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might use a crane-it would be cheaper in the end than building the roof on
the ground with a process sky. That was one thing about Stahr-the literal
sky was the limit. He had worked with Jews too long to believe legends that
they were small with money.
"In the third sequence have him hit the priest," Stahr said. "What!"
Wylie cried, "-and have the Catholics on our neck." "I've talked to Joe
Breen. Priests have been hit. It doesn't reflect on them."
His quiet voice ran on-stopped abruptly as Miss Doolan glanced at the
clock.
"Is that too much to do before Monday?" he asked Wylie. Wylie looked at
Rose and she looked back not even bothering to nod. He saw their week-end
melting away, but he was a different man from when he entered the room. When
you were paid fifteen hundred a week emergency work was one thing you did
not skimp, nor when your picture was threatened. As a "free lance" writer
Wylie had failed from lack of caring but here was Stahr to care, for all of
them. The effect would not wear off when he left the office-not anywhere
within the walls of the lot. He felt a great purposefulness. The mixture of
common sense, wise sensibility, theatrical ingenuity, and a certain half
naive conception of the common weal which Stahr had just stated aloud,
inspired him to do his part, to get his block of stone in place, even if the
effort were foredoomed, the result as dull as a pyramid.
Out the window Rose Meloney watched the trickle streaming toward the
commissary. She would have her lunch in her office and knit a few rows while
it came. The man was coming at one-fifteen with the French perfume smuggled
over the Mexican border. That was no sin-it was like prohibition.
Broaca watched as Rienmund fawned upon Stahr. He sensed that Rienmund
was on his way up-not yet. He received seven hundred and fifty a week for
his partial authority over directors, writers and stars who got much more.
He wore a cheap English shoe he bought near the Beverly Wilshire and Broaca
hoped they hurt his feet, but soon now he would order his shoes from Peal's
and put away his little green alpine hat with a feather. Broaca was years
ahead of him. He had a fine record in the war but he had never felt quite
the same with himself since he had let Ike Franklin strike him in the face
with his open hand.
There was smoke in the room and behind it, behind his great desk Stahr
was withdrawing further and further, in all courtesy, still giving Rienmund
an ear and Miss Doolan an ear. The conference was over.
"Any messages?"
"Mr. Robinson called in," Miss Doolan said, as he started for the
commissary. "One of the women told him her name but he's forgotten it-he
thinks it was Smith or Brown or Jones."
"That's a great help."
"And he remembers she says she just moved to Los Angeles."
"I remember she had a silver belt," Stahr said, "with stars cut out of
it."
"I'm still trying to find out more about Pete Zavras. I talked to his
wife."
"What did she say?"
"Oh, they've had an awful time-given up their house-she's been sick-"
"Is the eye trouble hopeless?"
"She didn't seem to know anything about the state of his eyes. She
didn't even know he was going blind."
"That's funny."
He thought about it on the way to luncheon but it was as confusing as
the actor's trouble this morning. Troubles about people's health didn't seem
within his range-he gave no thought to his own. In the lane beside the
commissary he stepped back as an open electric truck crammed with girls in
the bright costumes of the regency came rolling in from the back lot. The
dresses were fluttering in the wind, the young painted faces looked at him
curiously and he smiled as it went by.
Episode 10
Eleven men and their guest Prince Agge sat at lunch in the private
dining room of the studio commissary. They were the money men-they were the
rulers and unless there was a guest they ate in broken silence, sometimes
asking questions about each other's wives and children, sometimes
discharging a single absorption from the forefront of their consciousness.
Eight out of the ten were Jews-five of the ten were foreign born, including
a Greek and an Englishman-and they had all known each other for a long time:
there was a rating in the group, from old Marcus down to old Leanbaum who
had bought the most fortunate block of stock in the business and never was
allowed to spend over a million a year producing.
Old Marcus functioned with disquieting resilience. Some
never-atrophying instinct warned him of danger, of gangings up against
him-he was never so dangerous himself as when others considered him
surrounded. His grey face had attained such immobility that even those who
were accustomed to watch the reflex of the inner corner of his eye could no
longer see it-nature had grown a little white whisker there to conceal it;
his armor was complete.
As he was the oldest, Stahr was the youngest of the group-not by many
years at this date, though he had first sat with most of these men when he
was a boy wonder of twenty-two. Then, more than now, he had been a money man
among money men. Then he had been able to figure costs in his head with a
speed and accuracy that dazzled them-for they were not wizards or even
experts in that regard, despite the popular conception of Jews in finance.
Most of them owed their success to different and incompatible qualities. But
in a group a tradition carries along the less adept, and they were content
to look at Stahr for the sublimated auditing and experience a sort of glow
as if they had done it themselves like rooters at a football game.
Stahr, as will presently be seen, had grown away from that particular
gift, though it was always there.
Prince Agge sat between Stahr and Mort Flieshacker the company lawyer
and across from Joe Popolous the theatre owner. He was hostile to Jews in a
vague general way that he tried to cure himself of. As a turbulent man,
serving his time in the Foreign Legion, he thought that Jews were too fond
of their own skins. But he was willing to concede that they might be
different in America under different circumstances, and certainly he found
Stahr was much of a man in every way. For the rest-he thought most business
men were dull dogs-for final reference he reverted always to the blood of
Bernadotte in his veins.
My father-I will call him Mr. Brady as Prince Agge did when he told me
of this luncheon-was worried about a picture and when Leanbaum went out
early he came up and took his chair opposite.
"How about the South America picture idea, Monroe?" he asked.
Prince Agge noticed a blink of attention toward them as distinct as if
a dozen pair of eyelashes had made the sound of batting wings. Then silence
again.
"We're going ahead with it," said Stahr.
"With that same budget?" Brady asked.
Stahr nodded.
"It's out of proportion," said Brady. "There won't be any miracle in
these bad times-no 'Hell's Angels' or 'Ben-Hur' when you throw it away and
get it back."
Probably the attack was planned, for Popolous, the Greek, took up the
matter in a sort of double talk that reminded Prince Agge of Mike Van Dyke
except that it tried to be and succeeded in being clear instead of
confusing.
"It's not adoptable, Monroe, in as we wish adopt to this times in as it
changes. It what could be done as we run the gamut of prosperity is scarcely
conceptuable now. "
"What do you think, Mr. Marcus?" asked Stahr.
All eyes followed his down the table but as if forewarned Mr. Marcus
had already signalled his private waiter behind him that he wished to rise,
and was even now in a basket-like position in the waiter's arms. He looked
at them with such helplessness that it was hard to realize that in the
evenings he sometimes went dancing with his young Canadian girl.
"Monroe is our production genius," he said. "I count upon Monroe and
lean heavily upon him. I have not seen the flood myself."
There was a moment of silence as he moved from the room.
"There's not a two million dollar gross in the country now," said
Brady.
"Is not," agreed Popolous. "Even as if so you could grab them by the
head and push them by and in, is not."
"Probably not," agreed Stahr. He paused as if to make sure that all
were listening. "I think we can count on a million and a quarter from the
road-show. Perhaps a million and a half altogether. And a quarter of a
million abroad."
Again there was silence-this time puzzled, a little confused. Over his
shoulder Stahr asked the waiter to be connected with his office on the
phone.
"But your budget?" said Flieshacker. "Your budget is seventeen hundred
and fifty thousand, I understand. And your expectations only add up to that
without profit."
"Those aren't my expectations," said Stahr. "We're not sure of more
than a million and a half."
The room had grown so motionless that Prince Agge could hear a grey
chunk of ash fall from a cigar in midair. Flieshacker started to speak, his
face fixed with amazement, but a phone had been handed over Stahr's
shoulder.
"Your office, Mr. Stahr."
"Oh yes-oh, hello Miss Doolan. I've figured it out about Zavras. It's
one of these lousy rumors-I'll bet my shirt on it.... Oh, you did. Good....
Good. Now here's what to do-send him to my oculist this afternoon, Dr. John
Kennedy, and have him get a report and have it photostated-you understand."
He hung up-turned with a touch of passion to the table at large.
"Did any of you ever hear a story that Pete Zavras was going blind?"
There were a couple of nods. But most of those present were poised
breathlessly on whether Stahr had slipped on his figures a minute before.
"It's pure bunk. He says he's never even been to an oculist-never knew
why the studios turned against him," said Stahr. "Somebody didn't like him
or somebody talked too much and he's been out of work for a year."
There was a conventional murmur of sympathy. Stahr signed the check and
made as though to get up.
