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“I’ll do better than arrange an appointment I’ll tell them I’ll make the first picture with sound as soon as you’ve perfected it That ought to get their attention”
“Don’t you have a contract with Biograph?”
Griffith placed his right hand over his heart “I proraph in a flash for a chance to directpictures that can truly make the sound of human voices But it’s up to you, Mr Bell, to sell them the machine, and you, Mr Lynds, to perfect it I’ll telephone Iht away”
“Before you phone,” said Bell “May I do you a kindness in return?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I notice you carry a six-shooter”
“Old habit fro, with a theatrical wink, “Haven’t shot an Edison thug in years”
“May I see it?”
“Sure” Griffith tugged the revolver from his waistband
Bell opened the cylinder, counted six cartridges, and reun in their waistbandthe ha as they intend to father children”
Isaac Bell left Clyde Lynds in the care of the Los Angeles Van Dorn field office and went alone to his appointet a clear-eyed look at what had fallen into their laps He found a brand-new, ten-story red sandstone building with a glass penthouse that towered over a newly surveyed block of lots for sale The neighborhood looked destined to beco city, and the substantial modern headquarters seeh Wall Street pockets to defy Edison’s Patents Trust
Motorcyclereels of file The exchange was plastered with “No S highly fla directory listed offices and lofts on the upper floors housing laboratories, machine and repair shops, properties and costue 2 in the glass penthouse
The entire second floor was devoted to the factory’s ownpicture theater — the Imperial Newspaper reviews posted in the lobby called it a “Movie Palace,” and while absorbing the details of the building and the people coilt cherubs in a “finely appointed place that will draw thepicture shows except on ‘slu’ exhibitions”
The door the lobby were harder-cased than he would expect to find wearing uniforilded as Captain Turner’s That a bruiser corps was considered a wise precaution for an independent a full three thousand miles from New Jersey spoke volumes about the power of the Edison Trust One of the doorate