Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (153 page)

“Here?” asked Mike.

“Here.”

“There isn’t much room. I wanted to ask you about -”

“There’s lots of room.”

“Well,” he looked around tentatively. “You shoot the gun.”

Miss Doolan’s assistant, Katie, took a paper bag, blew it open.

“It was a routine,” Mike said to Boxley “- back in the Keystone days.” He turned to Stahr. “Does he know what a routine is?”

“It means an act,” Stahr explained. “Georgie Jessel talks about ‘Lincoln’s Gettysburg routine.’”

Katie poised the neck of the blown up bag in her mouth. Mike stood with his back to her.

“Ready?” Katie asked. She brought her hand down on the side. Immediately Mike grabbed his bottom with both hands, jumped in the air, slid his feet out on the floor one after the other, remaining in place and flapping his arms twice like a bird -

“Double wing,” said Stahr.

 — And then ran-out the screen door which the office boy held open for him and disappeared past the window of the balcony.

“Mr. Stahr,” said Miss Doolan, “Mr. Hanson is on the phone from New York.”

Ten minutes later he clicked his Dictograph and Miss Doolan came in. There was a male star waiting to see him in the outer office Miss Doolan said.

“Tell him I went out by the balcony,” Stahr advised her.

“All right. He’s been in four times this week. He seems very anxious.”

“Did he give you any hint of what he wanted? Isn’t it something he can see Mr. Brady about?”

“He didn’t say. You have a conference coming up. Miss Meloney and Mr. White are outside. Mr. Broaca is next door in Mr. Rienmund’s office.”

“Send -- in,” said Stahr. “Tell him I can see him only for a minute.”

When the handsome actor came in Stahr remained standing.

“What is it that can’t wait?” he asked pleasantly.

The actor waited carefully till Miss Doolan had gone out.

“Monroe, I’m through,” he said. “I had to see you.”

“Through!” said Stahr. “Have you seen ‘Variety’? Your picture’s held over at Roxy’s and did thirty-seven thousand in Chicago last week.”

“That’s the worst of it. That’s the tragedy. I get everything I want and now it means nothing.”

“Well, go on explain.”

“There’s nothing between Esther and me anymore. There never can be again.”

“A row.”

“Oh, no — worse — I can’t bear to mention it. My head’s in a daze. I wander around like a madman. I go through my part as if I was asleep.”

“I haven’t noticed it,” said Stahr. “You were great in your rushes yesterday.”

“Was I? That just shows you nobody ever guesses.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you and Esther are separating?”

“I suppose it’ll come to that. Yes — inevitably — it will.”

“What was it?” demanded Stahr impatiently. “Did she come in without knocking?”

“Oh, there’s nobody else. It’s just — me. I’m through.”

Stahr got it suddenly.

“How do you know?”

“It’s been true for six weeks.”

“It’s your imagination,” said Stahr. “Have you been to a doctor?”

The actor nodded.

“I’ve tried everything. I even — one day in desperation I went down to — to Claris. But it was hopeless. I’m washed up.”

Stahr had an impish temptation to tell him to go to Brady about it. Brady handled all matters of public relations. Or was this private relations. He turned away a moment, got his face in control, turned back.

“I’ve been to Pat Brady,” said the star, as if guessing the thought. “He gave me a lot of phoney advice and I tried it all but nothing doing. Esther and I sit opposite each other at dinner and I’m ashamed to look at her. She’s been a good sport about it but I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed all day long. I think ‘Rainy Day’ grossed 25,000 in Des Moines and broke all records in St. Louis and did 27,000 in Kansas City. My fan mail’s way up and there I am afraid to go home at night, afraid to go to bed.”

Stahr began to be faintly oppressed. When the actor first came in Stahr had intended to invite him to a cocktail party but now it scarcely seemed appropriate. What would he want with a cocktail party with this hanging over him. In his mind’s eye he saw him wandering haunted from guest to guest with a cocktail in his hand and his grosses up 28, 000.

“So I came to you, Monroe. I never saw a situation where you didn’t know a way out. I said to myself even if he advises me to kill myself I’ll ask Monroe.”

The buzzer sounded on Stahr’s desk — he switched on the Dictograph and heard Miss Doolan’s voice.

“Five minutes, Mr. Stahr.”

