Dear Editor

I am sitting in a cozy chair at a table in the Twentieth Century-Fox commissary while I listen patiently to a bunch of the boys whoop it up about The Mark of Zorro, a picture that's to go into production with Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell starring. I am letting it go in one big ear and out the other as I sit there wondering about how I am going to take up the slack in a little note reading "Not Sufficient Funds" a banker boy sent me that very morning. Maybe I would be sitting there yet and wondering about these things only harry Brand, publicity directly and a swell guy in spite of it, came barging along from another table and says, without stopping, "Okay, Milt, give this glamour boy another job. He looks broke--as usual."

Well, you know me. Scarcely had his words died out midst the clatter of the crockery, that I had this Milt (last name Howe) by the arm and was leading him over to the casting office where, in no time at all, I got myself an extra job.

Before I give you any intimate details of my extra work on this picture, perhaps I'd better get you straight on what The Mark of Zorro is about.

If you were going to movies twenty years ago you certainly can remember the Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., playing the role of Zorro. And if you've ever read California history you recall that this Zorro gent was a bold bad bandit who freed his people of Spanish tyranny. Well, Twentieth Century Fox which owns several of the Zorro takes, written by Johnson McCully in 1915 under the name the Curst of Capistrana decided to revive this bold, bad bandit with Tyrone Power in the leading role with the beautiful Linda Darnell taking on the duties of the feminine lead. Throughout production, the picture has pleased the studio's executives so highly that it has now been announced as the first of a series of Zorro high jinks--which ought to be good news for movie fans.

When I reported for work the following morning after wrangling a job from the casting director, I was herded into a truck along with a score of other extras and driven to Agoura, California, where Director Rouben Mamoulian had built a beautiful city representing Los Angeles around the year 1820. As a matter of historical fact, Los Angeles in 1820 was a squatty, adobe settlement inhabited by a motley assortment of some 600 Indians and half-breeds with a smattering of Spaniards and one lone American. Of course Director Mamoulian savvies all this 1820 business, but he decided that such a primitive outpost would never do, so he up and stretched history thin enough to tidy up the joint. Not only did he do this, but he peopled this glistening city with dashing caballeros, gentlemen adventurers and flirtatious senoritas. All of which should please the Los Angeles chamber of commerce--as it did me especially the flirtatious senoritas.

History was followed closely, though, in re-creating the plaza on North Main Street, which was first laid out in 1818. The first church, still standing, was copies accurately, as was the village school where the headmaster, so early Los Angeles records show, earned the magnificent sum of one hundred and forty buck a year!

As Zorro, Tyrone plays a triple role, without the aid of mirrors or make-up. I don't know whether or not he gets paid three salaries for these three different roles, but anyway, he acts himself at home, pretends to be a Spanish fop in public, and turns to swashbuckling banditry at night--and he does exceedingly well at all three tasks. To make him a fop the studio spent $15,000 for beaded silks, satins, and velvets to make him such a wardrobe that would bring a distinct gleam of envy in the gentle eyes of Alice Faye or Loretta Young. Another thing while I'm rambling along on Tyrone. He doesn't jump over as many walls as did Doug Fairbanks who made a tremendous leap on an average of every three minutes in The Mark of Zorro. I asked Director Mamoulian about this curtailment of leaps ad jumps and he told me that times had changed. The movie fans, he said, would split their weskits and girdles if he had Ty doing the jumps that Fairbanks did. In the picture Ty jumps aboard his horse just twice, he leaps once over a wall and swings down from a balcony--and that's the end of it so far as jumping is concerned.

This Mamoulian, in case you're unaware of it, is quite a guy. Hardly had we extras assembled on the set and had gotten busy shining up our rapiers to do a little fancy rapiering and loaded up our guns to do some fancy gunning than this Mamoulian shouts over his public address system that he wanted us 500 extras to howl with pain as the Spanish soldiers began slashing their way through the crowd. "Let's start off shooting with a one-take," he announced. "I want this sequence to bring us good luck. Remember that operation you had and how much you suffered when you came out of the ether? Howl like you did then. And listen. I get my one-take I'm going to give you a good bonus!"

The cameras started rolling a few seconds later, the soldiers started their slashing, and we extras, wit that good bonus in mind, started howling--and if you didn't hear us as you sat in your elaborate new York editorial chair, Miss Editor, you'd better have you dainty, pearl-like ears examined because we put up such a fine yipping, shrieking, and yelling that the sound man had to buy himself a brand new mike!

Before the day was over this Mamoulian pulled another stunt that just about shocked everybody into insensibility.

After this "howling" sequence, he called the cast and crew together and gave them a talk.

"I think," he began, "that the people who have spent years on the sets should have a hand in directing a picture. The grips, the juicers, the cameramen, the script girl and all the rest of you, including the extras, have plenty of good ideas. I want you to stop me at an any time with suggestions, and if you disagree with something I'm doing I want you to tell me. Even if you're up on the catwalks, I want you t shout down. I'm going to have the script girl keep track of the ideas we use, and I'll see that those who really help get full credit. Who knows? Maybe we'll get a new director or two out of you folks."

