But now this man, this star, is trying to claim that a piano can be a plot, that a wooden box can contain worlds, and Hal Roach knows this to be untrue.
He lets Hal Roach protest some more. He agrees with Hal Roach politely, and disagrees with Hal Roach even more politely. It is important to disagree without being disagreeable, especially with Hal Roach, who is his boss and has generally been supportive of him, remuneration excepted. But Hal Roach has given his imprimatur to thinner ideas than this, and they have worked. He and Babe have made them work.
Hal Roach, he understands, is just letting off steam.
Your problem, Hal Roach tells him, is that you don’t see the big picture.
– It’ll be cheap.
Hal Roach gives in. The man before him is missing the point, but cheap is cheap.
Then make the picture, says Hal Roach. What do I know?
100
This he has learned from Chaplin: every creative endeavor should aspire to the condition of art. But Hal Roach is not interested in art. Hal Roach desires respectability, but Hal Roach does not want art, or not as a primary function of his studio. Productions with some class may earn Hal Roach money, but art will see Hal Roach back emptying spittoons. The comedies he and Babe make for Hal Roach are neither respectable nor, as short collections of gags, definable as art in terms familiar to Hal Roach. To hint at such a possibility in Hal Roach’s presence would be to invite mockery, or censure, or possibly even the attentions of Henry Ginsberg in order to ensure that no art is attempted, either intentionally or inadvertently, on the studio’s dime, and Henry Ginsberg already stalks the lot like a reaper. Even Babe does not wish to speak of art. Babe is happy to be earning more money than ever before, and to see his name above the title.
Therefore, as a comedian, he is engaged in a singular conspiracy to commit art.
101
At the Oceana Apartments – At the Oceana Apartments.
At the Oceana Apartments.
At the Oceana Apartments.
There is only the Oceana Apartments, and the waiting promise of the sea beyond.
He could leave for the afternoon. Ida would take him somewhere. But a departure involves the fuss of getting ready, and of negotiating the stairs to the car, and of the ride, and of walking from the car to the restaurant, or the pier, or the sand.
Or simply walking.
He is too tired for that.
And he does not wish to disappoint the world by letting it see how frail he has become.
102
He likes the idea for Top Heavy. Or Words and Music. The title, like the picture, remains in the abstract. Babe also likes the idea: a crated piano must be delivered up a flight of steep steps. It may be a reworking of the washing machine gag, but it is simple, and simplicity is welcome in lives so complex.
He agrees on a cast with Jimmy Parrott, who is to direct.
For the piano salesman: Bill Gillespie, who is Scottish and strikes amiable sparks with Jimmy Finlayson when they are on the lot together, although Bill Gillespie is more inclined to buy someone a soda than Jimmy Finlayson, who is parsimonious to a remarkable degree.
For the cop: Sam Lufkin, who is always reliable and has, until recently, been living with his mother following the break-up of his marriage. Sam Lufkin is now married for a second time, but still misses his mother. Sam Lufkin’s life reads like a Beanie Walker title card.
For the nursemaid: Lilyan Irene, or Leah Goldwater as was. He pushes for Lilyan Irene because she, like him, is from Lancashire, and worked the music halls, and lives alone with a young son, and so can use the money.
For the professor: Billy Gilbert, who is a gagman as well as an actor, and gives good comic sneeze. Billy Gilbert owes his career in pictures to him, as he introduced Billy Gilbert to Hal Roach after catching Billy Gilbert in revue.
In another life, Billy Gilbert plans to be a boxer. Billy Gilbert is billed as Fighting Billy Gilbert, a middleweight, and goes two rounds with Jack Herrick, the inventor of the Herrick Shift, a feint and turn followed by an overhand blow that, if it lands, will end your days. In the evenings, Billy Gilbert covers up his bruises and steps on stage in a show called Whiz Bang Babies, which makes Billy Gilbert unusual by any measure. Billy Gilbert is pretty serious about the fight game until Billy Gilbert gets in the ring with Al Panzer. After what Al Panzer does to him, acting seems to Billy Gilbert like a good way of not being killed.
For the professor’s wife: Hazel Howell, spouse of Ned Norworth, Broadway’s Midnite Son, who plays the piano, and acts, and writes songs with titles such as ‘After You Brought Me The Sunshine’ and ‘Sweet Sue’, and in whose shadow Hazel Howell seems forever destined to dwell. But Hazel Howell is a nice woman, and suffers well.
He and Babe also suffer. They try hauling an empty crate up the steps, but the weight and balance is clearly wrong, no matter how gamely they act as though they are under strain. The only solution is to use a real piano, but real pianos are heavy.
The crate gets damaged each time it is dropped, and it is dropped so often that replacements must always be on hand.
Their bodies sweat, and the sun burns their skin.
Their hands accept splinters, and their shins bear cuts.
The picture is now called The Up and Up. That might work.
The crew spends hours waiting for the right light, praying that Henry Ginsberg doesn’t take it into his head to come and count beans. Sunlight is required for consistency, but nobody has informed the clouds. When at last they finish filming, he eats and drinks in the cutting room, rarely breathing fresh air, trying to match the sequences to the luminosity, and sometimes sleeps in his dressing room instead of going home to bed.
Lois does not complain. She is long past caring.
When the edit is done, he gathers the cast and crew at the community theater, and even amid the clicking of timers and the scratching of pens, it is clear that something special has been created.
Three reels, one gag, and all the world in a box.
Only Henry Ginsberg is unimpressed. Henry Ginsberg wants to know if it is a real piano that is destroyed at the end of the picture. He informs Henry Ginsberg that they created it from balsa wood and old parts, but he does not think Henry Ginsberg believes him.
And Beanie Walker, over whom Henry Ginsberg’s ax now hovers, and who is growing weary of its gleam; Beanie Walker, with his cats and cigarettes; Beanie Walker, with his fine vocabulary and terse notes; Beanie Walker, who writes dialogue but struggles to carry on a normal conversation; Beanie Walker, who rarely smiles and does not laugh; Beanie Walker, who has never been happier anywhere than on this lot, and will never be truly happy again after; Beanie Walker gives them their title.
The Music Box.
103