"Excuse me, Monroe," said Flieshacker persistently, while Brady and
Popolous watched, "I'm fairly new here and perhaps I fail to comprehend
implicitly and explicitly." He was talking fast but the veins on his
forehead bulged with pride at the big words from N. Y. U. "Do I understand
you to say you expect to gross a quarter million short of your budget?"
"It's a quality picture," said Stahr with assumed innocence.
It had dawned on them all now but they still felt there was a trick in
it. Stahr really thought it would make money. No one in his senses "For two
years we've played safe," said Stahr. "It's time we made a picture that'll
lose some money. Write it off as good will-this'll bring in new customers."
Some of them still thought he meant it was a flyer and a favorable one
but he left them in no doubt.
"It'll lose money," he said as he stood up, his jaw just slightly out
and his eyes smiling and shining. "It would be a bigger miracle than 'Hell's
Angels' if it broke even. But we have a certain duty to the public as Pat
Brady says at Academy dinners. It's a good thing for the production schedule
to slip in a picture that'll lose money."
He nodded at Prince Agge. As the latter made his bows quickly he tried
to take in with a last glance the general effect of what Stahr said, but he
could tell nothing. The eyes not so much downcast as fixed upon an
indefinite distance just above the table were all blinking quickly now but
there was not a whisper in the room.
Coming out of the private dining room they passed through a corner of
the commissary proper. Prince Agge drank it in-eagerly. It was gay with
gypsies and with citizens and soldiers with the sideburns and braided coats
of the First Empire. From a little distance they were men who lived and
walked a hundred years ago and Agge wondered how he and the men of his time
would look as extras in some future costume picture.
Then he saw Abraham Lincoln and his whole feeling suddenly changed. He
had been brought up in the dawn of Scandanavian socialism where Nicolay's
biography was much read. He had been told Lincoln was a great man whom he
should admire and he had hated him instead because he was forced upon him.
But now seeing him sitting here, his legs crossed, his kindly face fixed on
a forty cent dinner, including dessert, his shawl wrapped around him as if
to protect himself from the erratic air-cooling-now Prince Agge, who was in
America at last, stared as a tourist at the mummy of Lenin in the Kremlin.
This then was Lincoln. Stahr had walked on far ahead of him, turned waiting
for him-but still Agge stared.
-This then, he thought, was what they all meant to be.
Lincoln suddenly raised a triangle of pie and jammed it in his mouth
and, a little frightened, Prince Agge hurried to join Stahr.
"I hope you're getting what you want," said Stahr feeling he had
neglected him. "We'll have some rushes in half an hour and then you can go
on to as many sets as you want."
"I should rather stay with you," said Prince Agge.
"I'll see what there is for me," said Stahr. "Then we'll go on
together."
There was the Japanese consul on the release of a spy story which might
offend the national sensibilities of Japan. There were phone calls and
telegrams. There was some further information from Robby.
"Now he remembers the name of the woman was Smith," said Miss Doolan.
"He asked her if she wanted to come on the lot and get some dry shoes and
she said no-so she can't sue."
"That's pretty bad for a total recall-'Smith.' That's a great help." He
thought a moment. "Ask the phone company for a list of Smiths that have
taken new phones here in the last month. Call them all."
"All right."
For Episode 11
"How you, Monroe," said Red Ridingwood. "I'm glad you came down."
Stahr walked past him, heading across the great stage toward a set that
would be used tomorrow. Director Ridingwood followed, realizing suddenly
that Stahr walked a step or two ahead. He recognized the indication of
displeasure-his own metier was largely the "delivery" of situations through
mimetic business. He didn't know what the trouble was but he was a top
director and not alarmed. Goldwyn had once interfered with him, and
Ridingwood had led Goldwyn into trying to act out a pan in front of fifty
actors-with the result that he anticipated. His own authority had been
restored.
Stahr reached the set and stared at it.
"It's no good," said Ridingwood. "I don't care how you light it-"
"Why did you call me about it?" Stahr asked standing close to him. "Why
didn't you take it up with Art?"
"I didn't ask you to come down, Monroe."
"You wanted to be your own supervisor."
"I'm sorry, Monroe," said Ridingwood patiently. "But I didn't ask you
to come down."
Stahr turned suddenly and walked back toward the camera set up. The
eyes and open mouths of a group of visitors moved momentarily off the
heroine of the picture, took in Stahr and then moved vacantly back to the
heroine again. They were Knights of Columbus. They had seen the Host carried
in procession but this was the dream made flesh.
Stahr stopped beside her chair. She wore a low gown which displayed the
bright eczema of her chest and back. Before each take the blemished surface
was plastered over with an emollient, which was removed immediately after
the take. Her hair was of the color and viscosity of drying blood but there
was starlight that actually photographed in her eyes.
Before Stahr could speak he heard a helpful voice behind him:
"She's radiunt. Absolutely radiunt."
It was an assistant director and the intention was delicate compliment.
The actress was being complimented so that she did not have to strain her
poor skin to bend and hear. Stahr was being complimented for having her
under contract. Ridingwood was being remotely complimented.
"Everything all right?" Stahr asked her pleasantly.
"Oh, it's fine," she agreed, "-except for the --ing publicity men."
He winked at her gently.
"We'll keep them away," he said.
Her name had become currently synonymous with the expression "bitch."
Presumably she had modelled herself after one of those queens in the Tarzan
comics who rule mysteriously over a nation of blacks. She regarded the rest
of the world as black. She was a necessary evil, borrowed for a single
picture.
Ridingwood walked with Stahr toward the door of the stage.
"Everything's all right," the director said. "She's as good as she can
be."
They were out of hearing range and Stahr stopped suddenly and looked at
Red with blazing eyes.
"You've been photographing crap," he said. "Do you know what she
reminds me of in the rushes-'Miss Foodstuffs.' "
"I'm trying to get the best performance-"
"Come along with me," said Stahr abruptly.
"With you? Shall I tell them to rest?"
"Leave it as it is," said Stahr, pushing the padded outer door.
His car and chauffeur waited outside. Minutes were precious most days.
"Get in," said Stahr.
Red knew now it was serious. He even knew all at once what was the
matter. The girl had got the whip hand on him the first day with her cold
lashing tongue. He was a peace-loving man and he had let her walk through
her part cold rather than cause trouble.
Stahr spoke into his thoughts.
"You can't handle her," he said. "I told you what I wanted. I wanted
her mean-and she comes out bored. I'm afraid we'll have to call it off,
Red."
"The picture?"
"No. I'm putting Harley on it."
"All right, Monroe."
"I'm sorry, Red. We'll try something else another time."
The car drew up in front of Stahr's office.
"Shall I finish this take?" said Red.
"It's being done now," said Stahr grimly. "Harley's in there."
"What the hell-"
"He went in when we came out. I had him read the script last night."
"Now listen, Monroe-"
"It's my busy day, Red," said Stahr tersely. "You lost interest about
three days ago."
It was a sorry mess Ridingwood thought. It meant he would have to do
the next picture he was offered whether he liked it or not. It meant a
slight, very slight loss of position-it probably meant that he could not
have a third wife just now as he had planned. There wasn't even the
satisfaction in raising a row about it-if you disagreed with Stahr you did
not advertise it. Stahr was his world's great customer who was always-almost
always right.
"How about my coat?" he asked suddenly. "I left it over a chair on the
set."
"I know you did," said Stahr. "Here it is."
He was trying so hard to be charitable about Ridingwood's lapse that he
had forgotten that he had it in his hand.
Episode 11
"Mr. Stahr's Projection Room" was a miniature picture theatre with four
rows of overstuffed chairs. In front of the front row ran long tables with
dim lamps, buzzers and telephones. Against the wall was an upright piano,
left there since the early days of sound. The room had been redecorated and
reupholstered only a year before but already it was ragged again with work
and hours.
Here Stahr sat at two-thirty and again at six-thirty watching the
lengths of film taken during the day. There was often a savage tensity about
the occasion-he was dealing with faits accomplis-the net result of months of
buying, planning, writing and rewriting, casting, constructing, lighting,
rehearsing and shooting-the fruit alike of brilliant hunches or counsels of
despair, of lethargy, conspiracy and sweat. At this point the tortuous
manoeuvre was staged and in suspension-these were reports from the
battle-line.
Besides Stahr there were present the representatives of all technical
departments together with the supervisors and unit managers of the pictures
concerned. The directors did not appear at these showings-officially because
their work was considered done-actually because few punches were pulled here
as money ran out in silver spools. There had evolved a delicate staying
away.
