The Star Stalker

  “What is missing?”

  Nicky stopped chewing and slapped his hand on the desk. “Comedy relief, that’s what! Whole damned thing’s like a funeral or something. I’m kinda surprised at you, Lozoff—an oldtimer in the game and everything. You ought to know you can’t feed the public a tearjerker like this without a comic in there someplace!”

  Salem smiled. “Tell them what we planned, Nicky.”

  “Sure. We got to thinking, and it’s a natural. I never read the book or nothing, but it seems to me like we could give this here Rasknikoff or whatever his name is—that’s another thing I wanted to mention, we’re gonna change his name to something people can pronounce—but anyways, we can give him a few scenes with his buddy. You know, one of these wise guys, maybe an Eddie Quillan type. Only with an accent, to show he’s Russian, see?”

  Nicky glanced at me. “You can work out some kind of a running gag, can’t you, Post? Maybe this guy is always hungry, moaning for borscht. Or he’s a vodka-hound, a real character. And—hey, here’s a twist—maybe he’s got a lot of stuff hocked with this old babe, this pawnbroker, and he thinks the cops are looking for him instead of the other guy. So whenever the inspector comes around, he quickly beats it and hides under the bed. Some gimmick like that, give the folks a chance to laugh once in a while, get me?”

  “I get you,” I said.

  “And another thing, while we’re on the subject,” Salem interposed. “Introducing dialogue brings out a new element. We might have shown the Russian background without comment in a silent film. But in a talkie, it’s not safe. I don’t want to see us open to criticism here. So when we write the lines, we’ll have to inject a subtle note. To show the barbarity of the Bolsheviks, the fallacy of the Communist doctrine.”

  “But this picture is not laid in present-day Russia,” Lozoff said. “There were no Communists at that time.”

  “Which reminds me.” Salem paced the floor. “One more point. We’re using sound. That’s modern. The whole trend today is to the present, to new things. Suppose we set this picture up in a frame—tell a story within a story, you might say. We can open with a modern sequence; perhaps an old man, an immigrant maybe, telling his grandchildren about the way it used to be in the old country.” He paused and raised a finger. “I’ve got it! Why not show Raskolnikov himself, thirty years after? He’s served his time in Siberia, married Sonia, come to America—to start a new life in a new world. And he has these children, or grandchildren. And he tells them the whole story, in a flashback. Then we close with a modern sequence again, where he tells them crime doesn’t pay and the American Way of Life is superior to anything the Czar or the Commies can ever offer. In other words, a happy ending.”

  “Swell!” Nicky grinned up at him. “That takes care of everything, wraps it all up. You hit it that time!”

  Salem squared his shoulders. He put his hand to his chest. “As I said, gentlemen, I don’t pretend to be in the same class with you creative geniuses. But experience has shown me one thing. When I feel it here”—the hand pressed the heart, then suddenly extended—“the box office feels it out there!”

  “So that’s the way we’re gonna do it,” Nicky said. “Yes sir!”

  Lozoff stood up. He seemed very short, standing next to Lester Salem. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in hearing my objections?” he asked.

  “Of course I would.” Salem put his hand on Lozoff’s shoulder. “Only right now, we must take time into consideration. We haven’t a moment to spare, we’re months behind on everything. I’d like to see a new script ready within a week. We’ll want to shoot the new scenes as quickly as possible.”

  “In other words, you’re going ahead with it just the way you told us? With the comedian and the modern sequences?”

  Salem nodded. “I think it’s best.”

  Lozoff took a deep breath, and it was queer to see a corpse breathing.

  “Then I wish you luck,” he said, tonelessly. “But I advise you to find another director, and another New York actor to dub in my voice. I am afraid I must bow out.”

  “See?” Nicky slapped the desk again. “I told you he’d get his bowels in an uproar!”

  Salem ignored young Morris. “I’m sorry you feel this way,” he told Lozoff. “But I quite understand. And if you don’t think you can go along with us 100%, then perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “Thank you,” Lozoff started for the door. Salem turned to me immediately. “Now, about the script changes and the dialogue we want from you—”

  I stood up. I didn’t feel like a corpse. I felt very much alive.

  “You know what you can do with your picture,” I said.

  Salem stared. “Look, Post, you’re a young man. You can’t afford to take this attitude. Mr. Lozoff here, with all due respect, has had his day. Maybe he can go back to Europe, take a job directing there. That’s his business. But your business is to play ball with us, for the sake of your future.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But my answer stands. I don’t care to think of my future as some sort of ballgame.”

  Lester Salem frowned. “You don’t like me, do you, Post?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. The important thing, first last and always, is the picture. That’s all I know about, all I’ve ever learned.”

  “Well, it’s time you so-called artists learned something else,” Salem declared. “Movies are an industry, and we on the executive end must remember that. Try to think of it from my angle, Post. I’m not in business for my health.”

  I nodded. “Why is it that your kind always makes that statement, says it as if it were something clever? Why aren’t you in business for your health, and everybody’s health? Must it always be profit—over health, self-respect, sanity?”

