Monta Bell — He Got What He Wanted (1925) 🇺🇸
They call Monta Bell the best salesman in Hollywood. Monta is that young director who, though he has made only four or five pictures, is accorded already a place with the immortals — the first ten.
by Forrest Winship
And he is likewise the chap who does things that they say you can’t do. His whole amazing career — and there hasn’t been anything like it in ail the time pictures have existed— consists of having sold himself when apparently it just couldn’t be done.
In the first place, he sold himself to Charlie Chaplin, who is a hard-boiled audience for a salesman if ever there was one.
It happened like this — Chaplin met Monta in New York when he returned from his famous trip abroad. He hired Monta to write for him his book, My Trip Abroad. While they were doing it, they got into an argument about how to make motion pictures.
Now Monta, up to that time, had never seen a motion picture made. He had been a newspaper man, a syndicate writer, an editor, and had fooled around a bit in the theater, directing plays and writing sketches. But as for pictures, — he had nothing to offer but theories.
However, the argument got so hot and heavy that Charlie invited the tall and dark and smiling young newspaper man to ride out to Chicago with him. Arriving in Chicago, both were still talking, so Monta came on to Salt Lake. There he alighted, feeling sure that he had convinced Chaplin of a few of his ideas.
Apparently he had, for when he got back to Chicago on his return trip, he was greeted by a message from Charlie. It said. “Come to Hollywood and work for me. I want to see if you can do the things you talk about.”
Two weeks later Monta went to work as scenario editor for Chaplin.
He worked with him on a couple of comedies, and then began the long siege of A Woman of Paris, the serious drama Chaplin made, starring Edna Purviance.
Monta worked with Chaplin, argued with him, and listened to him, during the months and months that it took to evolve that masterpiece of picture production. They talked story, Monta stood in the rain under an umbrella and watched Charlie direct, when the great comedian insisted on working in spite of a “slight drizzle.” He sat in on the cutting and tilling.
And, believe me, if ever one man idolized another man’s genius, Monta Bell idolizes that of Charlie Chaplin. He is rabid on the subject. If you ever want to get yourself into a real battle, just, by way of a joke, drop a criticism of Charlie Chaplin where Monta can hear you. You will have six-feet-two of fighting man to contend with immediately.
A Woman of Paris being finished, Monta decided that he was now ready to direct.
The enormity of that may not dawn upon you, unless you know Hollywood. But directors are years and years in the making. It is exactly as though a young man who had once watched an automobile race dropped into a big factory and remarked, “Well, I’m ready to take charge of this plant now.” Or as though a youth, who had done nothing but sign checks, declared himself ready to be a bank president.
His friends all felt a little sorry about Monta, he being such a darn nice young fellow and all that. But, of course, the idea of his directing pictures when he had been in Hollywood only about a year, and had never even been an assistant director, or a scenario writer, or an actor, or anything like that, was too absurd.
But Monta went right out and sold himself to Harry Rapf, an independent producer with vision and a real desire to give youth and new blood a chance. Rapf decided to gamble on Monta Bell. He let him direct “Broadway After Dark,” and the novice made a corking and unusual feature, which proved to be one of the big hits of the year.
When Rapf went to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer combination as one of the chief executives, his contract with Monta Bell was one of his biggest assets.
He had gambled and won.
Monta rang the bell again with “Lady of the Night,” and “The Snob,” and he is now making his biggest and most elaborate production, “The Pretty Ladies.”
I’d hate to tell you his salary — which jumped amazingly during a controversy over his services between Jesse L. Lasky and Louis B. Mayer. Imagine it — he has made four pictures and they fight over who’s going to pay him the most money.
But the answer is that Monta had something to sell. He has an entirely new directorial touch, fresh, vivid, unbound by picture tradition.
He has tremendous feeling and understanding, which he isn’t afraid to let run wild. He is utterly independent in his thinking, and he works hard.
So, besides being a great salesman, it helps if you can deliver the goods.
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Monta Bell’s first real picture work was the scenario of A Woman of Paris — then he was ready to direct
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, July 1925