The staff was already assembled. Stahr came in and took his place
quickly and the murmur of conversation died away. As he sat back and drew
his thin knee up beside him in the chair the lights in the room went out.
There was the flare of a match in the back row-then silence.
On the screen a troop of French Canadians pushed their canoes up a
rapids. The scene had been photographed in a studio tank and at the end of
each take after the director's voice could be heard saying "Cut," the actors
on the screen relaxed and wiped their brows and sometimes laughed
hilariously-and the water in the tank stopped flowing and the illusion
ceased. Except to name his choice from each set of takes and to remark that
it was "a good process," Stahr made no comment.
The next scene, still in the rapids, called for dialogue between the
Canadian girl (Claudette Colbert) and the coureur du bois (Ronald Colman)
with her looking down at him from a canoe. After a few strips had run
through Stahr spoke up suddenly.
"Has the tank been dismantled?"
"Yes, sir."
"Monroe-they needed it for-"
Stahr cut in peremptorily.
"Have it set up again right away. Let's have that second take again."
The lights went on momentarily. One of the unit managers left his chair
and came and stood in front of Stahr.
"A beautifully acted scene thrown away," raged Stahr quietly. "It
wasn't centered. The camera was set up so it caught the beautiful top of
Claudette's head all the time she was talking. That's) just what we want,
isn't it? That's) just what people go to see-the top of a beautiful girl's
head. Tell Tim he could have saved wear and tear by using her stand-in."
The lights went out again. The unit manager squatted by Stahr's chair
to be out of the way. The take was run again.
"Do you see now?" asked Stahr. "And there's a hair in the picture-there
on the right, see it? Find out if it's in the projector or the film."
At the very end of the take Claudette Colbert slowly lifted her head
revealing her great liquid eyes.
"That's what we should have had all the way," said Stahr. "She gave a
fine performance too. See if you can fit it in tomorrow or late this
afternoon."
-Pete Zavras would not have made a slip like that. There were not six
camera men in the industry you could entirely trust.
The lights went on; the supervisor and unit manager for that picture
went out.
"Monroe, this stuff was shot yesterday-it came through late last
night."
The room darkened. On the screen appeared the head of Siva, immense and
imperturbable, oblivious to the fact that in a few hours it was to be washed
away in a flood. Around it milled a crowd of the faithful.
"When you take that scene again," said Stahr suddenly, "put a couple of
little kids up on top. You better check about whether it's reverent or not
but I think it's all right. Kids'll do anything."
"Yes, Monroe."
A silver belt with stars cut out of it.... Smith, Jones or Brown....
Personal-will the woman with the silver belt who-?
With another picture the scene shifted to New York, a gangster story,
and suddenly Stahr became restive.
"That scene's trash," he called suddenly in the darkness. "It's badly
written, it's miscast, it accomplishes nothing. Those types aren't tough.
They look like a lot of dressed up lollypops-what the hell is the matter.
Mort?"
"The scene was written on the set this morning," said Mort Flieshacker.
"Burton wanted to get all the stuff on Stage 6."
"Well-it's trash. And so is this one. There's no use printing stuff
like that. She doesn't believe what she's saying-neither does Cary. 'I love
you' in a close-up-they'll cluck you out of the house! And the girl's
overdressed."
In the darkness a signal was given, the projector stopped, the lights
went on. The room waited in utter silence. Stahr's face was expressionless.
"Who wrote the scene?" he asked after a minute.
"Wylie White."
"Is he sober?"
"Sure he is."
Stahr considered.
"Put about four writers on that scene tonight," he said. "See who we've
got. Is Sidney Howard here yet?"
"He got in this morning."
"Talk to him about it. Explain to him what I want there. The girl is in
deadly terror-she's stalling. It's as simple as that. People don't have
three emotions at once. And Kapper-"
The art director leaned his head forward out of the second row.
"Yeah."
"There's something the matter with that set."
There were little glances exchanged all over the room.
"What is it, Monroe?"
"You tell me," said Stahr. "It's crowded. It doesn't carry your eye
out. It looks cheap."
"It wasn't."
"I know it wasn't. There's not much the matter but there's something.
Go over and take a look tonight. It may be too much furniture-or the wrong
kind. Perhaps a window would help. Couldn't you force the perspective in
that hall a little more?"
"I'll see what I can do." Kapper edged his way out of the row looking
at his watch.
"I'll have to get at it right away," he said. "I'll work tonight and
we'll put it up in the morning."
"All right. Mort, you can shoot around those scenes, can't you?"
"I think so, Monroe."
"I take the blame for this. Have you got the fight stuff?"
"Coming up now."
Stahr nodded. Kapper hurried out and the room went dark again. On the
screen four men staged a terrific socking match in a cellar. Stahr laughed.
"Look at Tracy," he said. "Look at him go down after that guy. I bet
he's been in a few."
The men fought over and over. Always the same fight. Always at the end
they faced each other smiling, sometimes touching the opponent in a friendly
gesture on the shoulder. The only one in danger was the stunt man, a pug who
could have murdered the other three. He was in danger only if they swung
wild and didn't follow the blows he had taught them. Even so the youngest
actor was afraid for his face and the director had covered his flinches with
ingenious angles and interpositions.
And then two men met endlessly in a door, recognized each other and
went on. They met, they started, they went on. They did it wrong. Again they
met, they started, they went on.
Then a little girl read underneath a tree with a boy reading on a limb
of the tree above. The little girl was bored and wanted to talk to the boy.
He would pay no attention. The core of the apple he was eating fell on the
little girl's head.
A voice spoke up out of the darkness:
"It's pretty long, isn't it, Monroe?"
"Not a bit," said Stahr. "It's nice. It has nice feeling."
"I just thought it was long."
"Sometimes ten feet can be too long-sometimes a scene two hundred feet
long can be too short. I want to speak to the cutter before he touches this
scene-this is something that'll be remembered in the picture."
The oracle had spoken. There was nothing to question or argue. Stahr
must be right always, not most of the time, but always-or the structure
would melt down like gradual butter.
Another hour passed. Dreams hung in fragments at the far end of the
room, suffered analysis, passed-to be dreamed in crowds, or else discarded.
The end was signalled by two tests, a character man and a girl. After the
rushes, which had a tense rhythm of their own, the tests were smooth and
finished-the observers settled in their chairs-Stahr's foot slipped to the
floor. Opinions were welcome. One of the technical men let it be known that
he would willingly cohabit with the girl-the rest were indifferent.
"Somebody sent up a test of that girl two years ago. She must be
getting around-but she isn't getting any better. But the man's good. Can't
we use him as the old Russian Prince in 'Steppes'?"
"He is an old Russian Prince," said the casting director. "But he's
ashamed of it. He's a Red. And that's one part he says he wouldn't play."
"It's the only part he could play," said Stahr.
The lights went on. Stahr rolled his gum into its wrapper and put it in
an ash-tray. He turned questionmgly to his secretary.
"The processes on Stage 2," she said.
He looked in briefly at the processes, moving pictures taken against a
background of other moving pictures by an ingenious device. There was a
meeting in Marcus' office on the subject of "Manon" with a happy ending and
Stahr had his say on that as he had before-it had been making money without
a happy ending for a century and a half. He was obdurate-at this time in the
afternoon he was at his most fluent and the opposition faded into another
subject-they would lend a dozen stars to the benefit for those the quake had
made homeless at Long Beach. In a sudden burst of giving five of them all at
once made up a purse of twenty-five thousand dollars. They gave well but not
as poor men give. It was not charity.
At his office there was word from the oculist to whom he had sent Pete
Zavras that the camera man's eyes were 20/19, approximately perfect. He had
written a letter that Zavras was having photostated. Stahr walked around his
office cockily while Miss Doolan admired him. Prince Agge had dropped in to
thank him for his afternoon on the sets and while they talked a cryptic word
came from a supervisor that some writers named Marquand had "found out" and
were about to quit.
"These are good writers," Stahr explained to Prince Agge. "And we don't
have good writers out here."
"Why you can hire anyone!" exclaimed his visitor in surprise.
"Oh we hire them but when they get out here they're not good writers-so
we have to work with the material we have."
"Like what?"
"Anybody that'll accept the system and stay decently sober-we have all
sorts of people-disappointed poets, one-hit playwrights, college girls-we
put them on an idea in pairs and if it slows down we put two more writers
working behind them. I've had as many as three pairs working independently
on the same idea."
"Do they like that?"