  Salem had stopped smiling, and for a moment his lips drew back. I noted that Lester Salem had very bad teeth. “Now see here, Post, you’re on salary—”

  “I was.” I moved over to join Lozoff at the door. “But I imagine you’ll correct that, after the first of the month.”

  I made a little bow. It was nowhere as good as one of Lozoff’s: a poor effort, but my own.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  Lozoff and I walked out into the slanting sunshine. The lot was swarming with people—no actors, but plenty of stagehands carting equipment; no extras, but a multiplicity of electricians. Everything looked strange.

  Arch Taylor waved his hand at us from the doorway of one of the new sound stages, and ambled over.

  “Well,” he began, “how’d it go? Everything straightened out all right? You come to an understanding?”

  “We did.” Kurt Lozoff smiled. “We understand one another perfectly now, Mr. Salem and I.”

  “He’s walking out,” I said.

  “Quitting?”

  “Or being fired.” I smiled. “Me too.”

  “Fight?”

  “No fight. Only Kurt won’t make the changes. And I won’t write a part for Skeets Gallagher or Ned Sparks into the script.”

  “But you can’t!” Taylor wasn’t smiling now. “Look, I don’t know how it is with Kurt, here. Maybe he’s saved his dough. But you haven’t got enough to quit on.”

  “I’ll get by. I’ve got some property out in Encino—”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I understand how you feel. Hell, when I see some of the stinkers they’ve got lined up for me to work on I could almost cry, if it wasn’t so funny. But I want to stay in this business—even if sound has turned into a racket. And Kurt was right when he said things won’t always be like this. They’ll learn. They’ll change.”

  “Not Salem,” I answered. “He’ll never change. Maybe some other studio—”

  “You won’t have a prayer at another studio,” Taylor told me. “You and Lozoff both. Salem will spread the word.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “That’s the way it’s got to be, then. Come on, Kurt.”

  “Wait!” Taylor called after us. “Where are you going?” br />
  I didn’t answer him.

  I didn’t answer him, because I didn’t know.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT was released the third week of July. Lozoff’s name stayed on it as director, but I didn’t get writing credit. I was just as glad, for the picture—with sound—was a resounding flop.

  Lozoff and I didn’t go to the premiere. As a matter of fact, we weren’t even invited. We caught it later, downtown, in a regular showing that August. The big house had been “wired for sound” and we sat there, uncomfortably aware of the dubbed-in voices. Salem had been at work, cutting down on Lozoff’s scenes, building up his “modern” introduction and closing sequences. A brash young comic named Flip Kelly was ever so funny as Raskolnikov’s (I beg your pardon, Ivan’s) pal, and it was he who discovered the murdered pawnbroker and her sister and did a comedy pratfall down three flights of stairs. But the crowning touch, to me, lay in the prelude and epilogue, as the aged hero told his story to his grandchildren. The part of the oldest grandson was played by Buddie LaBuddie.

  Afterwards, Lozoff and I took a walk. We ended up on a bench in Pershing Square.

  “Pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

  Lozoff said nothing.

  “Guess this is where we end up. On a park bench, with the rest of the bums.”

  Lozoff didn’t answer.

  “They sure cut the hell out of it. Wouldn’t know it was the same picture.”

  Lozoff was silent.

  “Why, they could still run your original print as an entirely new production.”

  Lozoff kept still.

  “Oh, what’s the use? We did our best and it wasn’t enough. Taylor was right—all we got was the gate. I’ve been trying to get in all over, and nobody wants me. Might as well face it. We’re through.”

  “No we’re not.” Lozoff raised his head and his jaw tightened. “What you said about the original print makes sense, Tommy. It gives me an idea.”

  He faced me, suddenly alert. “Why can’t I go to Morris and tell him what to do? He can release our original film for showing in all the theaters that aren’t equipped for sound yet. He can play it abroad, in the European market. Salem can’t object to that—as he would say, it’s good business.”

  “You think Morris will listen to you?”

  “We’re still good friends, I trust, even though I’m no longer with the Studio. Why not? It’s worth trying. I have faith in what we’ve done, Tommy. And once this picture is shown, you’ll see.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’ll make an appointment with him tomorrow.”

  So I went back to my apartment and waited. Three days passed before Lozoff phoned.

  “Well?” I asked. “How’d you make out?”

  “I didn’t. At first he said it was a good idea. But he would have to think it over.”

  “That means he had to talk to Salem, first. And Salem queered it.”

  “Evidently.”

  “What did Morris say when you saw him again?”

  Lozoff paused. Then, “I never got to see him again. He was too busy, they said. But Betty had a message for me, out in front. Mr. Morris was sorry, but he had decided against releasing the film as I suggested. That was all.”

  “Why, that dirty—”

  “Please, do not upset yourself on my account. I’ll be all right. It’s you I am thinking about. We’ll have to get together some day soon and see what we can plan.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s do that. But don’t worry. I’m in good shape.”

  I hung up. Then I got to wondering just what kind of shape I really was in. Time to take inventory. New car, good for at least three or four years. Good wardrobe. Some furniture—nothing fancy, but adequate. An excellent library and a good Victrola. The addresses of a reliable bootlegger and a reputable call-house. A couple of lots out in Encino. Plus—let’s see now—$17,000 in the bank.

