Then he made close-up scenes of
all the principals and of some of the best appearing extras. At
one time he ordered a panorama effect, in which the cameras
"pammed," swept from one side to the other, giving a succession
of faces at close range.
Finally everything was ready for the climax. Shirley had been
playing a sort of Jekyll and Hyde role in which he was at once
the young lawyer friend of Enid and the Black Terror. Unmasked
and cornered at this function of a society terrified by the dread
unknown menace, he was to make the transformation directly before
the eyes of everyone, using the mythical drug which changed him
from a young man of good appearance and family to the being who
was a very incarnation of evil.
For once Kauf did not rehearse the scene. Shirley was obviously
weakened from his experience and the director wished to spare
him. All the details were shouted out through the megaphone,
however, and I grasped that the action of this part of the dance
was familiar to everyone; it was the big scene of the story
toward which all other events had built.
Then came the familiar order. "Camera!"
At the start of this episode the orchestra was playing and the
dancers were in motion. Suddenly Gordon, as the hero, strode up
to Shirley and unmasked him with a few bitter words which later
would be flashed upon the screen in a spoken title. Instantly a
crowd gathered about, but in such a way as not to obstruct the
camera view.
Cornered, seeing that flight was impossible unless he became the
Black Terror and possessed the strength and fearlessness of that
strange other self, Shirley drew a little vial from his breast
pocket and drank the contents.
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