He struggles to liberate himself from Joe Rock, because his contract with Joe Rock has more clauses than Shakespeare. Warren Doane, Hal Roach’s business manager, goes through the contract twice and then has to lie down for an hour.
He is shackled to Joe Rock as an actor, but not in any other regard. As long as he does not act, he owes Joe Rock nothing. Meanwhile Warren Doane, now recovered, begins work on the contractual knots. So while Warren Doane negotiates, and Joe Rock stonewalls, he writes and directs for Hal Roach. They pair him with Jimmy Finlayson.
Did you kill Mae? Jimmy Finlayson asks.
—No, I didn’t kill her.
—They say you put her on a boat to Australia.
—That isn’t true either.
—I hope it’s not. If it were, I’d have asked you to put Emily on board with her. Then we could have sunk it.
He works alongside Jimmy Parrott, who is still taking diet pills and still having fits. Charley Parrott, Jimmy Parrott’s brother, is moving on from helming Our Gang pictures to become a comic in his own right. Harold Lloyd has departed from the lot, gone to seek his independence, and Hal Roach must keep the studio’s momentum going. Hal Roach is not averse to elevating Charley Parrott, so Charley Parrott is now Charley Chase, and is making two-reel pictures. Charley Chase worked with Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle. Charley Chase worked with Mack Sennett. Charley Chase is smart and sophisticated. Charley Chase understands that character is all.
He regards Charley Chase closely, because Charley Chase is struggling to handle the pressure. Charley Chase drinks. They all drink, although he drinks less now that Mae is no longer around, but it does not impede the progress of their work. This may be the only way that Charley Chase can continue to function, with the aid of brandy and champagne—well, brandy, champagne, and the set of hand-carved meerschaum pipes that Charley Chase utilizes solely for the purpose of smoking marijuana behind the shooting stages.
When Charley Chase is not filming, or drunk, or high, Charley Chase fucks petite blondes while BeBe, his wife, raises their daughters to be good girls. Charley Chase reads his daughters stories at night. Charley Chase is not a bad guy. Even BeBe knows this, which is why she pretends not to notice the blondes. She wishes her husband would not cast them in his pictures, though. It makes them harder to ignore if she has to view them magnified on a screen before her.
Leo McCarey is often present too, sitting in the director’s chair. Leo McCarey and Hal Roach are close, but Leo McCarey and Charley Chase are closer still. In the evenings, over bootleg hooch, Leo McCarey and Charley Chase compose popular songs together.
If he regards Charley Chase closely, he regards Leo McCarey with even greater care, because Leo McCarey is the best director on the Hal Roach lot. Leo McCarey and Charley Chase are one organism, so it is difficult to tell where the work of Leo McCarey ends and the work of Charley Chase begins. Leo McCarey is a rock. Charley Chase has the ideas, and the technical acumen to bring them to the screen, but Leo McCarey anchors the pictures. Also, Leo McCarey does not fuck petite blondes, nor does he smoke marijuana from meerschaum pipes. On the other hand, if there is a cable, Leo McCarey will trip over it, and if there is a bottle, Leo McCarey will break it. Leo McCarey is the only man he knows who has fallen down an elevator shaft and survived. Leo McCarey is the only man he knows who has fallen down an elevator shaft, period. Jimmy Finlayson says Leo McCarey is still alive only because God isn’t trying hard enough. Jimmy Finlayson says this is proof that God is a Catholic.
So he waits for Joe Rock to concede defeat, and he writes, and he directs. He is no Charley Chase, no Leo McCarey, but like Charley Chase, he can act, and when required, he can demonstrate to his stars what he wishes them to do. He directs Mabel Normand, Madcap Mabel. He directs Clyde Cook, the Australian Inja Rubber Idiot, whose name he once read on music hall bills back in England. Clyde Cook can take falls like Buster Keaton. Clyde Cook’s bones bend, but do not break.
And he directs Babe.