Larry Semon is as good as his word, but no better. Three pictures are all he gets.
At the Oceana Apartments, he can remember their names:
Huns and Hyphens
Bears and Bad Men
Frauds and Frenzies
Larry Semon has a formula, and Larry Semon does not deviate from it, except to make the explosions bigger, the chases longer, the stunts more dangerous.
He is given a bit of business with eggs and chicks in the first picture, but less to work with in the second. For the third picture, he is promoted. Larry Semon makes him his co-star. They are to be convicts on a chain gang who escape to the city. Larry Semon informs him of this storyline the week before filming commences, and they spend days rehearsing their scenes together. He returns each evening to Mae bruised and exhausted. He might conclude that Larry Semon is torturing him were it not for the fact that Larry Semon is more bruised and exhausted than he is. And when he is back in his rooms, back with Mae, he practices in front of a mirror, just as he once practiced in the dusty attic rooms of lodgings procured by A.J. He feels this is his last, best chance, and he wants to be as good as he has ever been.
They begin work on Frauds and Frenzies. The crew laughs, and laughs hard, but the crew is not always laughing at Larry Semon.
This Larry Semon notices.
He learns a lot from observing Larry Semon, who agonizes over every shot; who dreams up gags when not behind, or in front of, the camera; who works through these gags when alone, pacing them out, counting steps, timing every movement; who, when not agonizing or dreaming or practicing, is drawing, sketching characters and scenes and stunts.
And who does not laugh, not unless a camera is pointed at him, and only when the scene requires a simulation of mirth.
Larry Semon lets him go. There is no explanation.
It is over.
Later, Babe will speak of his own time with Larry Semon, of playing the heavy to this relentless man, and they will express their gratitude for the chance given to them, even as they acknowledge that it was all to serve the myth of Larry Semon.
And Larry Semon believes this myth, even though Larry Semon has fashioned it himself. Larry Semon spends too long brooding on Chaplin. The money is not sufficient recompense, because Larry Semon also wants the Audience to adore him as the Audience adores Chaplin. What Larry Semon does not understand is that Chaplin started out already believing the Audience was waiting to adore him; the Audience had just not yet encountered Chaplin, and so had no name to put to this nebulous presence at the margins of perception.
Chaplin knew. Larry Semon only desires.
Larry Semon spends and spends. If Chaplin’s genius cannot be matched, then Chaplin’s budgets can be exceeded, and in this way the Audience will bow before Larry Semon. But Larry Semon forgets the cardinal rule:
Never set a match to your own money.
Larry Semon blazes through his fortune. Larry Semon’s career goes up in smoke.
He remembers Larry Semon.
Babe remembered Larry Semon.
They are among the few.