"Not if they know about it. They're not geniuses-none of them could
make as much any other way. But these Marquands are a husband and wife team
from the East-pretty good playwrights. They've just found out they're not
alone on the story and it shocks them-shocks their sense of unity-that's the
word they'll use."
"But what does make the-the unity?"
Stahr hesitated-his face was grim except that his eyes twinkled.
"I'm the unity," he said. "Come and see us again."
He saw the Marquands. He told them he liked their work, looking at Mrs.
Marquand as if he could read her handwriting through the typescript. He told
them kindly that he was taking them from the picture and putting them on
another where there was less pressure, more time. As he had half expected
they begged to stay on the first picture, seeing a quicker credit even
though it was shared with others. The system was a shame, he admitted-
gross, commercial, to be deplored. He had originated it-a fact that he did
not mention.
When they had gone Miss Doolan came in triumphant.
"Mr. Stahr, the lady with the belt is on the phone."
Stahr walked in to his office alone and sat down behind his desk and
picked up the phone with a great sinking of his stomach. He did not know
what he wanted. He had not thought about the matter as he had thought of the
matter of Pete Zavras. At first he had only wanted to know if they were
"professional" people, if the woman was an actress who had got herself up to
look like Minna as he had once had a young actress made up like Claudette
Colbert and photographed her from the same angles.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello."
As he searched the short, rather surprised word for a vibration of
last night, the feeling of terror began to steal over him and he choked
it off with an effort of will.
"Well-you were hard to find," he said. "Smith-and you moved here
recently. That was all we had. And a silver belt."
"Oh yes," the voice said, still uneasy, unpoised, "I had on a silver
belt last night."
Now, where from here?
"Who are you?" the voice said, with a touch of flurried bourgeois
dignity.
"My name is Monroe Stahr," he said.
A pause. It was a name that never appeared on the screen and she seemed
to have trouble placing it.
"Oh yes-yes. You were the husband of Minna Davis."
"Yes."
Was it a trick? As the whole vision of last night came back to him-the
very skin with that peculiar radiance as if phosphorus had touched it, he
thought if it were a trick to reach him from somewhere. Not Minna and yet
Minna. The curtains blew suddenly into the room, the papers whispered on his
desk and his heart cringed faintly at the intense reality of the day outside
his window. If he could go out now this way what would happen if he saw her
again-the starry veiled expression, the mouth strongly formed for poor brave
human laughter.
"I'd like to see you. Would you like to come to the studio?"
Again the hesitancy-then a blank refusal.
"Oh, I don't think I ought to. I'm awfully sorry."
This last was purely formal, a brush off, a final axe. Ordinary
skin-deep vanity came to Stahr's aid, adding persuasion to his urgency.
"I'd like to see you," he said. "There's a reason."
"Well-I'm afraid that-"
"Could I come and see you?"
A pause again not from hesitation, he felt, but to assemble her answer.
"There's something you don't know," she said finally.
"Oh, you're probably married." He was impatient. "It has nothing to do
with that. I asked you to come here openly, bring your husband if you have
one."
"It's-it's quite impossible."
"Why?"
"I feel silly even talking to you but your secretary insisted-I thought
I'd dropped something in the flood last night and you'd found it."
"I want very much to see you for five minutes."
"To put me in the movies."
"That wasn't my idea."
There was such a long pause that he thought he had offended her.
"Where could I meet you?" she asked unexpectedly.
"Here? At your house?"
"No-somewhere outside."
Suddenly Stahr could think of no place. His own house-a restaurant.
Where did people meet-a house of assignation, a cocktail bar?
"I'll meet you somewhere at nine o'clock," she said.
"That's impossible, I'm afraid."
"Then never mind."
"All right then nine o'clock, but can we make it near here? There's a
drug store on Wilshire-"
It was quarter to six. There were two men outside who had come every
day at this time only to be postponed. This was an hour of fatigue-the men's
business was not so important that it must be seen to, nor so insignificant
that it could be ignored. So he postponed it again and sat motionless at his
desk for a moment thinking about Russia. Not so much about Russia as about
the picture about Russia which would consume a hopeless half hour presently.
He knew there were many stories about Russia, not to mention The Story, and
he had employed a squad of writers and research men for over a year but all
the stories involved had the wrong feel. He felt it could be told in terms
of the American thirteen states but it kept coming out different, in new
terms that opened unpleasant possibilities and problems. He considered he
was very fair to Russia-he had no desire to make anything but a sympathetic
picture but it kept turning into a headache.
"Mr. Stahr-Mr. Drummon's outside and Mr. Kirstoff and Mrs. Cornhill
about the Russian picture." "All right-send them in."
Afterwards from six-thirty to seven-thirty he watched the afternoon
rushes. Except for his engagement with the girl he would ordinarily have
spent the early evening in the projection room or the dubbing room but it
had been a late night with the earthquake and he decided to go to dinner.
Coming in through his front office he found Pete Zavras waiting, his arm in
a sling.
"You are the Aeschylus and the Diogenes of the moving picture," said
Zavras simply. "Also the Asclepius and the Menander."
He bowed.
"Who are they?" asked Stahr smiling.
"They are my countrymen. "
"I didn't know you made pictures in Greece."
"You're joking with me, Monroe," said Zavras. "I want to say you are as
dandy a fellow as they come. You have saved me one hundred percent."
"You feel all right now?"
"My arm is nothing. It feels like someone kisses me there. It was worth
doing what I did if this is the outcome. "
"How did you happen to do it here?" Stahr asked curiously.
"Before the oracle," said Zavras. "The solver of Eleusinian mysteries.
I wish I had my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who started the story."
"You make me sorry I didn't get an education," said Stahr.
"It isn't worth a damn," said Pete. "I took my baccalaureate in
Salonika and look how I ended up."
"Not quite," said Stahr.
"If you want anybody's throat cut anytime day or night," said Zavras,
"my number is in the book."
Stahr closed his eyes and opened them again. Zavras' silhouette had
blurred a little against the sun. He hung on to the table behind him and
said in an ordinary voice:
"Good luck, Pete."
The room was almost black but he made his feet move following a pattern
into his office and waited till the door clicked shut before he felt for the
pills. The water decanter clattered against the table; the glass clacked. He
sat down in a big chair waiting for the benzedrine to take effect before he
went to dinner.
Episode 12
As Stahr walked back from the commissary a hand waved at him from an
open roadster. From the heads showing over the back he recognized a young
actor and his girl, and watched them disappear through the gate already part
of the summer twilight. Little by little he was losing the feel of such
things, until it seemed that Minna had taken their poignancy with her; his
apprehension of splendor was fading so that presently the luxury of eternal
mourning would depart. A childish association of Minna with the material
heavens made him, when he reached his office, order out his roadster for the
first time this year. The big limousine seemed heavy with remembered
conferences or exhausted sleep.
Leaving the studio he was still tense but the open car pulled the
summer evening up close and he looked at it. There was a moon down at the
end of the boulevard and it was a good illusion that it was a different moon
every evening, every year. Other lights shone in Hollywood since Minna's
death: in the open markets lemons and grapefruit and green apples slanted a
misty glare into the street. Ahead of him the stop-signal of a car winked
violet and at another crossing he watched it wink again. Everywhere
floodlights raked the sky. On an empty corner two mysterious men moved a
gleaming drum in pointless arcs over the heavens.
In the drug store a woman stood by the candy counter. She was tall,
almost as tall as Stahr, and embarrassed. Obviously it was a situation for
her and if Stahr had not looked as he did-most considerate and polite-she
would not have gone through with it. They said hello and walked out without
another word, scarcely a glance- yet before they reached the curb Stahr
knew: this was just exactly a pretty American woman and nothing more-no
beauty like Minna.
"Where are we going?" she asked. "I thought there'd be a chauffeur.
Never mind-I'm a good boxer."
"Boxer?"
"That didn't sound very polite." She forced a smile. "But you people
are supposed to be such horrors."
The conception of himself as sinister amused Stahr-then suddenly it
failed to amuse him.
"Why did you want to see me?" she asked as she got in.
He stood motionless, wanting to tell her get out immediately. But she
had relaxed in the car and he knew the unfortunate situation was of his own
making-he shut his teeth and walked around to get in. The street lamp fell
full upon her face and it was difficult to believe that this was the girl of
last night. He saw no resemblance to Minna at all.
"I'll run you home," he said. "Where do you live?"
"Run me home?" She was startled. "There's no hurry-I'm sorry if I
offended you."