“I’m sorry,” said Stahr, “I’ll need a few minutes more.”

“Five hundred girls marched to my house from the high school,” the actor said gloomily. “And I stood behind the curtains and watched them. I couldn’t go out.”

“You sit down,” said Stahr. “We’ll take plenty of time and talk this over.”

In the outer office two members of the conference group had already waited ten minutes — Wylie White and Rose Meloney. The latter was a dried up little blonde of fifty about whom one could hear the fifty assorted opinions of Hollywood — “a sentimental dope,” “the best writer on construction in Hollywood,” “a veteran,” “that old hack,” “the smartest woman on the lot,” “the cleverest plagiarist in the biz,” and of course in addition a nymphomaniac, a virgin, a pushover, a lesbian and a faithful wife. Without being an old maid she was like most self-made women rather old maidish. She had ulcers of the stomach and her salary was over a hundred thousand a year. A complicated treatise could be written on whether she was “worth it” or more than that or nothing at all. Her value lay in such ordinary assets as the bare fact that she was a woman and adaptable, quick and trustworthy, “knew the game” and was without egotism. She had been a great friend of Minna’s and over a period of years he had managed to stifle what amounted to a sharp physical revulsion.

She and Wylie waited in silence — occasionally addressing a remark to Miss Doolan. Every few minutes Rienmund the supervisor called up from his office where he and Broaca the director were waiting. After ten minutes Stahr’s button went on and Miss Doolan called Rienmund and Broaca; simultaneously Stahr and the actor came out of Stahr’s office with Stahr holding the man’s arm. He was so wound up now that when Wylie White asked him how he was he opened his mouth and began to tell him then and there.

“Oh, I’ve had an awful time,” he said but Stahr interrupted sharply.

“No you haven’t. Now you go along and do the role the way I said.”

“Thank you, Monroe.”

Rose Meloney looked after him without speaking.

“Somebody been catching flies on him?” she asked, a phrase for stealing scenes.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” Stahr said. “Come on in.”

Episode 9

It was noon already and the conferees were entitled to exactly an hour of Stahr’s time. No less, for such a conference could only be interrupted by a director who was held up in his shooting; seldom much more because every eight days the company must release a production as complex and costly as Reinhardt’s “Miracle.”

Occasionally, less often than five years ago, Stahr would work all through the night on a single picture. But after such a spree he felt bad for days. If he could go from problem to problem there was a certain rebirth of vitality with each change. And like those sleepers who can wake whenever they wish, he had set his psychological clock to run one hour.

The cast assembled included besides the writers Rienmund, one of the most favored of the supervisors, and John Broaca, the picture’s director.

Broaca, on the surface, was an engineer — large and without nerves, quietly resolute, popular. He was an ignoramus and Stahr often caught him making the same scenes over and over — one scene about a rich young girl occurred in all his pictures with the same action, the same business. A bunch of large dogs. entered the room and jumped around the girl. Later the girl went to a stable and slapped a horse on the rump. The explanation was probably not Freudian; more likely that at a drab moment in youth he had looked through a fence and seen a beautiful girl with dogs and horses. As a trademark for glamor it was stamped on his brain forever.

Rienmund was a handsome young opportunist, with a fairly good education. Originally a man of some character he was being daily forced by his anomalous position into devious ways of acting and thinking. He was a bad man now, as men go. At thirty he had none of the virtues which either native Americans or Jews are taught to think admirable. But he got his pictures out in time and by manifesting an almost homosexual fixation on Stahr, seemed to have dulled Stahr’s usual acuteness. Stahr liked him — considered him a good all around man.

Wylie White, of course, would have been recognizable in any country as an intellectual of the second order. He was civilized and voluble, both simple and acute, half dazed half saturnine. His jealousy of Stahr showed only in unguarded flashes, and was mingled with admiration and even affection.

“The production date for this picture is two weeks from Saturday,” said Stahr. “I think basically it’s all right — much improved.”

Rienmund and the two writers exchanged a glance of congratulation.

“Except for one thing,” said Stahr, thoughtfully. “I don’t see why it should be produced at all and I’ve decided to put it away.”

There was a moment of shocked silence — and then murmurs of protest, stricken queries.

