Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/332

 but now he savagely devoured food. He thought this so-called Governor was too much like Baird.

"Well, Governor, I hope you're right. But that was pretty keen stuff last night. That first bit won't do Parmalee any good, and that Buck Benson stuff—you can't tell me a little more of that wouldn't make Benson look around for a new play."

"But I do tell you just that. It won't hurt Parmalee a bit; and Benson can go on Bensoning to the end of time—to big money. You keep forgetting this twenty-million audience. Go out and buy a picture magazine and read it through, just to remind you. They want hokum, and pay for it. Even this thing of Baird's, with all the saving slap-stick, is over the heads of a good half of them. I'll make a bet with you now, anything you name, that it won't gross two thirds as much as Benson's next Western, and in that they'll cry their eyes out when he kisses his horse good-bye. See if they don't. Or see if they don't bawl at the next old gray-haired mother with a mop and a son that gets in bad.

"Why, if you give 'em hokum they don't even demand acting. Look at our own star, Mercer. You know as well as I do that she not only can't act, but she's merely a beautiful moron. In a world where right prevailed she'd be crowned queen of the morons without question. She may have an idea that two and two make four, but if she has it's only because she believes everything she hears. And look at the mail she gets. Every last one of the twenty million has written to tell her what a noble actress she is. She even believes that.

"Baird can keep on with the burlesque stuff, but his little old two-reelers 'll probably have to pay for it, especially if he keeps those high-priced people. I'll bet that one new man of his sets him back seven hundred and fifty a week. The Lord knows he's worth every cent of it. My boy, tell me, did you ever in all your life see a lovelier imitation of a perfectly rotten actor? There's an artist for you. Who is he, anyway? Where'd he come from?"