"No. It was nice of you to come. I've been stupid. Last night I had an
idea that you were an exact double for someone I knew. It was dark and the
the ground with a process sky. That was one thing about Stahr-the literal
sky was the limit. He had worked with Jews too long to believe legends that
they were small with money.
"In the third sequence have him hit the priest," Stahr said. "What!"
Wylie cried, "-and have the Catholics on our neck." "I've talked to Joe
Breen. Priests have been hit. It doesn't reflect on them."
His quiet voice ran on-stopped abruptly as Miss Doolan glanced at the
clock.
"Is that too much to do before Monday?" he asked Wylie. Wylie looked at
Rose and she looked back not even bothering to nod. He saw their week-end
melting away, but he was a different man from when he entered the room. When
you were paid fifteen hundred a week emergency work was one thing you did
not skimp, nor when your picture was threatened. As a "free lance" writer
Wylie had failed from lack of caring but here was Stahr to care, for all of
them. The effect would not wear off when he left the office-not anywhere
within the walls of the lot. He felt a great purposefulness. The mixture of
common sense, wise sensibility, theatrical ingenuity, and a certain half
naive conception of the common weal which Stahr had just stated aloud,
inspired him to do his part, to get his block of stone in place, even if the
effort were foredoomed, the result as dull as a pyramid.
Out the window Rose Meloney watched the trickle streaming toward the
commissary. She would have her lunch in her office and knit a few rows while
it came. The man was coming at one-fifteen with the French perfume smuggled
over the Mexican border. That was no sin-it was like prohibition.
Broaca watched as Rienmund fawned upon Stahr. He sensed that Rienmund
was on his way up-not yet. He received seven hundred and fifty a week for
his partial authority over directors, writers and stars who got much more.
He wore a cheap English shoe he bought near the Beverly Wilshire and Broaca
hoped they hurt his feet, but soon now he would order his shoes from Peal's
and put away his little green alpine hat with a feather. Broaca was years
ahead of him. He had a fine record in the war but he had never felt quite
the same with himself since he had let Ike Franklin strike him in the face
with his open hand.
There was smoke in the room and behind it, behind his great desk Stahr
was withdrawing further and further, in all courtesy, still giving Rienmund
an ear and Miss Doolan an ear. The conference was over.
"Any messages?"
"Mr. Robinson called in," Miss Doolan said, as he started for the
commissary. "One of the women told him her name but he's forgotten it-he
thinks it was Smith or Brown or Jones."
"That's a great help."
"And he remembers she says she just moved to Los Angeles."
"I remember she had a silver belt," Stahr said, "with stars cut out of
it."
"I'm still trying to find out more about Pete Zavras. I talked to his
wife."
"What did she say?"
"Oh, they've had an awful time-given up their house-she's been sick-"
"Is the eye trouble hopeless?"
"She didn't seem to know anything about the state of his eyes. She
didn't even know he was going blind."
"That's funny."
He thought about it on the way to luncheon but it was as confusing as
the actor's trouble this morning. Troubles about people's health didn't seem
within his range-he gave no thought to his own. In the lane beside the
commissary he stepped back as an open electric truck crammed with girls in
the bright costumes of the regency came rolling in from the back lot. The
dresses were fluttering in the wind, the young painted faces looked at him
curiously and he smiled as it went by.
Episode 10
Eleven men and their guest Prince Agge sat at lunch in the private
dining room of the studio commissary. They were the money men-they were the
rulers and unless there was a guest they ate in broken silence, sometimes
asking questions about each other's wives and children, sometimes
discharging a single absorption from the forefront of their consciousness.
Eight out of the ten were Jews-five of the ten were foreign born, including
a Greek and an Englishman-and they had all known each other for a long time:
there was a rating in the group, from old Marcus down to old Leanbaum who
had bought the most fortunate block of stock in the business and never was
allowed to spend over a million a year producing.
Old Marcus functioned with disquieting resilience. Some
never-atrophying instinct warned him of danger, of gangings up against
him-he was never so dangerous himself as when others considered him
surrounded. His grey face had attained such immobility that even those who
were accustomed to watch the reflex of the inner corner of his eye could no
longer see it-nature had grown a little white whisker there to conceal it;
his armor was complete.
As he was the oldest, Stahr was the youngest of the group-not by many
years at this date, though he had first sat with most of these men when he
was a boy wonder of twenty-two. Then, more than now, he had been a money man
among money men. Then he had been able to figure costs in his head with a
speed and accuracy that dazzled them-for they were not wizards or even
experts in that regard, despite the popular conception of Jews in finance.
Most of them owed their success to different and incompatible qualities. But
in a group a tradition carries along the less adept, and they were content
to look at Stahr for the sublimated auditing and experience a sort of glow
as if they had done it themselves like rooters at a football game.
Stahr, as will presently be seen, had grown away from that particular
gift, though it was always there.
Prince Agge sat between Stahr and Mort Flieshacker the company lawyer
and across from Joe Popolous the theatre owner. He was hostile to Jews in a
vague general way that he tried to cure himself of. As a turbulent man,
serving his time in the Foreign Legion, he thought that Jews were too fond
of their own skins. But he was willing to concede that they might be
different in America under different circumstances, and certainly he found
Stahr was much of a man in every way. For the rest-he thought most business
men were dull dogs-for final reference he reverted always to the blood of
Bernadotte in his veins.
My father-I will call him Mr. Brady as Prince Agge did when he told me
of this luncheon-was worried about a picture and when Leanbaum went out
early he came up and took his chair opposite.
"How about the South America picture idea, Monroe?" he asked.
Prince Agge noticed a blink of attention toward them as distinct as if
a dozen pair of eyelashes had made the sound of batting wings. Then silence
again.
"We're going ahead with it," said Stahr.
"With that same budget?" Brady asked.
Stahr nodded.
"It's out of proportion," said Brady. "There won't be any miracle in
these bad times-no 'Hell's Angels' or 'Ben-Hur' when you throw it away and
get it back."
Probably the attack was planned, for Popolous, the Greek, took up the
matter in a sort of double talk that reminded Prince Agge of Mike Van Dyke
except that it tried to be and succeeded in being clear instead of
confusing.
"It's not adoptable, Monroe, in as we wish adopt to this times in as it
changes. It what could be done as we run the gamut of prosperity is scarcely
conceptuable now. "
"What do you think, Mr. Marcus?" asked Stahr.
All eyes followed his down the table but as if forewarned Mr. Marcus
had already signalled his private waiter behind him that he wished to rise,
and was even now in a basket-like position in the waiter's arms. He looked
at them with such helplessness that it was hard to realize that in the
evenings he sometimes went dancing with his young Canadian girl.
"Monroe is our production genius," he said. "I count upon Monroe and
lean heavily upon him. I have not seen the flood myself."
There was a moment of silence as he moved from the room.
"There's not a two million dollar gross in the country now," said
Brady.
"Is not," agreed Popolous. "Even as if so you could grab them by the
head and push them by and in, is not."
"Probably not," agreed Stahr. He paused as if to make sure that all
were listening. "I think we can count on a million and a quarter from the
road-show. Perhaps a million and a half altogether. And a quarter of a
million abroad."
Again there was silence-this time puzzled, a little confused. Over his
shoulder Stahr asked the waiter to be connected with his office on the
phone.
"But your budget?" said Flieshacker. "Your budget is seventeen hundred
and fifty thousand, I understand. And your expectations only add up to that
without profit."
"Those aren't my expectations," said Stahr. "We're not sure of more
than a million and a half."
The room had grown so motionless that Prince Agge could hear a grey
chunk of ash fall from a cigar in midair. Flieshacker started to speak, his
face fixed with amazement, but a phone had been handed over Stahr's
shoulder.
"Your office, Mr. Stahr."
"Oh yes-oh, hello Miss Doolan. I've figured it out about Zavras. It's
one of these lousy rumors-I'll bet my shirt on it.... Oh, you did. Good....
Good. Now here's what to do-send him to my oculist this afternoon, Dr. John
Kennedy, and have him get a report and have it photostated-you understand."
He hung up-turned with a touch of passion to the table at large.
"Did any of you ever hear a story that Pete Zavras was going blind?"
There were a couple of nods. But most of those present were poised
breathlessly on whether Stahr had slipped on his figures a minute before.
"It's pure bunk. He says he's never even been to an oculist-never knew
why the studios turned against him," said Stahr. "Somebody didn't like him
or somebody talked too much and he's been out of work for a year."
There was a conventional murmur of sympathy. Stahr signed the check and
made as though to get up.
