Lloyd Hamilton — A Flyer in Art (1923) 🇺🇸
Lloyd Hamilton may or may not be the logical successor to the melancholy Joseph Schildkraut and Ivor Novello of the famous profile — but he is a new kind of Griffith star.
Kiddies, if ever mama or papa or even your fairy godmother should say to you, "What motion picture studio would you like to visit today?" why, you just pipe up in your little treble, "Mr. Griffith's." Because, kiddies, you will love it there, and you will be just as safe as if you were in your own little room.
Mr. Griffith's isn't like other studios. It's most awfully refined. There is none of that nasty air of commercialism hanging about the place. Pictures, not money is made there — you feel that.
One doesn't exactly walk softly and talk in whispers, but one feels that one should.
His people refer feelingly to Mr. Griffith as "God's own gentleman," and after you have been there a while you catch yourself murmuring it, too. Anyone who has the good taste to buy a lovely old estate in Mamaroneck, surrounded by Sound and air to make pictures in, is God's own gentleman, and don't you forget it.
In the Presence of Art
One is in the presence of art. Well, no matter what you may have thought of Way Down East and The White Rose, the memories of such great things as Broken Blossoms and The Birth of a Nation hover.
Griffith's studio is romantic and picturesque and impractical. Little ladies and gentlemen, every employee. You feel that the stage hands work there only because they love it, and the view is so nice. Every outsider is charmed and impressed. The dwellers in adjacent estates bring their little ones to watch the companies at work. Even if no pictures were made there, it should be preserved as an example of what a well bred studio should be, and too often, alas, is not.
It is always exciting to see the latest addition to the happy family in Mamaroneck. There was Carol Dempster. She looked as if she had been bound for the exclusive school for girls nearby and had wandered into the film factory by mistake. Charming voice and manners. She played brilliant Chopin between scenes. And Joseph Schildkraut, who talked in melancholy tones of how he wanted to do Dorian Gray — I remember he made me want to go right out and see about the scenario. Ivor Novello — ah, Ivor. With the profile that, if it were turned to the camera continually, would make the home fires of our little fans go out. Every one of them belonged.
A Stranger Came Adown the Lane
Passed time.
Come, adown the lane, a Stranger.
He loomed a little large after Ivor. His shoes were old, stubby and of an amazing size. He wore a very small checked cap. His suit seemed to shrink even as I gazed.
Next to Lillian Gish, Lloyd Hamilton is probably the wistfullest thing on the screen. Perhaps this is why Griffith chose him for the leading role in "Black and White," when Al Jolson decided he'd rather go to Europe than make a movie.
Lillian and Mae and Carol may look pathetic — but even these illustrious sob-sisters could learn a lot from Lloyd. He. seems always to be faintly troubled about something. You yearn to put your arm about his shoulder " and tell him, huskily, that you understand. Comedians are like that, anyway. Whenever I see one off the screen I want to break down and have a good cry. They touch me to the heart. It is as if the strain of being awfully funny all the time had begun to tell.
The Wistful Mr. Hamilton
Like everyone else, Mr. Hamilton has to pinch himself every so often to make sure he is really, truly working for Mr. Griffith. He was making his two-reelers in Hollywood when the wire came asking him to take the lead in Black and White. The part is that of a young lawyer who clears his client of a murder charge by masquerading as a resident of darktown and unearthing the real murderer. One of the highlights of the piece is the scene where he participates in the baptismal ceremonies in the river and when ducked by the officiating clergyman comes up white. Now you know.
While his too-small cap hasn't become a symbol like Harold's glassless goggles, still it is known. Small boys recognize him on the street. So there was something touching in his humility when Hamilton remarked that he was so surprised that Mr. Griffith told him to keep right on wearing the same old clothes and pulling the same line. Mr. Griffith even did an imitation of the Hamilton walk — imagine. You know the character if you saw "Uneasy Feet. " A man who wants every one to think he is going somewhere when he really isn't going anywhere at all. Circumstances over which he has no control make him funny.
The Intensely Serious Lloyd Bacon
Lloyd Bacon, the son of the late star of "Lightnin'," and John Noble, director, are other Californians working on Black and White. Mr. Bacon is an intensely serious young man. Kate Bruce remembered him when he was eight and she was a member of his father's company, and she said he was oh, so serious then. Mr. Bacon looked at me and said, "Have you ever been to California?"
"No," I acknowledged humbly.
Mr. Bacon bent upon me a look of awful scorn.
Perhaps there was pity in it.
He walked away and I could hear whispers, "She's never been to California?"
I felt suspicion grow about me. Contempt. But not from Lloyd Hamilton.
A real heart beats beneath his rough slapstick exterior. He said he had known someone, once, a long time ago, who had never been further west than Kansas City; and he understood it was possible to live quite happily in the East.
"It isn't like California, of course," he added. "Seems funny to be riding to location here in the studio bus." There was a far-away look in his large eyes. Undoubtedly he had a vision of himself riding to location in California, himself and his large shoes and his make-up box filling his own car.
Still Recalls His Past
If he yearns for the great west he doesn't show it. Neither, however, does he attempt to smother his past. He admits he was Ham of Ham and Bud, in the days when Mickey Neilan was with Kalem.
"We thought we were real funny, then." His short comedies for Educational have brought him into favor. Remember his shoe-store scenes in Uneasy Feet? He's trying on shoes and every time the clerk asks him if he likes a pair, the feather in the hat of the lady sitting behind him tickles his ear and he shakes his head. Six hundred pairs of shoes were used in this one scene alone. Only Cecil De Mille could break this record.
Hamilton is an old trouper. He had his training in repertoire. He's been in pictures ever since they used to make one a week, or oftener. He has worked with lions and would rather work with anything else. He assures the skeptical, rather feelingly, that the lions he worked with — I think it was in "Roaring Lions and Wedding Bells" — had untrimmed claws, youth, and full possession of all their ivories.
Homesick for Old, Low Comedy
Perhaps his wistful look is really a martyr expression, occasioned by homesickness for Hollywood and his good, old, low comedy. If so, he suffers in a worthy cause. It is for art. Black and White has its solemn moments when
Hamilton will be required to act, even as Schildkraut and Novello. How will it feel to go back to the old life, making two-reelers without any solemn moments? Will he decide that all true comedy has a touch of pathos and proceed to put it in? At any rate, come what will, he can always lift his head proudly and say, "I worked for Griffith."
He hasn't Schildkraut's profile, but I like him better.
Next to Lillian Gish, Hamilton is the wistfullest thing on the screen. Our illustrious sob-sisters could learn a lot from him. You yearn to put your arm about his shoulder and tell him, huskily, that you understand.
In his new Griffith picture Hamilton plays a young lawyer who clears his client of a murder charge by masquerading in black face as a resident of darktown and unearthing the real murderer.
Collection: Screenland Magazine, November 1923