Hearts of Three 1

Hearts of Three 1

Hearts of Three

Author: Jack London

FOREWORD

I hope the reader will forgive me for beginning this foreword with a

brag. In truth, this yarn is a celebration. By its completion I

celebrate my fortieth birthday, my fiftieth book, my sixteenth year in

the writing game, and a new departure. “Hearts of Three” is a new

departure. I have certainly never done anything like it before; I am

pretty certain never to do anything like it again. And I haven’t the

least bit of reticence in proclaiming my pride in having done it. And

now, for the reader who likes action, I advise him to skip the rest of

this brag and foreword, and plunge into the narrative, and tell me if it

just doesn’t read along.

 

For the more curious let me explain a bit further. With the rise of

moving pictures into the overwhelmingly most popular form of amusement

in the entire world, the stock of plots and stories in the world’s

fiction fund began rapidly to be exhausted. In a year a single producing

company, with a score of directors, is capable of filming the entire

literary output of the entire lives of Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens,

Scott, Zola, Tolstoy, and of dozens of less voluminous writers. And

since there are hundreds of moving pictures producing companies, it can

be readily grasped how quickly they found themselves face to face with a

shortage of the raw material of which moving pictures are fashioned.

 

The film rights in all novels, short stories, and plays that were still

covered by copyright, were bought or contracted for, while all similar

raw material on which copyright had expired was being screened as

swiftly as sailors on a placer beach would pick up nuggets. Thousands of

scenario writers—literally tens of thousands, for no man, nor woman, nor

child was too mean not to write scenarios—tens of thousands of scenario

writers pirated through all literature (copyright or otherwise), and

snatched the magazines hot from the press to steal any new scene or plot

or story hit upon by their writing brethren.

 

In passing, it is only fair to point out that, though only the other

day, it was in the days ere scenario writers became respectable, in the

days when they worked overtime for rough-neck directors for fifteen and

twenty a week or freelanced their wares for from ten to twenty dollars

per scenario and half the time were beaten out of the due payment, or

had their stolen goods stolen from them by their equally graceless and

shameless fellows who slaved by the week. But to-day, which is only a

day since the other day, I know scenario writers who keep their three

machines, their two chauffeurs, send their children to the most

exclusive prep schools, and maintain an unwavering solvency.

 

It was largely because of the shortage in raw material that scenario

writers appreciated in value and esteem. They found themselves in

demand, treated with respect, better remunerated, and, in return,

expected to deliver a higher grade of commodity. One phase of this new

quest for material was the attempt to enlist known authors in the work.

But because a man had written a score of novels was no guarantee that he

could write a good scenario. Quite to the contrary, it was quickly

discovered that the surest guarantee of failure was a previous record of

success in novel-writing.

 

But the moving pictures producers were not to be denied. Division of

labor was the thing. Allying themselves with powerful newspaper

organisations, or, in the case of “Hearts of Three,” the very reverse,

they had highly-skilled writers of scenario (who couldn’t write novels

to save themselves) make scenarios, which, in turn, were translated into

novels by novel-writers (who couldn’t, to save themselves, write

scenarios).

 

Comes now Mr. Charles Goddard to one, Jack London, saying: “The time,

the place, and the men are met; the moving pictures producers, the

newspapers, and the capital, are ready: let us get together.” And we

got. Result: “Hearts of Three.” When I state that Mr. Goddard has been

responsible for “The Perils of Pauline,” “The Exploits of Elaine,” “The

Goddess,” the “Get Rich Quick Wallingford” series, etc., no question of

his skilled fitness can be raised. Also, the name of the present

heroine, Leoncia, is of his own devising.

 

On the ranch, in the “Valley of the Moon,” he wrote his first several

episodes. But he wrote faster than I, and was done with his fifteen

episodes weeks ahead of me. Do not be misled by the word “episode.” The

first episode covers three thousand feet of film. The succeeding

fourteen episodes cover each two thousand feet of film. And each episode

contains about ninety scenes, which makes a total of some thirteen

hundred scenes. Nevertheless, we worked simultaneously at our respective

tasks. I could not build for what was going to happen next or a dozen

chapters away, because I did not know. Neither did Mr. Goddard know. The

inevitable result was that “Hearts of Three” may not be very vertebrate,

although it is certainly consecutive.