"Excuse me, Monroe," said Flieshacker persistently, while Brady and
Popolous watched, "I'm fairly new here and perhaps I fail to comprehend
implicitly and explicitly." He was talking fast but the veins on his
forehead bulged with pride at the big words from N. Y. U. "Do I understand
you to say you expect to gross a quarter million short of your budget?"
"It's a quality picture," said Stahr with assumed innocence.
It had dawned on them all now but they still felt there was a trick in
it. Stahr really thought it would make money. No one in his senses "For two
years we've played safe," said Stahr. "It's time we made a picture that'll
lose some money. Write it off as good will-this'll bring in new customers."
Some of them still thought he meant it was a flyer and a favorable one
but he left them in no doubt.
"It'll lose money," he said as he stood up, his jaw just slightly out
and his eyes smiling and shining. "It would be a bigger miracle than 'Hell's
Angels' if it broke even. But we have a certain duty to the public as Pat
Brady says at Academy dinners. It's a good thing for the production schedule
to slip in a picture that'll lose money."
He nodded at Prince Agge. As the latter made his bows quickly he tried
to take in with a last glance the general effect of what Stahr said, but he
could tell nothing. The eyes not so much downcast as fixed upon an
indefinite distance just above the table were all blinking quickly now but
there was not a whisper in the room.
Coming out of the private dining room they passed through a corner of
the commissary proper. Prince Agge drank it in-eagerly. It was gay with
gypsies and with citizens and soldiers with the sideburns and braided coats
of the First Empire. From a little distance they were men who lived and
walked a hundred years ago and Agge wondered how he and the men of his time
would look as extras in some future costume picture.
Then he saw Abraham Lincoln and his whole feeling suddenly changed. He
had been brought up in the dawn of Scandanavian socialism where Nicolay's
biography was much read. He had been told Lincoln was a great man whom he
should admire and he had hated him instead because he was forced upon him.
But now seeing him sitting here, his legs crossed, his kindly face fixed on
a forty cent dinner, including dessert, his shawl wrapped around him as if
to protect himself from the erratic air-cooling-now Prince Agge, who was in
America at last, stared as a tourist at the mummy of Lenin in the Kremlin.
This then was Lincoln. Stahr had walked on far ahead of him, turned waiting
for him-but still Agge stared.
-This then, he thought, was what they all meant to be.
Lincoln suddenly raised a triangle of pie and jammed it in his mouth
and, a little frightened, Prince Agge hurried to join Stahr.
"I hope you're getting what you want," said Stahr feeling he had
neglected him. "We'll have some rushes in half an hour and then you can go
on to as many sets as you want."
"I should rather stay with you," said Prince Agge.
"I'll see what there is for me," said Stahr. "Then we'll go on
together."
There was the Japanese consul on the release of a spy story which might
offend the national sensibilities of Japan. There were phone calls and
telegrams. There was some further information from Robby.
"Now he remembers the name of the woman was Smith," said Miss Doolan.
"He asked her if she wanted to come on the lot and get some dry shoes and
she said no-so she can't sue."
"That's pretty bad for a total recall-'Smith.' That's a great help." He
thought a moment. "Ask the phone company for a list of Smiths that have
taken new phones here in the last month. Call them all."
"All right."
For Episode 11
"How you, Monroe," said Red Ridingwood. "I'm glad you came down."
Stahr walked past him, heading across the great stage toward a set that
would be used tomorrow. Director Ridingwood followed, realizing suddenly
that Stahr walked a step or two ahead. He recognized the indication of
displeasure-his own metier was largely the "delivery" of situations through
mimetic business. He didn't know what the trouble was but he was a top
director and not alarmed. Goldwyn had once interfered with him, and
Ridingwood had led Goldwyn into trying to act out a pan in front of fifty
actors-with the result that he anticipated. His own authority had been
restored.
Stahr reached the set and stared at it.
"It's no good," said Ridingwood. "I don't care how you light it-"
"Why did you call me about it?" Stahr asked standing close to him. "Why
didn't you take it up with Art?"
"I didn't ask you to come down, Monroe."
"You wanted to be your own supervisor."
"I'm sorry, Monroe," said Ridingwood patiently. "But I didn't ask you
to come down."
Stahr turned suddenly and walked back toward the camera set up. The
eyes and open mouths of a group of visitors moved momentarily off the
heroine of the picture, took in Stahr and then moved vacantly back to the
heroine again. They were Knights of Columbus. They had seen the Host carried
in procession but this was the dream made flesh.
Stahr stopped beside her chair. She wore a low gown which displayed the
bright eczema of her chest and back. Before each take the blemished surface
was plastered over with an emollient, which was removed immediately after
the take. Her hair was of the color and viscosity of drying blood but there
was starlight that actually photographed in her eyes.
Before Stahr could speak he heard a helpful voice behind him:
"She's radiunt. Absolutely radiunt."
It was an assistant director and the intention was delicate compliment.
The actress was being complimented so that she did not have to strain her
poor skin to bend and hear. Stahr was being complimented for having her
under contract. Ridingwood was being remotely complimented.
"Everything all right?" Stahr asked her pleasantly.
"Oh, it's fine," she agreed, "-except for the --ing publicity men."
He winked at her gently.
"We'll keep them away," he said.
Her name had become currently synonymous with the expression "bitch."
Presumably she had modelled herself after one of those queens in the Tarzan
comics who rule mysteriously over a nation of blacks. She regarded the rest
of the world as black. She was a necessary evil, borrowed for a single
picture.
Ridingwood walked with Stahr toward the door of the stage.
"Everything's all right," the director said. "She's as good as she can
be."
They were out of hearing range and Stahr stopped suddenly and looked at
Red with blazing eyes.
"You've been photographing crap," he said. "Do you know what she
reminds me of in the rushes-'Miss Foodstuffs.' "
"I'm trying to get the best performance-"
"Come along with me," said Stahr abruptly.
"With you? Shall I tell them to rest?"
"Leave it as it is," said Stahr, pushing the padded outer door.
His car and chauffeur waited outside. Minutes were precious most days.
"Get in," said Stahr.
Red knew now it was serious. He even knew all at once what was the
matter. The girl had got the whip hand on him the first day with her cold
lashing tongue. He was a peace-loving man and he had let her walk through
her part cold rather than cause trouble.
Stahr spoke into his thoughts.
"You can't handle her," he said. "I told you what I wanted. I wanted
her mean-and she comes out bored. I'm afraid we'll have to call it off,
Red."
"The picture?"
"No. I'm putting Harley on it."
"All right, Monroe."
"I'm sorry, Red. We'll try something else another time."
The car drew up in front of Stahr's office.
"Shall I finish this take?" said Red.
"It's being done now," said Stahr grimly. "Harley's in there."
"What the hell-"
"He went in when we came out. I had him read the script last night."
"Now listen, Monroe-"
"It's my busy day, Red," said Stahr tersely. "You lost interest about
three days ago."
It was a sorry mess Ridingwood thought. It meant he would have to do
the next picture he was offered whether he liked it or not. It meant a
slight, very slight loss of position-it probably meant that he could not
have a third wife just now as he had planned. There wasn't even the
satisfaction in raising a row about it-if you disagreed with Stahr you did
not advertise it. Stahr was his world's great customer who was always-almost
always right.
"How about my coat?" he asked suddenly. "I left it over a chair on the
set."
"I know you did," said Stahr. "Here it is."
He was trying so hard to be charitable about Ridingwood's lapse that he
had forgotten that he had it in his hand.
Episode 11
"Mr. Stahr's Projection Room" was a miniature picture theatre with four
rows of overstuffed chairs. In front of the front row ran long tables with
dim lamps, buzzers and telephones. Against the wall was an upright piano,
left there since the early days of sound. The room had been redecorated and
reupholstered only a year before but already it was ragged again with work
and hours.
Here Stahr sat at two-thirty and again at six-thirty watching the
lengths of film taken during the day. There was often a savage tensity about
the occasion-he was dealing with faits accomplis-the net result of months of
buying, planning, writing and rewriting, casting, constructing, lighting,
rehearsing and shooting-the fruit alike of brilliant hunches or counsels of
despair, of lethargy, conspiracy and sweat. At this point the tortuous
manoeuvre was staged and in suspension-these were reports from the
battle-line.
Besides Stahr there were present the representatives of all technical
departments together with the supervisors and unit managers of the pictures
concerned. The directors did not appear at these showings-officially because
their work was considered done-actually because few punches were pulled here
as money ran out in silver spools. There had evolved a delicate staying
away.
