The Grin of the Dark

EIGHT - SMILEMIME

There's something odd about Orville Hart as well.

He was working for Mack Sennett when he discovered Tubby Thackeray. He and the comedian wrote their early films together, while Thackeray took sole credit for writing the later ones, and Hart directed all of them. Once Tubby lost his stardom Hart found work at the Hal Roach studios, initially as a writer, eventually directing Oliver Hardy and James Finlayson in The Course-We-Can Brothers. For several years after that he appears to have been confined to writing gags until in 1932 he wrote and directed Crazy Capaldi, his first feature film. 'The wildest of the Warners gangster movies,' somebody posting as Smilemime comments on the Internet Movie Database. 'Banned in Blighty and withdrawn in America after pubblic protests, the severely cut reissue was a flop.' I stare at this until I disentangle the sense it's presumably intended to make. Perhaps Hart was better suited to comedy, since he's next noted as a writer for the Three Stooges, whom he directed in 1934 as Eager, Meager and Seegar, three hunchbacked laboratory assistants in a Frankenstein parody, Gimme Da Brain. 'The story goes the pokes in the eye got out of hand and nearly blinded Curly,' Smilemime claims to know. In 1935 Hart attempted to revive Charley Chase's reputation or his own with his second full-length feature, Fool for a Day. 'Screwball so screwy it screwed his career,' Smilemime somewhat imprecisely sums it up. 'Ahead of its time or out of its head? You deccide if you can find it.' The studio may not have had a chance to judge the reaction of the public when Hart began shooting his next film, Ticklin' Feather. This was apparently to be the first in a series of comedy Westerns about a Cherokee of that name. 'Beggins with him riding into the little town of Bedlam on a donkey called Neddy Canter,' Smilemime reports. 'Sound fammiliar?' I'm not sure which reference this means, nor where the pseudonymous commentator obtained the information, because the film was never released.

That's the oddity. Both Orville Hart and Tubby Thackeray ended their careers with unreleased films. It isn't surprising that they weren't hired after that, but why would two studios suppress completed films? The question can't distract me from wondering what Natalie has to tell me. I was hoping that she would last night while Mark stayed downstairs to watch the film again, but she dropped me at the house and kept him in the car. 'I'll be in touch,' she said. I stayed up for a while, searching the Internet for Clowns Unlimited or any variant spelling, but even the site from which I bought the tickets was unavailable; perhaps the performers have alienated so many spectators that they can't obtain any more bookings. Eventually I went to bed, only to imagine on the way to sleep that if I opened my eyes I would see clowns' faces poking up all around me. Between dozes I wondered if Natalie wanted to discuss some situation first with Mark.

It's almost noon on Sunday morning. I could phone her, but I don't want to be told she can't talk. Surely she would have called by now if it was serious. I do my best to believe that while I finish reading about Orville Hart, the grandfather of 'adult filmmaker Willie Hart'. When I reach the page for that name, having been warned about adult content, I see that Willie Hart's films include a hardcore comedy called Dopius, Gropius and Copious. I return to Orville's page and click on Tubby Thackeray in case it takes me anywhere I haven't been. As I expected, it brings up the comedian's listing, but that has changed. All the titles are live, linked to pages of their own.

Could they have been last time I looked? It hardly matters, since there's so little information. Each individual page lists the film as a Keystone comedy starring Tubby Thackeray and directed by Orville Hart. Just one is briefly reviewed: Tubby's Tiny Tubbies. 'Tubby and his little nephews create chaos in a snooty store.' I'd take that to be accurate if the commentator Smilemime didn't add 'Nearly complete in Those Golden Years of Fun – the only known survivving Tubby footage.'

Are all Smilemime's comments as unreliable as this? Is he (I'm certain it's a man) remembering a different film, and is it one of Thackeray's? The site doesn't let you contact other users directly, but I can start a message board. First I have to register. As long as I'm addressing a pseudonym I don't see why I shouldn't use one. I sign in as Leslie Stone and head my message QUESTIONABLE ATTRIBUTION.

I'm afraid the reviewer is mixing up two films. The one in Those Golden Years of Fun is surely Tubby's Terrible Triplets. None of them is little, they're all the same size. Can anyone identify the film Smilemime describes and say if it's still available?

I send the message and return to Tubby's main page. I was hoping to open up his biography, but now even the sentence about music-hall and the next two tantalising words have gone. Why would they have been deleted? I search for an address for Variety Video in case they can put me in touch with the source of their footage, but there's no trace of the distributors in the list the phrase calls up. As I finish scrolling through the list, my mobile rings. 'Are you busy?' says Natalie.

'Never too busy for you. Is Mark there?'

'He's on his computer. Why, do you want him?'

'No, I meant...'

'Nobody's listening if that's the problem. I'm sorry things didn't go as planned last night. Actually, I think you've made a fan.'

'Well, I hope he knows I'm one of his.'

Natalie is silent long enough for me to grasp I've missed the point before she says 'A fan of this Tubby of yours. He couldn't talk about anything else all the way home.'

Does that mean he thinks it best not to tell her about the circus? 'Remind him I said he could watch it again.'

