Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 149: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A PERFECT SCREAM. of seeing how the terrific wallop that we had discovered in Mr, Jones’s play would pan out under actual working conditions. In the very nature of things, how the big scene would really shape up was something that we’d had no means of finding out be- fore; but we didn’t need to find out; we knew already; it was sure-fire! Still, there was one trifling phase of the subject into which Aleck and I might have looked very easily, and I’ve never been able to figure out why we didn’t. Anyhow, before that particular Monday evening was over we certainly wished that we had looked into it —searchingly. Before going on to reveal the nature of the big scene which I have mentioned sev- eral times, I wish to state emphatically that Aleck Wheeler and I still cling to all dra- matic and other rights in same, and infring- ers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and made to like it. With that un- derstanding, the scene that Aleck and I confidently relied upon to make a couple of young fortunes for us was very much as follows. Stage and auditorium are dark; and by that I mean pitch black. All lights out. Presently a pale white circle of light ap- pears, flickering here and there—on the stage, of course. Nota sound. It is plain- ly the light cast by an electric torch. The light picks up some unimportant object, holds it momentarily, and passes on. This continues for some moments. Silence. Suspense. A clock starts striking the hour of midnight. The strokes are deliberate and remorseless; also they sound hollow and weird and ghostly. Note: it took Aleck and me two days to find that clock, and even then it didn’t have just exactly the sort of melancholy note we were looking for. The clock continues striking. The pale white circle of light halts, moves away, and again comes to rest. Then, on the stroke of twelve, the light shines full upon the face of the dead man. He is sitting at the li- brary table almost as he had been sitting when the treacherous hand of George Hig- gins delivered the fatal blow. Centered in the circlet of light his face is ghastly. But suddenly it is blotted out. There is the 619 screaam—the high-pitched, nerve-racking, horror-stricken scream of a woman sudden- ly rendered one hundred per cent distract- ed. Then—a fall. She has fainted. Again silence. Oh, boy! : Whereupon the lights come on again, showing the so-called juvenile with his hand still upon the electric switch and evincing considerable consternation about something, ‘the leading lady in a dead faint, and the victim of George Higgins’s fell work still ‘holding it.”” And the play proceeds. That was the big smash, and I think you'll agree with Aleck and me that it was calculated to make most anybody sit up and take notice. And no doubt you’ve noted that the so-called effects were all purely mechanical in a way—except the scream. As for the scream—it had to be good. No, there wasn’t, and must not be any- thing purely mechanical about that scream. It formed the climax of the whole situa- tion, and it had to be a really natural and Spontaneous expression of horror that would send chills scampering up and down the customer’s spinal columns and make em freeze to the arms of their chairs and gasp for air. If it wasn’t that kind of a scream we'd run into a regular anti-climax —the scene would collapse with a feeble re- port like a punctured toy balloon—and Aleck and I would lose money. So, considering the importance of that scream, it’s kind of funny that Aleck and I hadn’t thought of rehearsing it. I think we must have figured that a scream is a sort of primitive noise, and most anybody could produce a Satisfactory article. Probably that was it. At any rate, the success or non-success of “ A Scream at Midnight,” though some- how Aleck and I had failed to realize it, de- pended to a pretty large extent, if not en- tirely, on the screaming abilities of Miss Anita Raymond, the veteran soubrette— our leading lady. And at that Monday night rehearsal, when we reached the dark scene, Aleck and I went out and sat down in front in order to get the full effect. ‘All right,” barked Aleck. “Let er nn (C(O) NOOK