Spiderpool-02
- This article is a Biography
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Secrets of the Spider Pool - Part 2: 1920-1929
- by Rowan
1920-22 - Tinseltown Prosperity
During World War I, Hollywood overtook New York as the hub of American film production. At war’s end Hollywood truly began years of unprecedented growth. Europe’s film industry was in a shambles, and America became the primary supplier of motion pictures to the world. Budgets, salaries, and box office receipts went through the roof, and there seemed to be no limit to the expansion. More movies would be produced per year during the 1920s and 1930s than ever before or since.
As the Roaring Twenties began, John McDermott was living in a rooming house on South Hill St. with other young film men, including director Norman McLeod and a gentleman amusingly listed as a “camera". As the industry shifted in to high gear, they must have all passed their limited free time dreaming of fame and fortune; McDermott and McLeod, at least, would find it.
In 1920, John was still writing and directing, but the movies were now full-length features. The screenplay of Just Pals (released November 14) was derived from his story, and he directed Dinty (November 29) under the supervision of Marshal Neilan.
He both wrote the screenplay and directed 1921’s Patsy (released February 1), and he did the screenplay for Sky Pilot (May). An article about Patsy stated, “Jack McDermott has been engaged as director. He also blushingly admits authorship of the story. … McDermott is well known as co-director, with Marshall Neilan, on ‘Dinty,’ and as director of King Vidor’s ‘Sky Pilot,’ while he has other picture successes to his credit. Much of the clever kid stuff in ‘Dinty’ is indeed credited to him."
All in all it seems the 28 year-old McDermott was in an enviable position.
1922: Too Much Roaring?
In 1922, Hollywood studios were forced to accept limits on their formerly no-holds-barred cinematic offerings in the wake of a rash of scandals: the infamous Fatty Arbuckle case, sundry other lover-murder cases, drug addiction and overdoses (yep, of silent film stars!), and mysterious deaths on millionaire’s yachts.
Founded as a utopian, agrarian, temperance community just a few decades earlier, Hollywood had been transformed by the heady brew of money, pills, and sex.
1923: The Spider-House
By 1923, McDermott had managed to move out of the South Hill St. boarding house and into his own home, “in the Hollywood hills behind the Hollywood Bowl". This is the oldest known reference to this house. Construction of the house was to be an ongoing project, but it seems to have begun with McDermott’s purchase of “six Algerian rooms used in Norma Talmadge’s recently completed picture, ‘The Song of Love’." He had them numbered for easy reassembly on his property, and it is implied he did the work himself.
The house was called “a perfect little gem of Algerian architecture", and featured “balconies, doors, French windows, beams, porch railings, stairways and flooring, as well as the bathroom used in the making of the picture."
In 1923 John directed The Spider and the Rose (released February 15), Mary of the Movies (May 27) and Her Temporary Husband (December). He was also credited with the adaptation for Three Wise Fools.
1924: Harold Lloyd and Chester (who?) Franklin
Harold Lloyd had been grinding out fairly successful comedy films for years, and achieved the financial and artistic independence he had long sought when he chartered the Harold Lloyd Corporation in 1924.
Jack McDermott wasn’t the only man in 1920s Hollywood who thought he’d build himself a house for the ages. Franklin purchased eight lots in the Hollywood Hills, not too far from the Spider Pool site and started building in 1924.
He dug the stone from the hillside and planned to use it to build himself a veritable castle. He imported stonemasons from Italy to do the work, but six months and $22,000 later he abandoned the project.
1924-26: Comedy and Progress
In a 1924 interview, John revealed much of his own personality when he lobbied for more comedy films: “‘When the public wants comedy why not give it comedy? Why cram drama at it when it doesn’t want it?’ This is the reasoning of Jack McDermott, whose specialty is the creation of laughs."
Jack seems to have been enjoying life, working on his unconventional home and prospering in his professional role. He directed Midnight Madness in 1925 (released September 20) and Where the Worst Begins (November), and a Hollywood columnist said of him, “McDermott has been forging rapidly ahead as a director of late."
Development in the Spider Pool neighborhood was clearly boosted by the opening of the Mulholland Highway in late 1924, and the significant upgrading of the highway through the Pass in 1926. The Twenties apparently Roared thanks to Duesenberg, Chrysler, and Ford.
1926: From Director to Writer
By the time of the 1926-31 period of Spider Pool tile availability, John McDermott had graduated to writing for major studios like Famous Players-Lasky and Universal. (Four of his films starred Bebe Daniels, who had earlier been Harold Lloyd’s regular co-star.) One of the films he contributed to in 1934 featured Sterling Holloway, later one of Harold Lloyd’s close pals.
McDermott pulled double duty in 1926, directing and doing the screenplay for Love Thief (released June 13). He helped with the screenplay for Rolling Home (June 27) and received solo credit for the screenplay of We’re In The Navy Now (November 27). He also worked on the adaptation for Stranded in Paris (December 13).