Well, I'm here to tell you when he finished everyone was so amazed that they were literally speechless. It's one of Hollywood's oldest maxims that the director is always right and no one should ever bother him during production. A lot of swell ideas came out of that talk and several members of the various crews got more than favorable mention from this clever director. Everyone hopes that he's established a new Hollywood movie custom. You'll se better pictures from now on if this proves true. Ty got excited and started using his repier for a hair-clipper. Ty, himself was knocked flat by a glow to the shoulder which luckily failed to cut through to the skin but which nevertheless was severe enough to require medical treatment.

The next day we renewed our fencing sequences with Basil Rathbone and Tyrone Power staging a humdinger of a stabbing match. Rathbone, before he was through, suffered a deep gash over his right eye and likewise a couple of locks of hair when

After this scene was finally shot Rathbone, feeling that he needed more practice, walked over the where a group of us extras were standing and pointed his finger right at me. Well, having seen Ty get his bumps, I was in no mod of playing guinea pig and I tried to duck but some smart-aleck gave me a shove and I found myself with a long, thin, needle-like rapier in my untrustworthy right hand, and Rathbone was making his pig-sticker sing as he swished it through the air. Fred Cavens, who had been coaching the fighting scenes, came over and told me how to stand. He put buttons on the ends of our blades and then told Rathbone to go to it. Which he die! My gosh, that blade of his sung a mighty bloodthirsty sound around my big ears and once the button of the foil hit me a good one on my Adam's apple, and I thought I was a goner. Rathbone kept on "pinking" me here and here, and if you've never been pinked by a rapier you ain't never experienced anything yet.

Of course I didn't stand there dumblike. What I mean is, I hauled off and slapped that over-sized razor blade right back at Rathbone, but he was too clever and knew too much about the art and so I didn't get anywhere. After all, why should I? All Rathbone wanted was a little practice.

Unfortunately during the course of the practice my opponent's button came off and doggoned if he didn't drive the exposed point right through my shirt sleeve, which wouldn't have been so tough only he took about five inches of skin along with it. Neither of us noticed the missing button--the one supposed to be on the end of his rapier, mind you--until my hand began to get sticky and, Lady, you should have heard the commotion and the shrieking and the "Ah's" and "Oh's" when all of us discovered it was blood. The director came a-running, the studio doctor came tearing, and a couple of those flirtatious senoritas flopped smack on their pretty brocades in a dead faint.

Well, luckily for me, the five-inch cut wasn't as deep as it looked and the studio sawbones taped it up without much trouble. The nice part of it was I got the rest of the day off with pay and of course to enjoy it I took along one of those gay senoritas--just in case I needed further medical attention. I don't know what she could have done if I had required aid and assistance but in any event, said I, it was a smart idea to have her close by. Or am I wrong? It cost me a day's pay (you should have seen that gal eat!) to keep her around, but it was well worth it.

I went back to work the next day. My arm was pretty stiff, but Director Mamoulian, as further payment for my wounds let me do a lot of loafing. He got me dressed up as an Indian and about all I did was to grunt now and then. But easy as that was, Old Man Bad Luck was sniffing at my heels. Tyrone and I were sitting on a stone just off the set (this is still Agoura, California) while Director Mamoulian was taking several shots of other members of the cast.

We must have sat there half an hour, talking about this and that and so on and son on, when all of a sudden I looked down and right there at out feet was a rattler crawling lazily from under the stone we were sitting on. A long, mean-looking serpent he was, too, and I nudged Ty and said something about "don't look now, but I think we ought to have some snakebite medicine!"

Ty wouldn't take my word for it, however, and he gave his tootsies a look and I'll swear to goodness, that sterling actor let out a whoop that frightened me more than it did the rattler. Up until then I was so scared I couldn't move, but that yell of his stated me going out of there like somebody’s given us a double hotfoot. Being handicapped by a bum arm, I was a mite clumsy about making my getaway. Halfway down the little incline I stumbled and skidded on my puss for about six feet. And skidding on your puss across six feet of sand and gravel and a rattler maybe right behind you may be a thrilling experience, but it sure doesn’t help the temper. they do say when I got upright, and blew the sand out of my eyes, ears, nose and throat, I chose enough choice words out of my limited vocabulary to make a dock walloper cry with envy. Oh, yes, I got myself a pint of snake-bite remedy just in case the rattler had left a fang in me without my knowing it. A prop boy killed the reptile a few moments later, and skinned it and gave it to Ty the last day on location for a keepsake.

During my four-day "trick" with The Mark of Zorro outfit, I got very pally with "Red," a dog of apparently very doubtful ancestry. For six years Red has been making twenty bucks a day running alongside automobiles and buggies and woofing at the drivers. (I'd do that for twenty bucks, myself.) One year he worked n twenty-seven movies and earned $840 which is more dough than a lot of us extras make. Red has turned in some mighty fine performances, but the best one to date occurred while I was working in the picture. For four solid days he barked at Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell and Basil Rathbone. By the time he had finished this assignment he was well-nigh barked out and his owner, L.F. Comport, had to take him back home so he (Red) could rest up for a couple of weeks. Red's greatest worry, his owner told me, was that he (Red) might contract laryngitis after one of his barking roles.