The staff was already assembled. Stahr came in and took his place
quickly and the murmur of conversation died away. As he sat back and drew
his thin knee up beside him in the chair the lights in the room went out.
There was the flare of a match in the back row-then silence.
On the screen a troop of French Canadians pushed their canoes up a
rapids. The scene had been photographed in a studio tank and at the end of
each take after the director's voice could be heard saying "Cut," the actors
on the screen relaxed and wiped their brows and sometimes laughed
hilariously-and the water in the tank stopped flowing and the illusion
ceased. Except to name his choice from each set of takes and to remark that
it was "a good process," Stahr made no comment.
The next scene, still in the rapids, called for dialogue between the
Canadian girl (Claudette Colbert) and the coureur du bois (Ronald Colman)
with her looking down at him from a canoe. After a few strips had run
through Stahr spoke up suddenly.
"Has the tank been dismantled?"
"Yes, sir."
"Monroe-they needed it for-"
Stahr cut in peremptorily.
"Have it set up again right away. Let's have that second take again."
The lights went on momentarily. One of the unit managers left his chair
and came and stood in front of Stahr.
"A beautifully acted scene thrown away," raged Stahr quietly. "It
wasn't centered. The camera was set up so it caught the beautiful top of
Claudette's head all the time she was talking. That's) just what we want,
isn't it? That's) just what people go to see-the top of a beautiful girl's
head. Tell Tim he could have saved wear and tear by using her stand-in."
The lights went out again. The unit manager squatted by Stahr's chair
to be out of the way. The take was run again.
"Do you see now?" asked Stahr. "And there's a hair in the picture-there
on the right, see it? Find out if it's in the projector or the film."
At the very end of the take Claudette Colbert slowly lifted her head
revealing her great liquid eyes.
"That's what we should have had all the way," said Stahr. "She gave a
fine performance too. See if you can fit it in tomorrow or late this
afternoon."
-Pete Zavras would not have made a slip like that. There were not six
camera men in the industry you could entirely trust.
The lights went on; the supervisor and unit manager for that picture
went out.
"Monroe, this stuff was shot yesterday-it came through late last
night."
The room darkened. On the screen appeared the head of Siva, immense and
imperturbable, oblivious to the fact that in a few hours it was to be washed
away in a flood. Around it milled a crowd of the faithful.
"When you take that scene again," said Stahr suddenly, "put a couple of
little kids up on top. You better check about whether it's reverent or not
but I think it's all right. Kids'll do anything."
"Yes, Monroe."
A silver belt with stars cut out of it.... Smith, Jones or Brown....
Personal-will the woman with the silver belt who-?
With another picture the scene shifted to New York, a gangster story,
and suddenly Stahr became restive.
"That scene's trash," he called suddenly in the darkness. "It's badly
written, it's miscast, it accomplishes nothing. Those types aren't tough.
They look like a lot of dressed up lollypops-what the hell is the matter.
Mort?"
"The scene was written on the set this morning," said Mort Flieshacker.
"Burton wanted to get all the stuff on Stage 6."
"Well-it's trash. And so is this one. There's no use printing stuff
like that. She doesn't believe what she's saying-neither does Cary. 'I love
you' in a close-up-they'll cluck you out of the house! And the girl's
overdressed."
In the darkness a signal was given, the projector stopped, the lights
went on. The room waited in utter silence. Stahr's face was expressionless.
"Who wrote the scene?" he asked after a minute.
"Wylie White."
"Is he sober?"
"Sure he is."
Stahr considered.
"Put about four writers on that scene tonight," he said. "See who we've
got. Is Sidney Howard here yet?"
"He got in this morning."
"Talk to him about it. Explain to him what I want there. The girl is in
deadly terror-she's stalling. It's as simple as that. People don't have
three emotions at once. And Kapper-"
The art director leaned his head forward out of the second row.
"Yeah."
"There's something the matter with that set."
There were little glances exchanged all over the room.
"What is it, Monroe?"
"You tell me," said Stahr. "It's crowded. It doesn't carry your eye
out. It looks cheap."
"It wasn't."
"I know it wasn't. There's not much the matter but there's something.
Go over and take a look tonight. It may be too much furniture-or the wrong
kind. Perhaps a window would help. Couldn't you force the perspective in
that hall a little more?"
"I'll see what I can do." Kapper edged his way out of the row looking
at his watch.
"I'll have to get at it right away," he said. "I'll work tonight and
we'll put it up in the morning."
"All right. Mort, you can shoot around those scenes, can't you?"
"I think so, Monroe."
"I take the blame for this. Have you got the fight stuff?"
"Coming up now."
Stahr nodded. Kapper hurried out and the room went dark again. On the
screen four men staged a terrific socking match in a cellar. Stahr laughed.
"Look at Tracy," he said. "Look at him go down after that guy. I bet
he's been in a few."
The men fought over and over. Always the same fight. Always at the end
they faced each other smiling, sometimes touching the opponent in a friendly
gesture on the shoulder. The only one in danger was the stunt man, a pug who
could have murdered the other three. He was in danger only if they swung
wild and didn't follow the blows he had taught them. Even so the youngest
actor was afraid for his face and the director had covered his flinches with
ingenious angles and interpositions.
And then two men met endlessly in a door, recognized each other and
went on. They met, they started, they went on. They did it wrong. Again they
met, they started, they went on.
Then a little girl read underneath a tree with a boy reading on a limb
of the tree above. The little girl was bored and wanted to talk to the boy.
He would pay no attention. The core of the apple he was eating fell on the
little girl's head.
A voice spoke up out of the darkness:
"It's pretty long, isn't it, Monroe?"
"Not a bit," said Stahr. "It's nice. It has nice feeling."
"I just thought it was long."
"Sometimes ten feet can be too long-sometimes a scene two hundred feet
long can be too short. I want to speak to the cutter before he touches this
scene-this is something that'll be remembered in the picture."
The oracle had spoken. There was nothing to question or argue. Stahr
must be right always, not most of the time, but always-or the structure
would melt down like gradual butter.
Another hour passed. Dreams hung in fragments at the far end of the
room, suffered analysis, passed-to be dreamed in crowds, or else discarded.
The end was signalled by two tests, a character man and a girl. After the
rushes, which had a tense rhythm of their own, the tests were smooth and
finished-the observers settled in their chairs-Stahr's foot slipped to the
floor. Opinions were welcome. One of the technical men let it be known that
he would willingly cohabit with the girl-the rest were indifferent.
"Somebody sent up a test of that girl two years ago. She must be
getting around-but she isn't getting any better. But the man's good. Can't
we use him as the old Russian Prince in 'Steppes'?"
"He is an old Russian Prince," said the casting director. "But he's
ashamed of it. He's a Red. And that's one part he says he wouldn't play."
"It's the only part he could play," said Stahr.
The lights went on. Stahr rolled his gum into its wrapper and put it in
an ash-tray. He turned questionmgly to his secretary.
"The processes on Stage 2," she said.
He looked in briefly at the processes, moving pictures taken against a
background of other moving pictures by an ingenious device. There was a
meeting in Marcus' office on the subject of "Manon" with a happy ending and
Stahr had his say on that as he had before-it had been making money without
a happy ending for a century and a half. He was obdurate-at this time in the
afternoon he was at his most fluent and the opposition faded into another
subject-they would lend a dozen stars to the benefit for those the quake had
made homeless at Long Beach. In a sudden burst of giving five of them all at
once made up a purse of twenty-five thousand dollars. They gave well but not
as poor men give. It was not charity.
At his office there was word from the oculist to whom he had sent Pete
Zavras that the camera man's eyes were 20/19, approximately perfect. He had
written a letter that Zavras was having photostated. Stahr walked around his
office cockily while Miss Doolan admired him. Prince Agge had dropped in to
thank him for his afternoon on the sets and while they talked a cryptic word
came from a supervisor that some writers named Marquand had "found out" and
were about to quit.
"These are good writers," Stahr explained to Prince Agge. "And we don't
have good writers out here."
"Why you can hire anyone!" exclaimed his visitor in surprise.
"Oh we hire them but when they get out here they're not good writers-so
we have to work with the material we have."
"Like what?"
"Anybody that'll accept the system and stay decently sober-we have all
sorts of people-disappointed poets, one-hit playwrights, college girls-we
put them on an idea in pairs and if it slows down we put two more writers
working behind them. I've had as many as three pairs working independently
on the same idea."
"Do they like that?"
