“I'm so glad, Miss MacKenzie,” she said, rising to greet Allison. “My name is Gloria Muir and I'm Mr. Tishman's secretary.”
“How do you do?” said Allison.
Miss Muir had an English accent, thought Allison, that would have made Laurence Olivier proud of her.
“And how are you, Mr. Holmes?” asked Miss Muir. “It's nice to see you again.”
“It's wonderful to be in California again,” said Brad.
You liar, thought Allison.
“Mr. Tishman is expecting you,” said Miss Muir. “Please come with me.”
Mr. Tishman was tall and heavy and looked rather like a young Sidney Greenstreet. He wore dark trousers and one of the most brazen sport shirts Allison had ever seen.
“Brad!” he exclaimed, coming around the vast desk in front of him. “How nice to see you again. It's been much too long.”
The two men shook hands and before Brad could introduce Allison, Tishman turned to her.
“And this is the little lady who has caused all the commotion,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. “Miss MacKenzie, I can't tell you what an honor this is.”
“How do you do, Mr. Tishman. It's very nice to be here,” said Allison, feeling a little as if she were at the Mad Hatter's tea party.
Mr. Tishman took her arm. “And this is Conrad Blanding, our director,” he said, “and Joel Parkingson, our script writer.”
Conrad Blanding wore dark-rimmed glasses and smiled with all his teeth, but Joel Parkingson did not smile at all. He bowed stiffly and sat down, his eyes fixed broodingly on the sheaf of yellow paper in his hand.
“Would you like a drink?” asked Arthur Tishman. “Coffee?”
“Coffee, please,” said Allison and sat down on a leather-upholstered chair.
The walls of Mr. Tishman's office were paneled in walnut and across one wall there was a colorful poster in a frame.
“It's one of Lautrec's best, don't you think, Miss MacKenzie?” asked Mr. Blanding.
Allison started. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Yes, indeed.”
In a few minutes, Miss Muir came in carrying a silver tray on which rested a complete silver service.
“Shall I pour?” she asked.
“Yes, if you please, Miss Muir,” said Mr. Tishman.
A quiet little ceremony followed during which all the men stood silently while Miss Muir filled their cups from the silver pot.
“Now, then, Miss MacKenzie,” said Mr. Tishman, leaning back comfortably in his chair. “By the way, may I call you Allison?”
“Please do,” Allison replied.
“Good. Puts things on a friendly, warm basis. I'm Arthur, and,” he waved a vague hand in the direction of the writer and director, “they're Joel and Conrad. Well, Allison, we've all been very busy on your book and already have a script of sorts.”
Allison glanced at Joel Parkingson, but the writer did not look up. He just sat and looked sadder than ever.
“I'd like to see the script,” said Allison.
“Certainly,” said Arthur Tishman. “We want you to take a copy along with you when you leave. Read it tonight and tomorrow we'll get together again and discuss things. But please don't think that what we have now is what I call a good, working script. It isn't. Joel here has just been putting down ideas. We've got a long way to go yet, but I do think, and Conrad agrees, that Joel has given us a good base to start working on. Our final script will follow the same lines as the one we have now, but I'm sure that, as a writer yourself, you understand the long, slow process of finishing and polishing.”
At first, Arthur Tishman gave the impression of a man who is accustomed to command, and Allison was a little frightened of him. But she soon realized that her presence, meeting her, had made him nervous. As a result, he did not converse but made speeches; it was as if he had it all written down, and then read the lines badly, like an amateur actor.
Allison was familiar with the Tishman legend. He had come up the hard way; everything he had he had made himself. She felt a feeling of kinship with him.
“Now, that's enough business for today,” said Arthur Tishman. “We have a busy week plotted for you, my dear. Later today, you have a meeting with Harold Jenks, our publicity man. The papers have been on his neck ever since they heard you were coming. Then, tomorrow morning, we've made a date for you with one of our best photographers, and tomorrow afternoon we want you to go on a tour of the studio. Sort of to get the feeling of the way we work here. Then tomorrow night, there is to be a dinner party for you at my home. Everyone connected with the picture will be there, and a lot of other important people, too. We're all looking forward to it.”
“But I had planned—” began Allison.
Brad stood up. “Wonderful, Arthur,” he said. “As usual, you've done everything that has to be done very efficiently.”