I got chinning with Linda Darnell in between "takes" and she told me that the studio had spent $7,100 to transform her into a Spanish senoritas. The studio had tested her, she said, 38 times for coiffure, make up, and wardrobe, ant a cost of around $100 each time the camera rolled. Her hair was turned a satiny black and her eyebrows penciled black. Her hair had been arranged 22 different ways alone before the director was satisfied. Spanish lessons, to teach her correct pronunciation, totaled $400. The budget for her Spanish dances with Tyrone Power amounted to $1,200. Vocal lessons ran $1,700.

Linda is quite a girl, if I'm any judge which probably I'm not. Anyway, she certainly makes no pretense at being sophisticated when it comes to romance. She told me she's not going to kiss any boy friends until she's engaged and furthermore she doesn't care if people do joke her about being old-fashioned. That's why maybe, she's so fluttery when she gets ready to go into a romantic scene opposite some handsome movie star. I watched she and Ty got through a love scene, and it really was something to watch. Ty took her in his arms and places his cheek against her. Right bout then, Director Mamoulian called a halt and went into a huddle with Arthur Miller, the cameraman. The purposely stalled around for several minutes and everyone, the writer included, wondered what the trouble was about. I learned later form the director that the reason for the delay was to give Linda a chance to get a deep blush off her cheeks. Blushes don't look like blushes on film. The make a heroine's face seem as though it were slightly dirty. But, boy, Linda sure does look might, mighty purty, when her cheeks begin to flame up.

Talking about Linda the way I am, I might as well add something more about her. 20th Century Fox has already spent $10,000,000 this year on her and to think that no more than eighteen months ago she was a Dallas high school girl who measured finances by her two buck a week allowance!

Linda stated off the year with Star Dust, a million dollar production. Another high budgeted picture she's been in his Brigham Young, Chad Hanna, Brooklyn Bridge, and Son of the Islands (the last one to start in late November) are on her future schedule.

By the way, I'll bet you don't know how the folks pronounced Los Angeles 'way back in 1820. Well, just to keep informed in case you get on Information, Please, sometime, they pronounced it "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles." Ain't that sum'pin? The chamber of commerce boys of today would have quite a chore for themselves if they tried to put over a town with a name like that.

I can't leave this story without a word about George Regas, who after twenty years of regrets, got himself and acting job in a Zorro picture.

The villain of some 800 movies arrived first in Hollywood back in 1920 form the Greek stage when Douglas Fairbanks offered him the role of Sergeant Gonzales in The Mark of Zorro. Mary Pickford put in a bid for him at the same time in Love Light. Since she was the most famous star of the day and Doug was a rank newcomer, Regas took her offer.

The Mark of Zorro, of course, far outshone Love Light and still stands as one of the greatest box-office successes of all time.

"I've been haunted for 20 years," Regas told me, "by the thought that if I had played in The Mark of Zorro it might have made a star of me. So when I heard that 20th Century Fox was going to film a Zorro tale, I saw Rouben Mamoulian, the director, in a hurry. Well, believe it or not, after my two decades of regrets I got the same role that Doug had offered me! My conscience feels better now."

I wish I could end this masterpiece on a happy note but I can't. You see, while I was working in the picture I learned that there were a few sequences in the script having to do with game cocks. I also learned that the prop department was hard put to acquire these birds because cock fighting is barred in California. When I told the boys that I knew of a Mexican friend of mine who had a couple, they liked to have swooned from joy. I was told the boys that I knew of a Mexican friend of mine who had a couple, they liked to have swooned from joy. I was to get twenty-five bucks if I could induce my Mex friend to bring 'em out to the studio. He was to get fifty bucks for the use of 'em. Well, that was real folding money, so I set out and I see my Mex friend, and together we tucked the birds into an auto and headed for the studio.

On the way, though, we were stopped by a traffic cop for a traffic infraction, and my heart stopped as the coperpeeked in back and saw the crate with the two game cocks in it. He gave 'em a long look, then gave us a long looks and then started pulling out his book of tickets. I thought every second he was gong to take those birds and us to the hoosegow. I lost five years of my life while I sat there and worried. As it was, it cost us five bucks apiece on a traffic charge--which we paid after delivering the birds to the studio.

It was much ado about nothing so far as the studio was concerned. Director Mamoulian never used the birds in the picture. We got our pay, thought, which was enough to pay the fine and enough left over for me to take my Spanish senorita to a dine-and-dance jernt for the evening. But I'm agin this business of trying to break the law. It somehow wears you out until you haven't got any stoop, squint, or squat left in your poor worried body.

Woe is me!

P.S. I don't know what I'll do next month. Maybe take a vacation. I'm getting kinda fed up on my art these days for no reason atall except that it seems I'm always the fall guy when it comes to trouble. I have a hunch, though, I'll be extra-ing as usual. It's getting on Christmas time and shy of jack to buy a few presents for a few of my gal friends

[ back ]