Out of the Silence

This Week
Let's Go to the Movies
Spicer Hearing witness Addie Bourland
Writers Notebook:

Early Hollywood Screenwriters

As Hollywood moved away from silent films to sound I'd like to mention several female writers and their contributions to the film industry.
They we all hard working, bright and talented.
Bess Meredyth was an award winning screenwriter and actress. She was also one of the founders of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Among her many screen credits 'A Woman of Affairs,' 'Strange Interlude,' 'Don Juan,' The Mighty Barnum, Charlie Chan at the Opera and the Mark of Zorro.

June Mathis wrote screenplays, her first being 'House of Tears,' back in New York. However she moved to Hollywood and after only one year of screenwriting at Metro Films she was moved to the scenario department and was one of the first heads of any film department and the only female executive at Metro.
Richard Rowland, the head of Metro paid twenty thousand dollars for the novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The epic best seller was considered unadaptable by every major studio in the country. Rowland handed the book off to Mathis for adaptation and was so impress with her screenplay that he ask for her input on director and star. Ms. Mathis accepted the challenge and picked Rex Ingram for the director and the fledgling actor Rudolph Valentino as the star. It worked perfectly well and Valentino became an immediate star. And later that same year they did Blood and Sand.

Anita Loos grew up in California and had a dynamic personality. Her career as a screenwriter had its beginning when she wrote the short story 'The New York Hat' and submitted to to D.W. Griffith. The story was adapted to the screen by Griffith, Mary Pickford played the lead and the film was successful.
During the silent era miss Loos became known as Miss fix-it. She could take a dull film, rewrite new captions and make a silk purse out of a souse's ear.
Anita Loos also wrote stories for Douglas Fairbanks who soon became one of the great stars of the American screen. Loos was a prolific writer and turned out scores of scripts like 'The Virtuous Vamp', 'Two Weeks,' 'In search of a Sinner,' 'Dangerous Business,' 'The Perfect Woman.' Her most famous story was 'Gentleman Prefer Blonds.' She wasn't finished with that story because she wrote San Francisco, Saratoga and 'The Women,'

Frances Marion grew up in San Francisco and before arriving in Hollywood in 1913 she had worked as an artist, photographer's model, commercial illustrator, and writer of several stories and verse. In her early days in Los Angeles she was introduced to Mary Pickford and they became great friends as well as collaborators and colleagues for the rest of their lives.
Marion also worked closely with Marie Dressler and others including Alice Brady, Elsie Janis, Billie Burke, and Marion Davies. She also worked with male actors Ronald Coleman, Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert and Wallace Beery.
Many of the producers of the time considered her their go to screenwriter and they included William Randolph Hearst, Joe Kennedy, L.B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg. Sam Goldwyn was one of her favorite producers and the feeling was mutual – Marion was his favorite screenwriter.
Some of her late hits were Stella Dallas, Dinner at Eight, The Champ and The Big House.
Frances Marion won Oscars for the Champ and The Big House.

'Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone'
Excerpt from Judge Spicer's Hearing.

Doc scratched out a note: Within a couple of hours after the shooting Johnny Behan tells Virg, 'I am your friend, you did perfectly right.' Was Williams being enticed to modify his testimony by the prosecution with a job on the district attorney's staff?
Doc thumped his pencil onto his note pad and thought the answer was a probably yes, but the larger question was what did the judge think?
Judge Spicer dismissed Mr. Williams and motioned to defense to call their next witness.
Tom Fitch said, “Would Mrs. Addie Bourland please come forward?”
A tall thin, middle-aged, woman wearing a long blue calico dress walked to the front of the court, was sworn in, and with an air of confidence took the witness stand.
Tom Fitch asked the routine identification questions, and then said, "Would you tell us the exact location of your residence?”
"I live on the opposite side of Fremont Street from the entrance to Fly's lodging house."
"Tell us if you observed any part of the difficulty that occurred across from your house on the afternoon of October 26th.”
“I first saw, five men opposite my house leaning against a small house, west of Fly's gallery. One man was holding a horse and standing a little out from the house. I supposed them to be cowboys. I saw four men coming down the street toward them and a man wearing a long coat. He walked up to the man holding the horse and put a pistol to his stomach then he, the man with the long coat, stepped back two or three feet and the firing seemed to be general. That is all I saw."
"Where were you at the time you saw this occurrence?"
"I was in my house at the front window."
"How long after the two parties met did the firing commence?"
"It was only a few seconds."
"Which party fired first?"
"I don't know."
"Were you looking at both parties when the firing commenced?"
"I was looking at them, but not at anyone in particular. I did not know there was going to be any difficulty."
"Did you know the man with the long coat?"
"I did not know him then. I recognize Doctor Holliday, the man sitting there writing, as the man.”
"Did you notice what kind of weapon Holliday had in his hand?"
"A very large pistol.”
"Did you notice the color of the pistol?"
"Dark bronze."
"Was it or was it not a nickel-plated pistol?"
"It was not a nickel-plated pistol."
Doc nudged Wyatt and whispered. "She saw the Parker I was holding in the crook of my arm. And from her angle she could have mistaken it for a long forty five."
Wyatt nodded agreement with Doc's theory.
"At the time the party descending Fremont Street approached the others, did you see any of the men that you thought were cowboys, throw up their hands?"
"I did not."
"Did you hear any conversation or exclamations between the two parties after they met and before the firing commenced?"
"I did not. My door was closed."
"How long did you continue to look at the parties after they met?"
"Until they commenced to fire, then I got up and went into my back room.”
"About how many shots were fired before you left the window?"
"I could not tell -- all was confusion."
"Were all the parties shooting at each other at the time you were looking at them?"
"Yes, it looked to me like that."
"Had any of the parties fallen at the time you left the window?"
"I saw no parties fall."
Then Tom Fitch announced, "I have no further questions."
Price stood and said, "Prosecution has no questions for this witness, Your Honor.”
Doc reread the note he had just scribbled and wanted to yell at his own lawyer. Damn it, he thought, Tom Fitch asked the right question, did she see the cowboy's hands up? She said, 'I did not.' Why didn't he ask a follow up question to nail down her answer? Somehow we've got to make every person in this courtroom aware of what the lady said -- that she did not see the cowboy's hands in the air.
Judge Spicer took a long look at his watch and finally said, "Court will take its noon recess and reconvene at two o'clock."
(To be continued)

Writers Notebook:
Fiction and nonfiction:
Nonfiction is a term loosely used to describe a factual happening or event. But is it all fact? No. During the recreation of actual events fiction techniques are often employed, and when those techniques are used today they are called creative non-fiction. For example – one of the most famous nonfiction books in the English language is Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ a book filled with passages of pure fiction. There are no clear-cut rules that state how far writers of nonfiction may legitimately go into the area of fiction. And while the ivory tower crowd mull over the changing rules of the English language, non fiction writers that feel a need to stray too far into fiction might keep Television’s famous cop Joe Friday’s admonition in mind – ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels Tungee's Gold, The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com
http://thehurricanehunter,blogspot.com