searching for, one of the Englishman’s precious silver dollars. He held it up. “Loser pays. Right?”
The bone-boy lifted his wrist and pressed it to the side of his face.
“You catch my drift?” asked the Englishman’s boy.
The bone-boy gave no sign he did. The Englishman’s boy hesitated, dropped the coin on the striped blanket, strode off purposefully.
The bone-boy didn’t move. The other children pushed their heads in to admire the silver dollar like moths closing on lamplight.
22
We begin to thrash out our picture in meetings at Chance’s place in the hills. These meetings have a bad- tempered, testy air because James Cruze’s Western,
Hollywood loves disaster. Hollywood loves success. But it loves disaster more. Everybody was anticipating a catastrophe on the scale of Mayer’s and Thalberg’s
Everybody had been sure a similar fate was staring
All this stokes Chance’s mania for authenticity; like his idol, Griffith, he demands historical accuracy in every detail. It is a consuming passion that isn’t satisfied cheaply.
“We need Indians, Fitz. Three hundred. Maybe four. Make it four. And
“Where the hell am I going to get real Indians?” grumbles Fitz.
“Lasky got real Indians, that’s all anybody’s talking about. Where the hell did he find them?”
“Colonel McCoy got them for him. Two trainloads. But McCoy has connections with the Board of Indian Commissioners. He’s got pull.”
“Then hire Colonel McCoy.”
“Paramount has him sewed up. He’s running that Indian song-and-dance number at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater and once that’s done he’s taking a boatload of them to Europe to promote the picture there. The Colonel ain’t available.”
“Then find us an equivalent. Call McDavitt in Washington and have him get in touch with somebody at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I didn’t put money into President Harding’s campaign for the good of my health. Pull some strings. Somebody owes me a couple of hundred Indians.”
“Indians are more goddamn trouble than they’re worth. You don’t want nothing to do with them bastards. It’s easier to herd cats than Indians. Most don’t talk no English; they show up for work with dogs, squaws, papooses. Before you know it the bastards are into the firewater and stealing props. You got to negotiate a separate deal with each of them. One wants a cowboy hat for services rendered, the next one wants five dollars. Then they get jealous about what the next chief got and the dickering starts all over again. Cruze had to hustle up an army uniform for one of his bucks or he threatened not to do the big scene. You want a dogfight each and every day of the week, hire Indians.”
Chance isn’t listening. “And another thing,” he says. “Hire me an Indian woman who can act. None of this ‘how’ stuff either. And make sure she’s good-looking.”
“You ain’t asking for much,” says Fitz. “I ain’t never seen a good-looking Indian.”
“And we’ll need another Indian who can act to play the chief.”
“Christ, what’s the matter with Wallace Beery? I seen him in
“I don’t want any iodine-stained Wallace Beery. What’s the name of the Indian in Griffith’s
But Young Deer is not to be found; reports have it he is in France directing pictures for Pathe. Indian actresses don’t come a dime a dozen either. Mona Darkfeather, a Seminole who worked for the Bison Company in the early days, is too old for the part, as is the other well-known Indian actress, Dove Eye Dark Cloud.
Chance is like a man who claims to want to build a cathedral but spends all his time on the gargoyles. We have no director or scenario yet and here he is worrying about casting. When I suggest my time might be better spent writing a script, he dismisses the idea. “The scenario will be written in due course. But first, the essential elements must be put in place.”
What are these essential elements? Indian artifacts for one. He wants all the Indian artifacts Best Chance can lay hands on. Buyers fan out across the country, chequebooks in hand, to dun private collectors, to seduce destitute reservation Indians who might be persuaded to part with Grandpa’s medicine bundle, coup stick, or eagle war bonnet for a pittance. Three artists are sent to Washington to sketch Plains Indian costumes in the collection of the Smithsonian. A Chicago stock-buyer is commissioned to purchase Mr. Chance his own herd of buffalo.
Every day he thinks of something new; pelts will be required, lots of them, and somebody must be immediately sent to fur auctions in Canada. Location scouts accompanied by still- and motion-picture cameramen are sent north to survey prospective sites and report back on possibilities. Even before locations are settled on, he insists Fitz hire Mexican workmen to build an authentic adobe fort. He also reminds Fitzsimmons if clay isn’t available on site it will have to be shipped in by train, by the boxcar-load. A working riverboat, a stern-wheeler is needed. And don’t forget to clear landing strips at each location so he can fly in on a regular basis to supervise production.
Fitz comes and goes, relaying orders and seeing the work gets done, while I keep Chance company beside the pool, or in the study, or eat lunch with him in the long dining room hung with Flemish tapestries, a convenient ear into which he can pour his thoughts about the picture.
Soon wooden crates begin to arrive packed with wampum belts, beaded rifle-scabbards, leggings, scalp shirts, buffalo-bull-hide shields. Delivery is not to the studio wardrobe department but directly to Chance’s house, where I crowbar off the lids and he fingers the booty, nods bemused, then leaves the room, never to give them another