The Paper Dragon (35 page)

"Why was he the logical choice?"

"I like to avoid the obvious in my films. It would have been obvious to present Colman as a sneering sort of person, the way he is in the book — though you can get away with that in a book because there are also interior monologues and thought passages revealing various aspects of a character; however, you can't do that in a film. And rather than present Colman as a stereotyped villain, I thought it would add to his menace if he seemed to have a scholarly look about him, a rather meek look. In other words, if he wore eyeglasses. Which is not unusual, anyway. Many men in the Army, even in combat, wear eyeglasses."

"Now do you remember a scene in your film where you have a group of soldiers drinking coffee together?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"This scene is not in the novel, is it?"

"No, sir, I don't believe it is."

"Why did you put it in your film?"

"For a very good reason. It is in this scene that I have Private Colman suggest they murder the lieutenant. Now, if you'll remember this same sequence in the novel — and this is what I was trying to illustrate earlier about intellectual as opposed to emotional response — Colman's decision to murder the lieutenant takes place entirely in his mind. Mr. Driscoll handled this static scene very well, to be sure, but the appeal was intellectual, and I was searching for an emotional approach to put across this very important plot point. All right, I decided to have these men doing something very commonplace, something almost homey, very cozy, you know. All of them sipping steaming coffee — the way we shot it, you could see the vapor rising from the cups — a break in the battle and these grizzled combat veterans have their hands wrapped around these steaming coffee cups, not even discussing the lieutenant, just enjoying the coffee, and bam! out of the blue, Private Colman says, 'Let's kill him.' Now that's an emotional shock, for the audience to hear those words, and the shock is heightened by the very mundane act in which the men are engaged, the drinking of coffee. That's why I put that scene in my film. I took something that was introspective and static, with all due respect to the excellent writing in that particular passage, and created instead an image that would shock and startle."

"You also put a bayonet charge in your movie, and this was not in the novel either."

"Correct."

"Can you explain why you did this?"

"Yes. To foreshadow the death of Lieutenant Cooper."

"But he isn't killed by bayonet, is he?" -

"Correct."

"He is not?"

"No, sir, he is not. The lieutenant is killed by Chinese guns. I chose to foreshadow this by showing a vicious, almost bestial bayonet charge by our own soldiers, Americans. Also, I use the bayonet charge as a visual symbol. These men have been knifing the lieutenant in the back all through the movie, and now we see a visual representation of how cruel men can be to each other, bayonets being plunged, men dying just as the lieutenant later dies when he sacrifices himself to save Morley."

"Now, there's also in the movie you made a scene depicting an enemy soldier shot at and falling out of a tree. Can you tell us the origin of this?"

"I don't know the origin."

"It was not in the book, was it?"

"Not to my recollection."

"Do you remember how you came to put it into your screenplay?"

"It was a vignette, part of a montage of scenes showing the horrors of war. Certainly a man being shot at and falling from a high place is almost a cinema cliché. I have seen it before in many movies, both war pictures and Westerns, too. I don't claim to have originated that particular image, though I must say we used an extraordinary camera angle on it, pointing directly up at the tree, and when the soldier is shot, he falls directly toward the camera, getting bigger and bigger until he fills the entire screen. That was a really fine piece of camera work, and I credit my cameraman Andy Burstadter for it."

"In this same montage of scenes, you show an American soldier bursting into tears when his buddy is killed. This, too, is not in the novel, and I wonder if you can tell me where it originated."

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "in a case without a jury, I would as a matter of course refrain from objecting to a question containing a description, such as the one Mr. Genitori just put to the witness. But I think you will agree that the witness was being led, and that this was a blatant violation of the rules of evidence."

"Sustained. Please rephrase it, Mr. Genitori."

"Is there a scene in your film where an American soldier bursts into tears?"

"There is."

"What was the basis of this scene? Where did it originate, can you tell us?"

"Yes, I can. It originated, the idea for it came from a book of photographs called
The Family of Man
. Since motion pictures are really a series of still photographs arranged in sequence, I will very often leaf through books of photographs, and this happened to be an extremely fine collection. I believe the actual photos had hung in exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York, and this was an artful presentation of most, if not all, of them. The idea for that particular scene came to me in one of the photographs. I don't remember who the photographer was, a war photographer for
Life
, I believe, and it showed two soldiers, and one of them is comforting his buddy who is crying. That's the origin of that particular vignette."

"What about the nurse putting on her lipstick?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have a scene, not part of this montage, but an actual scene in the film, where the nurse is putting on lipstick and she uses the back of a mess kit as a mirror. This was not in the novel, but there is a similar scene, or at least a stage direction to that effect, in Mr. Constantine's play. Now where did you get the idea for this scene?"

"It happened during the shooting."

"Of the film?"

"Yes. The screenplay called for the girl to put on her lipstick, and when she began to do so — with the camera rolling — she discovered that the prop man hadn't put a mirror in her bag. So she picked up a mess kit that was on the table, and she turned it over and discovered it was shiny, and she used that. She was a very inventive actress, Miss Shirley Tucker, and she sensed the scene was going very well, this was the first take, and rather than risking another take where we might not get the same dramatic qualities, she ad-libbed with the mess kit, and we left it in."

"You left it in the completed film?"

"Yes, sir."

"But it was
not
in the screenplay?"

"No, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Knowles."

"Is that it?" Brackman asked, surprised.

"I'm finished, Mr. Brackman," Genitori answered.

Brackman nodded, consulted his notes, and then walked toward the witness chair. Ralph watched him as he approached. If anything, he was even less impressive than Genitori, a short, unattractive man whose clothes looked rumpled, whose hair stood up ridiculously at the back of his head, whose tie was the wrong color for his suit.