“Always a skilled director, and at times a brilliant comedy director, he has turned to writing scenarios [screenplays] and swears he will never direct again. In fact, he swears profusely at the mere mention of it. McDermott finds far more satisfaction in contriving comic situations… than he ever did in trying to arrange 110 extras … as he strove to do in one of his Poverty Row pictures."
In 1927, John was credited with the screenplay and adaptation of Blonde or Brunette (released January 22); he did the screenplay for Evening Clothes (March 19) and Señorita (April 30); and the story for She’s A Sheik (November 12).
It was later reported, “John McDermott is to give his directorial puttees to the poor and put his megaphone in the museum. He is going to turn his attention to writing screen stories, so successful has he been in this line. B.P. Schulberg has just signed McDermott on a long-term contract as writer, due largely in part to his excellent work in Menjou’s picture, ‘An Angel Passes,’ which title, by the way, has been changed to the more box-officy one of ‘Blonde or Brunette.’"
McDermott was clearly busy, and at least flirting with the highest echelons of his craft, and his success was bringing him increased publicity.
1927: “The Strangest House in Hollywood"
A movie fan magazine from 1927 described McDermott’s house in great detail:
John McDermott calls it his “crazy house." A low, rambling structure, strung out along the face of a cliff high above Cahuenga Pass in Beverly Hills, it greets the eye as a thing part Egyptian, part Turkish, part Navajo, and with such touches of modern architecture as may be found anywhere “east of the water tower."
There are angles reminiscent of igloos constructed during the Eskimo renaissance, and others suggesting medieval castles with moats and drawbridges. There isn't another house like it in Hollywood, nor, in fact, in the entire world.
It is made of studio props!
John McDermott is a scenario writer for Famous Players-Lasky -- just a man trying to get along on a salary of something like two thousand dollars a week. Three or four years ago he found himself in need of physical training, but didn't want to waste his time and energy in a gym.
So he decided to build a home with his own hands, the like of which no one ever had seen. It would dazzle with originality, with plaster gods, sliding panels, underground passageways, good books, and mystery.
He had seen motion-picture sets of exquisite design, used an hour or two, then discarded when the picture was finished. He had seen these artistic creations lie for weeks and months disintegrating in the sun and rain, when, if they had been salvaged, they would have lasted for years. This gave him the idea for his hillside home, and he began collecting.
- The walls of John McDermott's house were made from composition board discarded from sets at the Universal studio.
- The girders were salvaged from the enormous palace built for THE THIEF OF BAGDAD.
- Some of the roofing came from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
- The tip of the smallest tower was cut from the broken propeller of an airplane wrecked during the making of Buster Keaton's THE NAVIGATOR.
- The tombstones built into the wall had been made for THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME.
- Some grinning skulls of cement were found on the old Metro lot when that historic spot was abandoned.
- A huge, slant-eyed goddess, modeled in plaster, was salvaged from a set of Nazimova's SALOME.
- A table McDermott placed in his living room had originally been built for ROBIN HOOD.
- The great oaken door was taken from Norma Talmadge's THE SONG OF LOVE.
- A wooden pulley above a well-- in the living room of the house-- came from Mary Pickford's TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY.
- A fence was plucked from the scraps of Rudolph Valentino's THE EAGLE.
- And three small cannons on the parapet had originally been made for THE SEA HAWK.
The story of Jack’s odd house traveled around the country when big city and small town newspapers printed excerpts of this article.
McDermott’s screen credits are less frequent in the late 1920s, probably because Jack opted to work as a freelance writer after his six-month contract with Lasky expired in 1927.
- "John McDermott, who has written ‘Senorita,’ Bebe Daniels most successful picture, and several other successes for Lasky during the six months of his contract there, has completed that contract and is planning to spend three months in Europe."
- "On his return, McDermott plans to free-lance, devoting his entire attention to original stories for the screen. Paramount has agreed to take his entire output. …"
More than a hint of iconoclasm is revealed in a news article from about this time. It was reported that at one of his parties McDermott awarded door prizes of livestock: turtles, ducks, and even a baby pig for lading lady Bebe Daniels.
- “Miss Daniels went home without her prize. McDermott, having a large yard, ordered a pen built and put the pig away in anticipation of a goodly feast.
- “But time is fleet and pigs do grow. McDermott came home from a trip a few days ago to find the baby piglet doing daily wreckage to his yard, daily battle with his dog and giving daily fright to the servants."
After his European vacation (we know he spent a portion of it in Vienna), he rounded out his 1920s resume with credits for the screenplay of 1928’s Flying Romeos, (released February 26) and the story for The Fifty-Fifty Girl (12 May).
1927: The Biggest House in Hollywood
It may not have been the biggest of them all, but the home under construction for Harold Lloyd would be one of the most lavish of all the old Hollywood estates; anything Jack McDermott might construct would look tiny just in comparison to Lloyd’s golf course. The Lloyd family took occupancy of “Greenacres" in 1929.
Lloyd shot his final silent movie, Speedy, in 1927. Though some of his talking pictures would be well received, it grew more obvious with each production that he was losing his box-office appeal. Fortunately, he had salted way several fortunes.
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