice little flapper he was engaged to. That’s about all there was to it.

So the next morning I told it to L. N. and after I got through, he looked kind of dumb. Then he asked me which part would suit Kavanaugh, the son or the father. I told him the father was a man fifty-five or sixty years old and the son’s part was so small that you could give it to an extra.

“Well, then,” he said, “who is ‘Harridan’?”

“That’s the second wife,” I told him.

So he said he thought her name was Garrett.

“ ‘Harridan’ isn’t a name,” I told him. “It’s just a word and in this book it’s used kind of sarcastically.”

Then he asked me what it meant.

“Well,” I said, “it means two or three different things.”

“Look it up and find out what it means,” he says.

So there was a little dictionary there in the office and I looked it up and read it off to him: “Formerly a loose woman; now commonly a vixen.” Or something like that.

“Well, what’s a vixen?” he asked me.

So I looked that up⁠—“A female fox (obsolete); a cross, ill-tempered person, now used only of women; a jade.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s a cinch Kavanaugh couldn’t play a female fox or a grouchy woman. I guess we’ll have to write in a part for him.”

So I said: “If I were you, I’d have Harridan’ fixed up for some woman star and leave Kavanaugh out of it.”

“That’d be a swell idea, wouldn’t it!” he says. “Here is a story that Supreme was trying to get for Dennis Byrne and we beat them to it and buy it for Kavanaugh and you want us to leave him out of it!”

I told him I didn’t believe Supreme had Byrne in mind when they made the offer for the book, if they ever did make an offer.

“You’re crazy!” he said. “Those fellas at Supreme are just dumb enough to think ‘Harridan’ is an Irish name and you can bet they were wild when Wallace told them we’d beat them to it. And they’ll be wilder yet when we spring a handsomer Irishman than they’ve got in the very story they were trying to land for Byrne.”

A day or two later, L. N. announced that he and Kavanaugh were going out to Hollywood. He’d talk over the story with Driscoll, our star director, and Earl Benham, who he’d picked to write the scenario, and he thought that by seeing Kavanaugh and getting acquainted with him, they’d have a better idea what he wanted.

So that’s the last I saw of him for a month. Day before yesterday he got home and the first thing he asked me was to get a hold of Wallace again. So when Wallace came in, he says: “Wallace,” he said, “I want to get your permission to not use your name in connection with that picture.”

“But as I told you before, Mr. Bauer,” said Wallace, “everybody knows I wrote Harridan and if you call your picture Harridan, people will naturally think of me.”

“We’re not going to call it Harridan,” says L. N. “We’re calling it The Jade Necklace.”

Wallace and I were both goggle-eyed.

“We’ve changed your story a little,” says L. N., “but we’re basing it on your idea; that is, I got the idea for the picture we’re making from the title of your story. One of the meanings of ‘Harridan’ is ‘vixen’ or ‘jade.’ Well, I couldn’t figure out anything along the lines of a vixen, but jade was a setup. Everybody knows what jade is. So I gave Driscoll and Benham a rough outline of what I had in mind and the picture’s about half done already. The gang sails the day after tomorrow to shoot the balance of it⁠—in Japan.”

“Japan!” said Wallace.

“Yes,” says L. N. “Of course a person naturally thinks of China when you think of jade, but somehow or other, Japan seems like a more romantic place and they’ll be there just in time to get some beautiful shots of the cherry blossoms.”

“I’d kind of like to hear the story,” says Wallace.

“I’ll give you an outline,” says L. N., “but I’m going to ask you to keep it under your hat. The story starts with the Pacific fleet of our navy⁠—they’re going to cruise across the Pacific and look in at Japan and China and those places. Across the Pacific. Well, the story starts where they are leaving on this cruise. The hero is a lieutenant in the navy. Gifford Dean plays the part and you ought to see him in a naval uniform. Immense! The story starts where they are leaving on this cruise, across the Pacific, and they are saying goodbye to their Wives and sweethearts. The lieutenant⁠—that’s the part Gifford Dean plays⁠—he’s supposed to be married. Thelma Bowen Plays the wife, the lieutenant’s wife. They say goodbye to each other⁠—she’s crying and hates to see him go. He tells her he’ll think of her every minute; that is, while he’s gone.

“We see the fleet leave after all the farewells and everything, and then we shoot over to Japan and we see them landing there. The sailors are going to enjoy themselves. And the officers, too. The lieutenant⁠—that’s the hero, the part Gifford Dean plays⁠—he is lonesome and he doesn’t go and drink or cut up with the rest of the men; that is, officers. He’s lonesome and he happens to meet a beautiful Japanese girl. And you ought to see Maida Guthrie as a Japanese! She’ll be a sensation! Maida’s playing the Japanese girl, the heroine in the picture, that falls in love with the lieutenant. That’s Gifford Dean.

“Well, the love-affair goes on; that is, he’s just homesick and misses his wife, but it’s a serious thing with the girl, the Japanese girl. That’s Maida Guthrie’s part. Finally the lieutenant sees that he can’t possess the girl unless he goes through with a Japanese marriage; naturally the marriage don’t mean anything to him, especially as he is already married, but he goes through with it in order to possess the girl, though one of his brother officers tells him it ain’t right. But he goes through with it.

“They pull off the Japanese: wedding, with the girl’s father and mother, both of them Japs, both there. And a girlfriend of the girl, another Japanese. And the lieutenant’s officer pal.

“Pretty soon the fleet sails away, back to America. The lieutenant: promises he’ll return to his Japanese ‘wife.’ Then we’ll show she and her Japanese girlfriend pining away for the lieutenant and after a while there’s a baby born and we’ll show the girl comforting herself with the baby and telling the baby that its daddy will come back some day.

“Then the fleet lands back in America, out on the Coast, and we show the lieutenant being welcomed home by his regular wife⁠—Thelma Bowen. Then there’s some home shots and then the fleet takes another cruise across the Pacific, only this time the lieutenant’s wife goes along. And it winds up with the lieutenant’s real wife⁠—the American wife⁠—she meets the Japanese girl that only thinks she’s his wife, and when she finds out she ain’t his real wife, she kills herself and the kid. Or maybe we’ll end it a little happier.”

“One question,” says Wallace. “What do you call the lieutenant in the play? Do you call him Pinkerton?”

“No,” said L. N., “but we’ve got a detective in it. That’s the part Kavanaugh plays. It ain’t much of a part⁠—he just helps recover the jade necklace.”

“What jade necklace?” says Wallace.

“I guess I didn’t tell you about that,” said L. N. “When the lieutenant went through with this mock marriage with the little Jap girl, he gave her a jade necklace that belonged to his real wife and that’s how the real wife happened to run across the Japanese girl, was on account of looking for her lost necklace.”

“Well,” said Wallace, “it ought to be a sensation if the photography is as good as the story.”

“Don’t you worry about the photography!” says L. N. “We’ve got some marvelous shots of the fleet going away and coming back and those shots of Japan in cherry blossom time will be worth all the money we’re spending to go over there and get them. But how about your name? Can we leave it out?”

“I don’t mind,” said Wallace. “But I do think you ought to keep the title Harridan.”

“No,” says L. N. “Both Wolf and myself think my title is better.”

He told me, L. N. told me, afterwards that the picture is going to cost a half a million dollars, not counting the $50,000 they gave Wallace for his book and his name. And I’m not sure his estimate includes the $8,000 a week detective.

So I wouldn’t go back to the Griffin people for any amount of dough. I’m going to stay in pictures. It’s fascinating!