This is right.
Meanwhile, away from the cameras, he and Babe prepare for the day when they may be permitted – or forced – to speak.
71
At the Oceana Apartments, he recalls Hats Off. He has not seen it in decades.
No one has.
Hats Off has been lost. The Rogue Song, a picture he and Babe made with Lawrence Tibbett, is also gone. Someone at MGM informs him that old nitrate film stock in the studio vault has ignited, incinerating who knows how many pictures, The Rogue Song included.
He liked Lawrence Tibbett. Lawrence Tibbett could sing.
But Lawrence Tibbett is dead. Lawrence Tibbett – arthritic, alcoholic – stumbles in his apartment in July 1960 and hits his head on a table. Lawrence Tibbett possessed a copy of The Rogue Song, but it decomposed after Lawrence Tibbett died.
Which is unfortunate, he thinks, but apposite.
Other pictures he made are missing music and effects, or entire scenes. When he inquires about them, he receives the written equivalent of a shrug, if he receives any reply at all. These things happen, they tell him. Pictures get mislaid. Pictures get damaged. Pictures go up in flames. He accepts this, just as he remembers that distributors once destroyed prints after pictures finished their runs.
Yes, he says, yes. Thank you for letting me know.
The truth is that no one cares enough.
But he would just like to see Hats Off one more time.
He would just like to see The Rogue Song one more time.
He has seen so many of the rest, over and over. He always watches them when they come on television. Yet countless details of these others, the lost pictures, he has forgotten. To view them now would be to watch them anew.
To view them would be to see Babe again.
To view them would be to be with Babe again.
72
In December 1927, his wife gives birth to their first child. They name her Lois.
He holds his daughter in his arms, and finds himself returning to Chaplin, and how Chaplin once held his firstborn in his arms, his baby son.
Just like this, just as he now holds Lois.
And of how that child, Chaplin’s child, lived for just long enough to be named, and no longer.
He wants to call Chaplin. He wants to tell him.
I understand, he wishes to say. I am sorry for all your pain.
But he does not make the call.
And later, he will remember this moment. He will remember it as he holds his own infant son, and will wonder at the entanglements of fate.
73
Hal Roach has his faults, principal among them being a profound imbalance between the length of his arms and the depth of his pockets. Jimmy Finlayson claims that Hal Roach orders his trousers to be made that way, and is forced to sit down just to reach his small change.
Which Hal Roach then uses to pay his employees.
It is now clear that Jimmy Finlayson is never going to be a star. Such an outcome was, by Jimmy Finlayson’s own admission, always unlikely, but a man can hope, and a man can dream. A new hierarchy has been established at Hal Roach Studios, and Jimmy Finlayson sits below two men in derby hats. But these two men remain loyal to Jimmy Finlayson, just as Hal Roach does.
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.