'I don't know if he even needs to. I wouldn't be surprised if he was laughing in his sleep.' Her voice stays indulgent as she adds 'By the way, I shouldn't have to tell you he's fond of you.'

'I'm glad.'

'Or that I am.'

'I hope you can hear an echo. So what happened last night?' I risk asking.

'I'm sorry I kept you wondering. I might have lost my temper if I'd phoned from Windsor.'

'With me, do you mean?'

'I will do if you make that sort of comment.' Natalie sighs at one of us and says 'I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't answering their phones so that I couldn't find out why they wanted me till I got there.'

At least her parents couldn't have minded leaving Mark with me, unless they were hoping I would prove to be somehow untrustworthy. 'And what was that?' I have to prompt.

'They wanted to put me together with someone I used to know.'

'Is it the fellow they were saying has done well for himself?'

'You never told me they had.'

'It was when they ran me back here from your flat. I expect it slipped my mind.'

'It sounded as though it mattered to you just now.'

'Should it?'

A wave sweeps all the combinations of variety and video off the monitor, and I nudge the mouse to hush the soundtrack of the screensaver. 'Are you sure I'm not interrupting your work?' Natalie says.

'Of course you aren't. All right, you are but I want you to.' I'm thrown by having realised that I ought to be searching for Charley Tracy, compiler of Those Golden Years of Fun. 'That's all they told me,' I protest. 'Not even who he is.'

'He's Nicholas. I went to school with him. He's involved in a publishing company and he's offered me a job.'

'Natalie, I'm sorry. I should have asked Rufus if he could put some of all this money your way. Shall I?'

'Honestly, I'd rather you didn't. It might cause arguments.'

'You don't want any of those.'

'Not if they can be avoided, and I think this one could be. We aren't having one now, are we?'

'I don't see why we need to. So what's your job?'

'One of their magazines is about modern art and they want a more modern look. Nicholas thinks I can do it because of how Cineassed looked.'

'I expect there was thunder in the air if he talked about that in front of your parents.'

'There wasn't, actually.'

I might express surprise if not disbelief, but I'm busy examining the cardboard slipcase of Those Golden Years of Fun. The distributors were based in Oldham. 'Have you got the job, then?'

'I'll obviously have to go for an interview, but it sounds as if I might have it if I want it.'

'And do you?'

'It pays a lot more than the magazine I'm with now, and I think there'd be more satisfaction in it too.'

I hunch up my left shoulder to hold the mobile to my ear while I type Charley Tracy and Oldham on the Directory Enquiries page of British Telecom. 'Then I don't know what you're waiting for.'

I mean to be encouraging, but Natalie says 'Would you rather I hadn't rung? I'm getting the impression you want to be left by yourself.'

'Not by you. You mustn't ever think that. I may have found a good lead, that's all,' I say, because I appear to be looking at the phone number for the compiler of the film.

'I'd better leave you to it, then.'

'Hold on,' I say, having caught a hint of tentativeness in her voice. 'Is there any reason you shouldn't go after this job?'

'I can't think of any right now.'

'Then go for it. When shall I see you?'

'Whenever you can tear yourself away from your computer.'

That seems unfair, but I say 'Shall we do something tonight?'

'I may want to draft some ideas to show them at the interview.'

'I expect that's a good plan. Let me know how it goes if we don't speak before.'

I don't mean this to sound as final as perhaps it does, or have we been cut off? I can't think of enough to add that would justify ringing her back. Instead I key the number on the screen. The distant phone rings and then issues an invitation to commence to dancing, just like Laurel and Hardy. After a good few bars of the song Charley Tracy says 'Films for fun. Don't go away till you leave us a message or call my mobile if there's a panic.'

'Mr Tracy? My name's Simon Lester. I'm researching Tubby Thackeray for the University of London. I was wondering if I could discuss him with you as an expert. Could you give me a buzz so we can arrange some kind of interview? That's very kind of you,' I say and add my number.

I hope none of that is too awkwardly phrased, but I was realising there may be more useful footage on Those Golden Years of Fun. Suppose the footage Smilemime described is there too? I switch off the computer and take the film downstairs. Having cleared another pizza box or entirely possibly the same one as yesterday off the armchair, I sit down as the tape races to the thirty-minute mark.

As Oliver Hardy sets about his scene once more, I speed him onwards. Everyone else on the remainder of the tape is as familiar as he is. I gaze out at the underside of the sky, which the window may be tinting even greyer, while I wait for the tape to rewind. Once it halts with a plastic clatter I restart it. Before I speak to Charley Tracy I should listen to his comments on the whole film.

The white bars of static last longer than I thought they did. The tape mustn't have been fully rewound when I watched it with Mark. I accelerate it with the sticky remote control, and then I wrench a distressed creak from the frame of the armchair by crouching forward. The screen crawls with a white mass like a nest of eggs that have just hatched as the digits on the counter race on. When they count to half an hour, Oliver Hardy bobs up from the blankness and the image stabilises. I rewind several minutes' worth and play the tape while I attempt to tune it in, but it's useless. The first half-hour, including the Thackeray extract, is blank except for static that hisses in a rhythm I could imagine is actively gleeful.