‘The Extra: Frankie Ray Stands Alone’ by Mel Anastasiou

In Pulp Literature Issue 27, Summer 2020 we return to Hollywood, 1934 with ‘The Extra: Frankie Ray Stands Alone’ by Mel Anastasiou. 

Following the startling discovery of an unknown corpse buried behind her Sunset Boulevard bungalow at Paradise Gardens, Hollywood extra Frankie Ray finds her fortunes are turning on her first day’s work at Monument Studios.

Frankie finally gets her moment in the camera’s eye when the director chooses her to play a scene. But the higher Frankie flies, the greater the peril, and she isn’t the only one making soaring, dangerous choices.

Enjoy the continuing adventures of Frankie Ray with this excerpt from Issue 27, where we find her on the movie set, poised for her big chance.

The Extra: Frankie Ray Stands Alone

by Mel Anastasiou

Frankie faced the director. She was distantly aware of Marietta’s red dress, the movie set of a park in Paris, the enormous gleaming camera, and the crowd of staring extras. If she didn’t grasp this chance at a part, even one without words, one of the other extras surely would.

She asked, “What would you like me to do?” There was something wrong with that sentence. “Sir?” 

The director looked at the assistant director.

The assistant director barked, “Do what you’re told.”

“Do what we chose you to do.” The director grinned around the cigar in his mouth. “Look sad, kid.”

Frankie checked her physical position. It wouldn’t do to put her hands in her pockets, so she cupped one hand inside the other to stop her fingers shaking. She guessed that amateur actors, if asked to look sad, would screw up their eyebrows and cry. Instead, Frankie did nothing but think about the body behind Villa 7A. It wasn’t difficult — she hadn’t stopped thinking about that poor man all morning. 

The director grunted and tapped the ash from his cigar. 

“I told you,” Marietta Valdes said. “She is right for this scene.”

 “There’s no screen credit in it,” the assistant director told Frankie. “And same pay — as a general extra.” 

This was rather unfair, but she said, “Yes, sir.” 

“Don’t talk. You have no lines.” The assistant director jerked a thumb at the pedestal underneath the statue of the soldier on the horse. “Where’s that damned pigeon handler?”

A cooing, bird-filled box on legs stumbled out of the crowd of extras, and the pigeon handler set the box down at the edge of the square. He opened the wire net door and shooed a small but talkative flock of pigeons toward her. She managed not to take a step back as the flock approached. 

The assistant director pointed his chin at Frankie. “Sit on the pedestal, in front of the statue, pigeon girl. Feed the pigeons. And don’t make it look like you’re enjoying yourself.”

Frankie nodded. Would they give her something with which to feed the pigeons? Birds could not be expected to act.

The director himself spoke again. “And don’t make it look too easy. Don’t throw it away, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir.” She knew exactly what he was saying. Not everyone would, she supposed, but she did. The director wanted focus and sorrow. 

She sat down among the pigeons on the grey-painted wooden pedestal by the statue’s hoofs. She expected the birds to take off in a purring chaos and settle atop the soldier’s hat like they did at the war memorial back home, but not a bird among the lot took wing. Although pigeons couldn’t act, they apparently were trainable, because against all her experience of pigeon behaviour, they tottered around on the pavement at her feet like so many feathered wind-up toys. 

A movie camera almost as big as its operator rolled on rubber wheels toward her. Frankie kept her eyes on the birds.

The pigeons must have had their wings clipped. It was a sensible way to control birds, although hard on the creatures themselves. She held out her empty hand — she was, after all, acting — and wished she really had some feed to give the poor flightless creatures. All at once she remembered the cheese sandwich Connie had given her before filming. Had she eaten it? She touched the pocket of her green and blue dress and pulled out a bit of bread. She scattered the crumbs to the pigeons. Ought she feed them dry bread instead of this fresh stuff? Well, there was nothing to do about that. And she dared not give them bits of cheese — it might make them sick. 

She couldn’t hear the camera. She tried not to imagine its hum as it recorded the work she was doing. She’d bet her forty remaining dollars — housed under the sofa cushions at Paradise Gardens — that thinking about the camera was almost as unprofessional as looking into its lens. Instead she focussed on the pigeons as they bustled around her, pecking at the crumbs. She felt that the scene was going quite well until a seagull swooped over the wall that separated this movie’s set from the top of the gilded towers of the old Ambition set.

Without meaning to, she jerked her head up to watch the seagull dive at the pigeons. The director made a cutting motion to the assistant director, who called to the cameraman to stop the shot. The cameraman waved to the pigeon handler. The latter dealt with the situation by shooing the seagull away. It flew off, shrieking. 

Marietta Valdes stepped up beside the director. The actress’s red dress gleamed as she gestured with one pale hand. “Freddy, I know I don’t have to tell you that with a non-speaking part, the shape and movement of the actor’s body is translated into sound.”

“Teach your grandmother.” The director screwed his face into shapes that would terrify a dog. 

Marietta leaned toward Frankie. “Movement produces sound you cannot hear, the way a person produces a shadow even on a cloudy day.” She turned back to the director. “Give her another chance, will you?”

To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Pulp Literature Issue 27, Summer 2020 here!

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Mel Anastasiou writes the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, starring Mrs Stella Ryman; the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries, starring Spencer Stevens; and the Monument Studios Mysteries, starring Frankie Ray and Connie Mooney. She teaches the ‘Writing Success’ segment of Pulp Literature Press’s writing school, Quit the Day Job, and she wrote the steampunk-themed The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume and The Writer’s Friend and Confidante.