 

Imagine my surprise, down here in Hawaii and toiling at the novelization

of the tenth episode, to receive by mail from Mr. Goddard in New York

the scenario of the fourteenth episode, and glancing therein, to find my

hero married to the wrong woman!—and with only one more episode in which

to get rid of the wrong woman and duly tie my hero up with the right and

only woman. For all of which please see last chapter of fifteenth

episode. Trust Mr. Goddard to show me how.

 

For Mr. Goddard is the master of action and lord of speed. Action

doesn’t bother him at all. “Register,” he calmly says in a film

direction to the moving picture actor. Evidently the actor registers,

for Mr. Goddard goes right on with more action. “Register grief,” he

commands, or “sorrow,” or “anger,” or “melting sympathy,” or “homicidal

intent,” or “suicidal tendency.” That’s all. It has to be all, or how

else would he ever accomplish the whole thirteen hundred scenes?

 

But imagine the poor devil of a me, who can’t utter the talismanic

“register” but who must describe, and at some length inevitably, these

moods and modes so airily created in passing by Mr. Goddard! Why,

Dickens thought nothing of consuming a thousand words or so in

describing and subtly characterizing the particular grief of a

particular person. But Mr. Goddard says, “Register,” and the slaves of

the camera obey.

 

And action! I have written some novels of adventure in my time, but

never, in all of the many of them, have I perpetrated a totality of

action equal to what is contained in “Hearts of Three.”

 

But I know, now, why moving pictures are popular. I know, now, why

Messrs. “Barnes of New York” and “Potter of Texas” sold by the millions

of copies. I know, now, why one stump speech of high-falutin’ is a more

efficient vote-getter than a finest and highest act or thought of

statesmanship. It has been an interesting experience, this novelization

by me of Mr. Goddard’s scenario; and it has been instructive. It has

given me high lights, foundation lines, cross-bearings, and illumination

on my anciently founded sociological generalizations. I have come, by

this adventure in writing, to understand the mass mind of the people

more thoroughly than I thought I had understood it before, and to

realize, more fully than ever, the graphic entertainment delivered by

the demagogue who wins the vote of the mass out of his mastery of its

mind. I should be surprised if this book does not have a large sale.

(“Register surprise,” Mr. Goddard would say; or “Register large sale”).

 

If this adventure of “Hearts of Three” be collaboration, I am

transported by it. But alack!—I fear me Mr. Goddard must then be the one

collaborator in a million. We have never had a word, an argument, nor a

discussion. But then, I must be a jewel of a collaborator myself. Have I

not, without whisper or whimper of complaint, let him “register” through

fifteen episodes of scenario, through thirteen hundred scenes and

thirty-one thousand feet of film, through one hundred and eleven

thousand words of novelization? Just the same, having completed the

task, I wish I’d never written it—for the reason that I’d like to read

it myself to see if it reads along. I am curious to know. I am curious

to know.

 

JACK LONDON.

 

Waikiki, Hawaii,

_March 23, 1916_.

 

 

 

 

Back to Back Against the Mainmast

 

 

Do ye seek for fun and fortune?

Listen, rovers, now to me!

Look ye for them on the ocean:

Ye shall find them on the sea.

 

 

CHORUS:

 

Roaring wind and deep blue water!

We’re the jolly devils who,

Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew.

 

Bring the dagger, bring the pistols!

We will have our own to-day!

Let the cannon smash the bulwarks!

Let the cutlass clear the way!

 

 

CHORUS:

 

Roaring wind and deep blue water!

We’re the jolly devils who,

Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew.

 

Here’s to rum and here’s to plunder!

Here’s to all the gales that blow!

Let the seamen cry for mercy!

Let the blood of captains flow!