When I went to the train to meet him I had no idea what he might look like, and I was turning away, thinking he had not arrived, when a youthful, friendly face beamed down upon me from the step of the train and called me by name. He might have been a sophomore or even a freshman, returning home from college for a summer vacation. A clean cut, boyish face, blonde hair smoothly brushed back, keen grey eyes that close slightly and then widen with alertness and humor, an infectious, ready laugh - that describes Elmer Clifton, producer of “Down to the Sea in Ships,” “Six-Cylinder Love,” “The Warrens of Virginia” and one of the principals in that masterpiece of the films, “The Birth of a Nation.” The first thing he said when he stepped off the train - or rather jumped off - a bag in either hand, which he still held on to as he shook my hand was:
“This is great! The air’s literally alive! Let’s get right off to the ranches.”
“Don’t you wish to rest a while?”
“Rest? What’s that!” he replied with a wide grin.
“You’ve come a long way. Wouldn’t you like to put the first day in resting at the hotel?”
“Nothing doing! I’m here to see George Lane and the Bar U and the E.P. I want to grip old Pat Burns’ hand if I get a chance. I want to get a close-up of the old-timers. I can’t stay to see, but I want to hear all about Calgary’s Stampede. I’ve an illuminated invitation here as big as a house from Mr. Richardson and your mayor I want to see the ranges, the herds – cattle, horse and sheep. I want to get out to the ranches just as swiftly as we can get there.”
“You seem to know all about us already.”
“Know about Alberta! I’ve been reading up nothing else all winter. I’ve been soaking up every bit of material I could lay my hands on. Perhaps I know as much about Alberta right now as the average man who lives here does.”
By this time he was assisting me into the car. We were on our way directly to see “the ranches, herds, ranges, farms, and above all, the mountains! Immense! Magnificent! Oh, nothing like them anywhere!”
Mr. Clifton’s cameraman bears the engaging name of Penrod. He is something more than a mere cameraman, being a pal and a partner of Mr. Clifton’s. He, too, is young and full of enthusiasm, and he had one advantage over his chief, namely, a Shriner’s button, which modestly adorned the lapel of his coat.
If there was anything on the road that either of them missed seeing, any lovely outline of hill or mountain, or skyscape, any colorful rolling meadows, coulees or valleys or sloughs, any picturesque group of buildings, or old log shack or cabin – it must have been purely by accident, or due to the eagerness with which the motion picture men were stretching their necks to turn around this way and that to devour every point of interest. Part of the time they stood up in the car.
At Cochrane the suggestion that liquid refreshments might be obtainable interested neither of the movie men. We learned that they neither smoked nor drank.
“What, and you’ve lived in Hollywood and are movie men!”
“Sad, but true!” grinned Clifton.
“I’m afraid you’ll find us a dull bunch. We hasn’t any vices’.”
The road from Cochrane to Morley was in process of creation, but the good humor of our guests continued unabated as we jostled and bumped and banged against each other and were breathlessly tossed about in the car till we came out at last upon a fairly clear piece of road and swept up the hill overlooking the Ghost River, perched cosily above which, facing the wide panorama of snow-etched hills we discovered the newly- built Ghost Ranch. Captain Malcolm Mortimer, grandson of the late Duke of Richmond and himself late art director of the Famous Players, now wonder of the Chalet, Polo and Dude Ranch, on the Banff road, made no effort to conceal the fact that he was “pleased as Punch” to see the motion picture men. Mr. Mortimer’s very charming young wife, the former Doris Rankin of the New York stage – Mrs. Lionel Barrymore – was also there to welcome us. If our movie men did not prove to be finished “booze” artists, they demonstrated to all events their ability to eat. When the smiling waiter at the Ghost Chalet inquired whether we liked our lunch, Mr. Clifton replied:
“Like it. It’s perfect.”
“You’ve a good appetite,” said the man.
“Who would not have? Smell that air. Feel it! Why I’m eating with my eyes and my nose and my ears as well as my mouth.”
We drove into Bow View ranch not through the main gates, but by way of one of the lower fields. This brought us presently into the road that runs above the Ghost River canyon. All along the trail we stopped to take pictures. Some will be utilized in the play, some are for record and reference, others for publicity purposes. In the woods partridges, prairie chicken, squirrels, rabbits, grouse seemed to peer at us from every bush and tree. We skirted the hay fields and drove over plowed land through a former oats field, and presently at last we came to the grazing lands. Hundreds of little white faced calves raced before us and ran into the bush, to peer back at us. Slowly and leisurely the mothers of the herd took their time about moving out of our path.
“Stop the car! Stop the car!” cried Elmer Clifton. “This is immense! Immense!”
Penrod, too, was on his feet, and a moment later the two movie men were scrambling out. After that they were unaware of our existence.
Later – considerably later – the reluctant men climbed back into the car. We came over the hill and stopped time and again while breathless ejaculations of enthusiasm escaped them at the sight of that matchless range of mountains, never so wonderfully seen as from the hills of the Bow View. Numerous pictures were taken of the ranch house itself and of the various buildings.
We had planned to take in that day, besides Bow View, the Eau Claire Camp and the Morley Indian reserve. It was getting quite late in the afternoon, however, and the choice between the reserve and the camp was decided in favor of the former. So we motored across and stopped first of all at the home of Rev. Mr. Staley, missionary to the Stoney Indians.