"Not if they know about it. They're not geniuses-none of them could
make as much any other way. But these Marquands are a husband and wife team
from the East-pretty good playwrights. They've just found out they're not
alone on the story and it shocks them-shocks their sense of unity-that's the
word they'll use."
"But what does make the-the unity?"
Stahr hesitated-his face was grim except that his eyes twinkled.
"I'm the unity," he said. "Come and see us again."
He saw the Marquands. He told them he liked their work, looking at Mrs.
Marquand as if he could read her handwriting through the typescript. He told
them kindly that he was taking them from the picture and putting them on
another where there was less pressure, more time. As he had half expected
they begged to stay on the first picture, seeing a quicker credit even
though it was shared with others. The system was a shame, he admitted-
gross, commercial, to be deplored. He had originated it-a fact that he did
not mention.
When they had gone Miss Doolan came in triumphant.
"Mr. Stahr, the lady with the belt is on the phone."
Stahr walked in to his office alone and sat down behind his desk and
picked up the phone with a great sinking of his stomach. He did not know
what he wanted. He had not thought about the matter as he had thought of the
matter of Pete Zavras. At first he had only wanted to know if they were
"professional" people, if the woman was an actress who had got herself up to
look like Minna as he had once had a young actress made up like Claudette
Colbert and photographed her from the same angles.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello."
As he searched the short, rather surprised word for a vibration of
last night, the feeling of terror began to steal over him and he choked
it off with an effort of will.
"Well-you were hard to find," he said. "Smith-and you moved here
recently. That was all we had. And a silver belt."
"Oh yes," the voice said, still uneasy, unpoised, "I had on a silver
belt last night."
Now, where from here?
"Who are you?" the voice said, with a touch of flurried bourgeois
dignity.
"My name is Monroe Stahr," he said.
A pause. It was a name that never appeared on the screen and she seemed
to have trouble placing it.
"Oh yes-yes. You were the husband of Minna Davis."
"Yes."
Was it a trick? As the whole vision of last night came back to him-the
very skin with that peculiar radiance as if phosphorus had touched it, he
thought if it were a trick to reach him from somewhere. Not Minna and yet
Minna. The curtains blew suddenly into the room, the papers whispered on his
desk and his heart cringed faintly at the intense reality of the day outside
his window. If he could go out now this way what would happen if he saw her
again-the starry veiled expression, the mouth strongly formed for poor brave
human laughter.
"I'd like to see you. Would you like to come to the studio?"
Again the hesitancy-then a blank refusal.
"Oh, I don't think I ought to. I'm awfully sorry."
This last was purely formal, a brush off, a final axe. Ordinary
skin-deep vanity came to Stahr's aid, adding persuasion to his urgency.
"I'd like to see you," he said. "There's a reason."
"Well-I'm afraid that-"
"Could I come and see you?"
A pause again not from hesitation, he felt, but to assemble her answer.
"There's something you don't know," she said finally.
"Oh, you're probably married." He was impatient. "It has nothing to do
with that. I asked you to come here openly, bring your husband if you have
one."
"It's-it's quite impossible."
"Why?"
"I feel silly even talking to you but your secretary insisted-I thought
I'd dropped something in the flood last night and you'd found it."
"I want very much to see you for five minutes."
"To put me in the movies."
"That wasn't my idea."
There was such a long pause that he thought he had offended her.
"Where could I meet you?" she asked unexpectedly.
"Here? At your house?"
"No-somewhere outside."
Suddenly Stahr could think of no place. His own house-a restaurant.
Where did people meet-a house of assignation, a cocktail bar?
"I'll meet you somewhere at nine o'clock," she said.
"That's impossible, I'm afraid."
"Then never mind."
"All right then nine o'clock, but can we make it near here? There's a
drug store on Wilshire-"
It was quarter to six. There were two men outside who had come every
day at this time only to be postponed. This was an hour of fatigue-the men's
business was not so important that it must be seen to, nor so insignificant
that it could be ignored. So he postponed it again and sat motionless at his
desk for a moment thinking about Russia. Not so much about Russia as about
the picture about Russia which would consume a hopeless half hour presently.
He knew there were many stories about Russia, not to mention The Story, and
he had employed a squad of writers and research men for over a year but all
the stories involved had the wrong feel. He felt it could be told in terms
of the American thirteen states but it kept coming out different, in new
terms that opened unpleasant possibilities and problems. He considered he
was very fair to Russia-he had no desire to make anything but a sympathetic
picture but it kept turning into a headache.
"Mr. Stahr-Mr. Drummon's outside and Mr. Kirstoff and Mrs. Cornhill
about the Russian picture." "All right-send them in."
Afterwards from six-thirty to seven-thirty he watched the afternoon
rushes. Except for his engagement with the girl he would ordinarily have
spent the early evening in the projection room or the dubbing room but it
had been a late night with the earthquake and he decided to go to dinner.
Coming in through his front office he found Pete Zavras waiting, his arm in
a sling.
"You are the Aeschylus and the Diogenes of the moving picture," said
Zavras simply. "Also the Asclepius and the Menander."
He bowed.
"Who are they?" asked Stahr smiling.
"They are my countrymen. "
"I didn't know you made pictures in Greece."
"You're joking with me, Monroe," said Zavras. "I want to say you are as
dandy a fellow as they come. You have saved me one hundred percent."
"You feel all right now?"
"My arm is nothing. It feels like someone kisses me there. It was worth
doing what I did if this is the outcome. "
"How did you happen to do it here?" Stahr asked curiously.
"Before the oracle," said Zavras. "The solver of Eleusinian mysteries.
I wish I had my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who started the story."
"You make me sorry I didn't get an education," said Stahr.
"It isn't worth a damn," said Pete. "I took my baccalaureate in
Salonika and look how I ended up."
"Not quite," said Stahr.
"If you want anybody's throat cut anytime day or night," said Zavras,
"my number is in the book."
Stahr closed his eyes and opened them again. Zavras' silhouette had
blurred a little against the sun. He hung on to the table behind him and
said in an ordinary voice:
"Good luck, Pete."
The room was almost black but he made his feet move following a pattern
into his office and waited till the door clicked shut before he felt for the
pills. The water decanter clattered against the table; the glass clacked. He
sat down in a big chair waiting for the benzedrine to take effect before he
went to dinner.
Episode 12
As Stahr walked back from the commissary a hand waved at him from an
open roadster. From the heads showing over the back he recognized a young
actor and his girl, and watched them disappear through the gate already part
of the summer twilight. Little by little he was losing the feel of such
things, until it seemed that Minna had taken their poignancy with her; his
apprehension of splendor was fading so that presently the luxury of eternal
mourning would depart. A childish association of Minna with the material
heavens made him, when he reached his office, order out his roadster for the
first time this year. The big limousine seemed heavy with remembered
conferences or exhausted sleep.
Leaving the studio he was still tense but the open car pulled the
summer evening up close and he looked at it. There was a moon down at the
end of the boulevard and it was a good illusion that it was a different moon
every evening, every year. Other lights shone in Hollywood since Minna's
death: in the open markets lemons and grapefruit and green apples slanted a
misty glare into the street. Ahead of him the stop-signal of a car winked
violet and at another crossing he watched it wink again. Everywhere
floodlights raked the sky. On an empty corner two mysterious men moved a
gleaming drum in pointless arcs over the heavens.
In the drug store a woman stood by the candy counter. She was tall,
almost as tall as Stahr, and embarrassed. Obviously it was a situation for
her and if Stahr had not looked as he did-most considerate and polite-she
would not have gone through with it. They said hello and walked out without
another word, scarcely a glance- yet before they reached the curb Stahr
knew: this was just exactly a pretty American woman and nothing more-no
beauty like Minna.
"Where are we going?" she asked. "I thought there'd be a chauffeur.
Never mind-I'm a good boxer."
"Boxer?"
"That didn't sound very polite." She forced a smile. "But you people
are supposed to be such horrors."
The conception of himself as sinister amused Stahr-then suddenly it
failed to amuse him.
"Why did you want to see me?" she asked as she got in.
He stood motionless, wanting to tell her get out immediately. But she
had relaxed in the car and he knew the unfortunate situation was of his own
making-he shut his teeth and walked around to get in. The street lamp fell
full upon her face and it was difficult to believe that this was the girl of
last night. He saw no resemblance to Minna at all.
"I'll run you home," he said. "Where do you live?"
"Run me home?" She was startled. "There's no hurry-I'm sorry if I
offended you."
"No. It was nice of you to come. I've been stupid. Last night I had an
idea that you were an exact double for someone I knew. It was dark and the