“It’s not your fault,” Stahr said. “I thought there was something there that wasn’t there — that was all.” He hesitated, looking regretfully at Rienmund. “It’s too bad — it was a good play. We paid fifty thousand for it.”

“What’s the matter with it, Monroe?” asked Broaca bluntly.

“Well, it hardly seems worth while to go into it,” said Stahr.

Rienmund and Wylie White were both thinking of the professional effect on them. Rienmund had two pictures to his account this year — but Wylie White needed a credit to start his comeback to the scene. Rose Meloney was watching Stahr closely from little skull-like eyes.

“Couldn’t you give us some clue?” Rienmund asked. “This is a good deal of a blow, Monroe.”

“I just wouldn’t put Margaret Sullavan in it,” said Stahr. “Or Colman either. I wouldn’t advise them to play it -”

“Specifically, Monroe,” begged Wylie White. “What didn’t you like? The scenes? the dialogue? the humor? construction?”

Stahr picked up the script from his desk, let it fall as if it were physically too heavy to handle.

“I don’t like the people,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to meet them — if I knew they were going to be somewhere I’d go somewhere else.”

Rienmund smiled but there was worry in his eyes.

“Well, that’s a damning criticism,” he said. “I thought the people were rather interesting.”

“So did I,” said Broaca. “I thought Em was very sympathetic.”

“Did you?” asked Stahr sharply. “I could just barely believe she was alive. And when I came to the end I said to myself ‘So what?’”

“There must be something to do,” Rienmund said. “Naturally we feel bad about this. This is the structure we agreed on -”

“But it’s not the story,” said Stahr. “I’ve told you many times that the first thing I decide is the kind of story I want. We change in every other regard but once that is set we’ve got to work toward it with every line and movement. This is not the kind of a story I want. The story we bought had shine and glow — it was a happy story. This is all full of doubt and hesitation. The hero and heroine stop loving each other over trifles — then they start up again over trifles. After the first sequence you don’t care if she never sees him again or he her.”

“That’s my fault,” said Wylie suddenly. “You see, Monroe, I don’t think stenographers have the same dumb admiration for their bosses they had in 1929. They’ve been laid off — they’ve seen their bosses jittery. The world has moved on, that’s all.”

Stahr looked at him impatiently, gave a short nod.

“That’s not under discussion,” he said. “The premise of this story is that the girl did have dumb admiration for her boss if you want to call it that. And there wasn’t any evidence that he’d ever been jittery. When you make her doubt him in any way you have a different kind of story. Or rather you haven’t anything at all. These people are extraverts — get that straight — and I want them to extravert all over the lot. When I want to do a Eugene O’Neill play I’ll buy one.”

Rose Meloney who had never taken her eyes off Stahr knew it was going to be all right now. If he had really been going to abandon the picture he wouldn’t have gone at it like this. She had been in this game longer than any of them except Broaca with whom she had had a three day affair twenty years ago.

Stahr turned to Rienmund.

“You ought to have understood from the casting, Rieny, what kind of a picture I wanted. I started marking the lines that Carroll and MacMurray couldn’t say and got tired of it. Remember this in future — if I order a limousine I want that kind of car. And the fastest midget racer you ever saw wouldn’t do. Now -” He looked around. “Shall we go any farther? Now that I’ve told you I don’t even like the kind of picture this is? Shall we go on? We’ve got two weeks. At the end of that time I’m going to put Carroll and MacMurray into this or something else — is it worth while?”

“Well naturally,” said Rienmund, “I think it is. I feel bad about this. I should have warned Wylie. I thought he had some good ideas.”

“Monroe’s right,” said Broaca bluntly. “I felt this was wrong all the time but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Wylie and Rose looked at him contemptuously and exchanged a glance.

“Do you writers think you can get hot on it again?” asked Stahr, not unkindly. “Or shall I try somebody fresh?”

“I’d like another shot,” said Wylie.

“How about you, Rose?”

She nodded briefly.

“What do you think of the girl?” asked Stahr.

“Well — naturally I’m prejudiced in her favor.”

“You better forget it,” said Stahr warningly. “Ten million Americans would put thumbs down on that girl if she walked on the screen. We’ve got an hour and twenty-five minutes on the screen — you show a woman being unfaithful to a man for one-third of that time and you’ve given the impression that she’s one-third whore.”