I think the optimistic, happy condition of the missionary is due to the change on the reserve. Not only is the fine little church, recently built by Mr. Staley, a success, but he has realized his dream of a school on the reserve for the Indian children, and although he has been unable to afford the motion pictures on which he had so set his heart for the church, he has the nearest thing to it in the way of lantern pictures. Mr. Staley drove with us out to the Indian village at the back of the agency in the hills, and there Mr. Clifton admitted he got “a real kick” out of sitting in a teepee with a good looking squaw. We visited the house of Chief Hector and the motion picture men acquired some bits of beadwork and left their Indian hosts with their faces wreathed in smiles. We covered the main trails around the reserve and came back to the school house, formerly the hospital of the Morley reserve.
I said to Mayor Webster the next day, as I stood with him and Mr. Clifton in the lobby of the Pallliser hotel:
“Isn’t it too bad its raining. We had planned to go out to the Collicutt ranch, and then we are going to the Bar U and the E.P.”
“Too bad!” exploded the mayor, and then turning to Mr. Clifton who’s hand he had recently gripped so heartily:
“Look here,” said our cowboy mayor fiercely and eloquently. “We appreciate just what it means to our country to have men like you here, and you’re as welcome as the grain itself, but, man, I’d be a bad liar if I told you that you were more welcome than that million dollar rain!”
Clifton laughed.
“I hope it pours,” he said. “The more prosperity and fortune it brings to this country, the better picture we’ll get.”
Later in the evening a characteristic remake of Pat Burns, veteran cattleman of Alberta, uttered with intense solemnity, in spite of the twinkle in the keen black eyes, sent Mr. Clifton off into an appreciative war of hearty laughter. It was the type of remark he told me later he had been aching to hear. Guy Weadick, who was constantly with Mr. Clifton, had told a great stock of good stories about old-timers and other folk of this country, but Clifton wanted to hear and carry back with him one himself. He got it from the premier cattleman of this country, and one of the most picturesque and outstanding personalities. Said Pat Burns, in reply to a lady’s remark that he’d been up here a long time:
“Yes, maam, I have. When I first came here, those mountains were nothing but little hills. They’ve grown up since my time!”
The rain, if it did nothing else, gave Mr. Clifton an opportunity to meet and hobnob with some of the old-timers and cattlemen, whom he was especially desirous of knowing. Clifton does not like to talk about himself. He loves to draw others out, and he possesses that quality which induces to confidences.
Some idea of the talent of this modest young man who has recently visited Calgary may be gathered from a recent article by Charles Chaplin in the Literary Digest. Mr. Chaplin in reviewing Mr. Sherwood’s book: “The Sixteen Best Plays of the Year,” writes:
“To some of the pictures which the author includes, I might give honorable mention and vice versa. But there can be no quibbling over the choosing of such pictures as ‘Down to the Sea in Ships,’ as among the best of the year. Here is a screen epic in the highest sense of that overworked term. ‘Down to the Seas’ is unique in more ways than one. Elmer Clifton, it seems, was a lover of ‘Moby Dick’ and other tales of the sea, and conceived the idea of putting on the screen the epic heroism of those who go down to the sea in ships. He interested the citizens of New Bedford, Mass., in the idea and they backed him in true community spirit. The result was one of the best pictures of the year and likewise one of the best ever made. There are scenes in this picture which equal anything ever placed upon a screen. And yet Mr. Clifton assembled his cast from members of the community. This is an evidence of the real future of pictures–an epic made in a New England city–far from Hollywood–under the guidance of one man. To quote the words of Mr. Sherwood:”
“His ships were real ships; his sea was a real sea–not a Hollywood tank churned by an airplane propeller–and his whales were real whales. There was no trumpery about it. Moreover, even the interiors were all real. Mr. Clifton set up his lights and his cam-22eras in New Bedford homes and meeting houses and reproduced them exactly as they were’.”
People of vision and foresight will grasp the significance and importance of the coming to Alberta of Elmer Clifton. He was here for the avowed purpose of seeking location for this filming of the novel “Cattle,” a story of Alberta. He is under contract with the Fox Film Company to do a play of India, but as soon as that is completed, Mr. Clifton proposes to come to Alberta to live for a year, during which time he will make an intensive study of the country and the people.
He declares that he intends to reveal to the world something of this “last of the big lands” rugged splendour, its greatness and its beauty. He says there is an immense drama in the lives of the old timers. He wishes to make an historical record of the beginnings of this part of Canada, and to trace its growth down to the present day. If the plot of the novel “Cattle” is not sufficient, then he will go outside to add to it, but it is his intention to show the wide spreading ranges, the wheat lands and harvest day glamor. Mr. Clifton declares that he will make a picture that will be “steeped in the sunshine of Alberta.”
The time has come when real pictures of Canada should be shown to the world. Immense harm has been done to Canada by “snow pictures.” Our climate and our people, our mode of life have all been grossly misrepresented upon the screen and in stories.
A couple of years ago a motion picture company were in Banff taking the usual “snow pictures.” The producer remarked to me that he was doing a great thing for Banff, since his picture would show it to the world. I replied: “I don’t agree with you. You are making pictures of a land of complete desolation, where wolves and coyotes and bears go through your picture with people who seem to be struggling for a bare existence. You had to import most of your snow, because this is a chinook winter, and I don’t think your story represents us as we are.”
Miss Lougheed of Calgary tells of seeing a “Canadian” play when in London, which depicted a scene in a bar-room, with the strangest conglomeration of individuals and a mounted policeman who wore chapps of tiger skins. So well known an author and traveler as Phillip Gibbs, in his last novel, “The Middle of the Road,” actually has one of his characters say, when in Russia, “This is the coldest place I have ever been in except Calgary, which is the coldest place in the world!” The fable of our intense cold, our isolation, our nearness to the North Pole, etc., strangely enough is believed not merely by illiterate and uneducated people, but by those who should know better. It will take time and drastic measures to offset the hard done by these pictures, but one big human drama such as Clifton proposes, will go a long way toward removing the misconception in regard to Canada.