  I began to think about my next move. The world was full of jobs, but I wasn’t qualified for anything outside of movie work. Even if I was, I needed contacts. And I had no contracts, except for motion pictures. The only acquaintances I’d made were movie people.

  Now I remembered what Dawn had told me. About the real world, the world of a hundred and twenty million people. The world I’d never bothered to find out about, because it wasn’t important to me. She saw it, she had broken away and found a place in that world. She had been right, was right, all the time.

  I couldn’t go to her now, but what she said came to me. She was helping me now, telling me that I’d be a fool to dramatize myself, indulge in self-pity. I had those lots, and the money. I’d find something to do. And I could start immediately.

  There was the stock market. Wall Street was going great, in August, 1929. Plenty of easy money to be made for the asking. Seventeen grand, buying on margin, would go a long way—

  No. Not for me. Wall Street was too far off. I needed something I could watch, something close at hand. Like those lots in Encino.

  Well, real estate, then. I could buy on mortgage. Worth looking into, at any rate, and I had nothing else to do.

  I started nosing around. In the end, it wasn’t a question of mortgages. I put $10,000 into six more lots. Corner properties, intersections, improved.

  I still had enough capital left to build, if I wanted to. That was another idea to toy with—how about putting up a house, maybe a small building of some kind on one of the double lots? Perhaps I could go into business.

  Six months ago I would have told myself it was crazy. Now, in September, I was sitting up nights reading the Business For Sale columns, running down leads, actually working at it. And (I told myself) I loved it. Hadn’t felt better in two years. The addresses of the reliable bootlegger and the reputable call-house rested untouched in the drawer. And I hadn’t heard from anyone in the movie colony for almost a month.

  I was out most of the time, anyway, running down leads. One day in mid-September I drove over to Pasadena to look at a filling station that was up for sale in a residential section. I had a little trouble finding it, and I wasn’t exactly eager to go into the gas business, but I worked on the theory that it paid to look around. Never know what you might run into.

  I parked across the street from it and examined the corner before getting out, checking traffic flow. Then I glanced down the block. I eyed the neat array of white bungalows and green lawns—prosaic pearls in an emerald setting. A few houses down, a woman was hanging up the wash in the side yard. I watched the breeze whip the clothing high, saw the woman pause and run her hand across her forehead, just the way that—

  You never know what you might run into.

  I got out of the car, crossed the street, walked into the yard.

  “Thursday,” I said. “Don’t you know Monday is supposed to be the day for washing?”

  She looked up.

  “Tom!”

  “Hello, Dawn.”

  “What in the world—”

  “Just passing by,” I said. “Looking at Nelson’s filling station, down the block. You know him?”

  She nodded. “Ken does.”

  “Ken?”

  “My husband.”

  “Oh.” I smiled. “Hard for me to think of you as an old married lady.”

  “Do I look different?”

  “Well, not really. Put on a few pounds, I’d say, but it went to the right places. Of course, I’ve never seen you in a housedress before.”

  “You’re not likely to see me in anything else, these days. But come on inside, sit down.”

  “What about the wash?”

  “I’m finished, can’t you see? You’re not the domestic type at all.”

  I didn’t answer her. We walked up the back steps, into the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind the mess. It’s always like this. I hate to do the dishes on washday. Let’s go into the parlor.”

  The parlor was small. Brown rag, a three-piece suite, some floor lamps, a table with a radio and
loud-speaker. There was a gas log in the fireplace, and over the mantel was one of those Spanish galleons.

  “Ken made this,” she told me, noticing my stare. “It’s a hobby of his—building model ships.”

  I said nothing.

  “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  “I’ve got to be running along in a minute,” I said. “Just wanted to say hello.”

  “Couldn’t you stay for dinner? I know Ken would love to meet you.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Tom, is everything all right? I hear you’re not with the Studio any more.”

  “Everything’s fine.” I hesitated. “I’ve got something else on the fire now.”

  “Pictures?”

  “I can’t talk about it yet. But don’t worry, I’m doing okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Things are fine with me, too.”

  “Are they?” I shook my head.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” I said. “I don’t understand this. You, in a housedress, hanging up underwear. Dishes in the sink. Sitting here listening to the radio night after night, while he’s futzing around with a tweezers, making model ships.”

  Dawn giggled. Then, all at once, she wasn’t giggling any more.

  “I wish you could,” she said. “I wish you could understand. This is it. This is what I want.”

  “Oh no it’s not,” I murmured.

  She nodded. “It’s something real. Can’t you see that?”

  “Real? What the hell’s the difference between building ship models and creating a motion picture? Who’s going to get excited about it when he finishes one of these jobs—the neighbors who come in for a bridge game once a week?”

  I stood up and put my hands on her shoulders. “This isn’t right for you, Dawn,” I said. My hands tightened, I could feel the flesh, the familiar flesh beneath the dress. “My God, you don’t know what it’s been like for me, two years now, and every moment of it—”