"Mr. Knowles," Brackman said suddenly, "would you say that a screenplay is similar to a stage play?"

"No, sir."

"They both deal with the spoken word, do they not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And with a visual arrangement of scenes?"

"Yes, sir."

"With actors portraying parts created for them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you would agree that there is at least
some
similarity between a screenplay and a stage play? At least the similarities we have just enumerated?"

"Yes, but they are really very different. I've adapted several Broadway plays to the screen, and it's an enormously difficult job. If they were as similar as you seem to think they are, the job wouldn't have been nearly so difficult."

"You have adapted plays to the screen?"

"Yes."

"Stage plays?"

"Yes."

"In addition to adapting novels?"

"Yes. I've also adapted short stories and television plays. If the material is good, it doesn't matter what form it's originally written in. It must all be translated to the screen, anyway."

"So I understand. But before you begin these screen translations, do you always engage in additional research?"

"I do."

"As you did with
The Paper Dragon
?"

"As I do with every project."

"We're concerned here with
The Paper Dragon
."

"My career did not suddenly begin with
The Paper Dragon
, you know. I had written and directed a great many successful movies before that one."

"And for each of these you engaged in thorough research?"

"Correct."

"Such as visiting Army bases?"

"For
The Paper Dragon
, yes."

"You said you went to Fort Bragg, and Fort Benning, and Fort Dix."

"Yes."

"Did you visit any Army bases in Korea?"

"No, sir."

"Even though the novel was set in Korea?"

"Correct."

"Why did you go to these bases in the United States?"

"To catch up on the language of the men, the slang, their conversation, little things they might be doing, little things that caught my eye and remained in my memory during the shooting of the film."

"At any of these Army bases, Mr. Knowles, did you witness a man being shot out of a tree?"

"No, sir."

"Did you witness an American soldier crying because his buddy had been killed?"

"No, sir."

"Did you see a nurse using a mess kit as a mirror?"

"No, sir."

"You certainly didn't see a bayonet charge?"

"No, sir."

"Or a man killed by a bayonet?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Knowles, you said you were a fighter pilot during World War II."

"Yes, sir."

"What kind of plane did you fly?"

"I flew most of the aircraft in use during World War II, sir. Fighter planes, that is."

"Like what?"

"I flew the P-51 Mustang, and the P-38 Lightning and P-39 Airacobra. On one occasion, I even flew a Navy fighter plane, the Hellcat, sir, the F6F."

"You had very little opportunity then, while you were flying, I mean, to witness ground troops in action."

"I witnessed them from the air."

"But never on the ground. You were never on the ground during combat?"

"I flew forty-three cambat missions, sir."

"On any of these combat missions, did you ever witness a man being shot out of a tree?"

"No, sir."

"Did you ever witness a bayonet charge?"

"No, sir."

"Then these 'little things that caught your eye and remained in your memory' — I think I'm quoting accurately — were things you saw neither during your time in the Air Corps nor during your subsequent visits to Army bases in the United States. They must have come from somewhere else, isn't that so, Mr. Knowles?"

"I've already told the Court where they came from."

"What does a story editor do, Mr. Knowles?"

"At a motion picture studio, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure I know."

"Well, there must be story editors at API."

"Yes."

"Do you know what they do?"

"I think they look over material that's published or produced and then make recommendations to the front office."

"What sort of recommendations?"

"As to whether the material should be considered for purchase."

"Do you think
The Paper Dragon
was seen by story editors?"

"The novel? I would guess so."

"Story editors employed by API, I mean."

"I'm not too sure of their function, so I can't say whether this would be a routine thing or not. I simply can't answer that question."

"Do you know a man named Joseph Edelson?"

"He's dead."

"Did you know him when he was alive?"

"Yes, I did. He was the head of API's story department."

"Did he work in any capacity on
The Paper Dragon
?"

"No, he did not. I wrote the screenplay without any assistance, and I directed—"

"I want to know if he worked in
any
capacity on the film."

"Not to my knowledge."

"Do you know Miss Iris Blake?"

"Not personally."

"Have you ever heard of her?"

"Yes. She's in API's story department too."

"Did she work in any capacity on The Paper Dragon?"

"No, sir."

"You said you began working at API in — what was it?"

"In August of 1954."

"Were Joseph Edelson and Iris Blake working there at the time?"

"Joe was because that's when I met him. I don't know Miss Blake, so I couldn't tell you about her."

"Had you ever been to the studio before August of 1954?"

"Yes, I had been there for consultations on a property of mine — the radio play — which they were turning into a movie."

"Were you ever at the studio before April of 1954?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"Did you ever meet Mr. Constantine on any of your visits to the studio?"

"Never."

"He was working for API until April of 1954. Is it conceivable that you may have met him and perhaps forgotten…"

"I remember everyone I've ever met in my life," Ralph said flatly.

"But you
did
know two of the people to whom Mr. Constantine showed his play in the time he was working for the studio."

"Which two people would they be?" Ralph asked.

"Mr. Edelson and Miss Blake."

"I knew Mr. Edelson. I have never met Miss Blake, though I understand she is a charming and a beautiful woman."

"And you insist they had nothing to do with the filming of
The Paper Dragon
?"

"That's correct."

"Do you know Mr. Andrew B. Langford?"

"I do not."

"He is the secretary of Artists-Producers-International."

"I can't be expected to know every secretary at—"

"You misunderstand me, Mr. Knowles. He is
the
secretary of API."

"Whatever he is, I don't know him."

"You've never met?"