Dorothy Parker to write the titles.20
Dorothy had just been fired as the Vanity Fair drama critic because after writing caustic comments about Billie Burke’s acting talents, her husband, Flo Ziegfeld, threatened to pull his advertising from all Conde Nast publications. Though Dorothy was pleased to be hired so quickly after this debacle, she found title writing too similar to creating captions under photographs to be challenging. She was more right than she knew. Lillian later freely admitted “there was no story”; she and her sister had come up with the plot of Remodeling Her Husband from a magazine cartoon of a man telling his wife that she is so dowdy that no one notices her and their story revolved around her proving him wrong.21
Lillian couldn’t find a female cinematographer and her hope of making Remodeling Her Husband a smooth-running “all-woman picture” was exploded by the presence and the tantrums of her cameraman, Frances’s friend George Hill. He had rejoined Griffith after returning from the war and Lillian blamed his behavior on “shell shock.”
“I got my main set, the living room, so big and not high enough at the back so that if he took the whole room in, he shot over the top,” but George became “hysterical” and “threw his hat in the air and stamped on it.” Always the lady, she rarely was negative about anyone, but of working with George, Lillian said, “Oh, it was terrible. And then I had to build the studio.”22
She supervised the installation of electricity, but the unheated rooms at Mamaroneck were so cold that she was forced to move to another facility in New Rochelle. And while her sister had initially disagreed with her casting James Rennie, much to Lillian’s dismay, Dorothy proceeded to fall in love with him and they ran off to be married shortly after the film was finished.23
When Griffith returned to a completed studio, Lillian told him she thought he had been very unfair to leave her with such responsibility, especially while she was directing her first film. Griffith just laughed and said, “I needed my studio built quickly and I knew they’d work faster for a girl than they would for me. I’m no fool.”
Lillian had brought the picture in for slightly over her $50,000 budget and it made a nice profit, but Remodeling Her Husband was Lillian’s first and last attempt at directing. Though the experience gave her a new respect for the profession and she now understood why directors viewed each foot of film as their own, it had exhausted her energy and her patience and she happily returned to the other side of the camera.24
As Lillian was coming to that conclusion, Frances was making her directorial debut. Hearst had been encouraging her to direct a Cosmopolitan film with or without Marion Davies and Frances found a Fannie Hurst story in his Cosmopolitan magazine she was comfortable taking on.
Just Around the Corner was a predictable but dependable heart tugger about the poor, widowed Ma Birdsong who tries to keep food on the table and her teenage children on the straight and narrow. As her health fails, Ma’s only wish is to meet the man who is to become her son-in-law, but her daughter’s corrupt and lazy boyfriend refuses to leave the poolroom for even a few minutes. In desperation, Essie tells her story to a good-looking stranger who agrees to pretend to be the boyfriend for the sake of her mother’s contentment; Ma is satisfied and Essie finds happiness with “the real man.”
Frances tried filming on location in Central Park at 59th Street, where the snow was piled high and the winds were blowing, but the actors’ noses turned red from the cold and when Frances viewed the rushes, she saw “sooty young faces blowing gusts of steam from their mouths every time they opened them.” She reluctantly moved the production indoors, used “frosted cornflakes” for snow, and admitted it looked “much prettier and much less distracting.”25
Everyone worked as a team and Frances took pride that no one complained about the long hours. The cast was made up of reliable and known actors, but they were hardly star caliber. Margaret Seddon played Ma, Sigrid Holmquist is Essie, and Edward Phillips was cast as the heavy. Fred often came to work with her and when the actor who was scheduled to play the part of “the real man” failed to show, Fred was talked into “stepping into the part rather than hold up production.”26
Fred’s stunning good looks had already given rise to the obvious suggestion that he become an actor. Mary Pickford may have been the first to spot him in a crowd, but Marion Davies and Hearst both thought he was a natural and the reviews noted that even in his small role, Fred “looked the part” of the hero. While he claimed he had agreed only because Frances needed him and “couldn’t have been less interested” in acting, Frances had come to another conclusion: “If I had any qualms, they were instantly dispelled as soon as I saw the rushes. I knew then I’d married an actor.”
She wondered about the veracity of the French saying “An actress is something more than a woman; an actor something less than a man,” yet she was proud to have such a handsome husband. Flora Zabelle and Raymond Hitchcock gave a dinner party to introduce Fred to their New York friends and Hedda Hopper remembered that “when Fred walked into the room, we all gasped. Here was America’s Greek God, who had youth, virility, and decency. Every girl in the room envied Frances.”27
Just Around the Corner was listed as “one of the year’s best sellers” for Cosmopolitan, and Variety said, “Miss Marion is to be congratulated on both her adaption of the story and the manner in which she directed it,” adding that “for detail, the picture is as near perfect as it can be.” She enjoyed the praise and the control directing gave her, but the all-consuming nature of the responsibilities took every waking hour and she decided that until they were sure of Fred’s new calling, she take only those assignments that allowed her enough time to concentrate on him.28
“We had plans which had not quite crystallized, though we both knew we were on the right track.” Fred wanted to channel his need to encourage children, if not into a religious life, at least into one with proper values. As head of the Boy Scouts in Nevada, he had seen the impact westerns had on the boys. He was troubled by the emphasis on gunplay and what both he and Frances thought was the misrepresentation of the real West. They took history seriously and shared a love of the idea of bringing realistic stories to the screen that would grab children’s interest.
“Fred wondered if stories such as Doug Fairbanks made could be converted into westerns, with the heroic feats intelligently and humorously worked out and climaxes built to thrill audiences without cruelty to men or horses.”
Frances felt tht if Fred went into producing or acting, it would provide a perfect solution on several levels. If he were occupied with something he believed was for a larger cause, the guilt she felt over taking him from the church would be assuaged, and it would also supply a solid rationale for him to be with her at the studio learning every aspect of filmmaking.
“We talked about this at great length” and they were mutually convinced “here was to be Fred’s mission.” For the time being, he was content to study from the sidelines.29
Frances quickly scripted The Restless Sex for Marion Davies and The World and His Wife for Alma Rubens and she was concerned that in spite of her pride and confidence in Humoresque, it was being held back from immediate release. But this time she focused her attention on her private life; she and Fred had postponed their honeymoon long enough.
They threw themselves a farewell party at the Rachmaninoff apartment and Frances’s brother, Len, and his wife, Mary Margaret, arrived with Marie Dressler and a young man she brought along from “Tin Pan Alley.” Frances was taken aback by Marie’s conservative black gown with a string of pearls. Her usual attire was marabou feathers and sequins or at least big bows and lace, but Marie had “gone elegant.” Frances held her tongue until Marie brought it up.