“It's the way we have to work,” Arthur said. “Efficiency prevents ulcers. That's my own secret success formula, which I reveal to everyone.”
Allison was back in the car sitting next to Brad before it occurred to her that neither Conrad Blanding nor Joel Parkingson had spoken one word to her, once the producer had begun to speak about the script.
“There,” said Brad, as the car pulled away. “Painless, wasn't it?”
“Yes,” agreed Allison, “but we didn't accomplish much.”
“Wait,” said Brad. “You'll have plenty to do when things get rolling.”
The car stopped in front of a stone building that looked like a post office in a medium-sized city. Brad helped Allison out and led the way to Harold Jenks's office.
Harold Jenks was short and potbellied with dark curly hair and a beaked nose that would have gladdened the heart of a Nazi cartoonist. “Howarya?” he asked, not rising from behind his desk as Brad introduced Allison.
“Fine, thank you,” said Allison.
“Sit down, sit down,” said Jenks, indicating a chair. “Just get in?”
“No,” said Allison. “We arrived last night.”
“Met Tishman?”
“Yes. Earlier this afternoon. Before we came here.”
“You're cute,” said Jenks. “Clean-cut and all that. Should be able to do something with that.” He looked Allison over thoroughly, then he pressed a key on the box that sat on his desk. “Send Joe Borden in here,” he said. A man came into the room, but Jenks did not introduce him to Allison. He merely waved in her direction. “Allison MacKenzie,” he said, as if she were merchandise on a store counter. “Writes books. We've got to get something ready for the papers. Take her out and show her around a little. Get a line on her and give me something before she leaves.”
Allison felt now, not only like merchandise on a counter, but merchandise that had been rejected by a prospective customer.
“Better get a few pictures,” said Jenks, glancing at his watch. “Can't have the papers doing it on their own. Go over to Photography with her now.”
“But Mr. Tishman said that I'm supposed to do that tomorrow morning,” said Allison. “I can't be photographed today. My hair's a mess and I'm all wrinkled and my gloves are soiled.”
Jenks laughed. “We've got people who get paid to worry about details like that,” he said. “Go on. Go with Borden. He'll take care of everything.”
“But I don't like to have my picture taken,” said Allison. “It's bad enough in the morning, but—”
Jenks put his hands, palms down, on his desk with a gesture of infinite patience.
“Look,” he said, “sitting in the same chair you're sitting in now I've had all the big names in the business. Monroe, Turner, Hay worth. All of ’em. I know what I'm doing. Just don't give me a hard time and I'll do a good job for you.”
And he will too, Allison thought, finally impressed with his professionalism. He was the kind of man, met all too rarely, who knew his job, every part of it, better than anyone else. Like Tishman, Jenks was quite clearly not a man who held his job because he was somebody's brother-in-law. In Holl
ywood, the day of the brother-inlaw ended with the birth of television. They're probably all working at the TV studios now, Allison thought.
Allison was combed, made up and photographed. Then she was recombed and rephotographed. The photographer looked at her as if she were something under a microscope and mumbled things to himself, and by the time it was over Allison was almost in tears.
“I wish I'd never come!” she cried as the car drove back toward the hotel. “David was right.”
“There, there,” Brad consoled. “You're just tired, Allison. You'll feel better after a drink and a good dinner.”
At nine-thirty that evening, Allison finished the last of her dessert and looked gratefully at Brad.
“You were right,” she said. “I have been acting like a child. Just pet me and feed me and I'm all smiles again. Disgusting, isn't it?”
Brad laughed. “You're wonderful,” he said. “With just the right amount of temperament to make you exciting.”
“The only thing that excites me now is the thought of a good, hot bath and a nice, soft bed,” said Allison.
“Are you going to read the script?” asked Brad.
“While I'm soaking in the tub,” replied Allison.
“I'll call you at nine-thirty in the morning,” said Brad as they left the dining room. “We'll have breakfast together.”
Ten minutes later, Allison drew a tub of very hot water, perfumed it lavishly with bath oil and prepared to soak, relax and read. An hour later, when she had finished the script, she was far from relaxed. Joel Parkingson had left out of his script what Allison considered some of the best parts of her novel; instead, there were pages and pages of inane dialogue and hollow characterization.
I mustn't care, thought Allison, tears streaming down her face. I won't care. They bought it and now it's theirs to do with as they see fit. I'm not entitled to care.
But she did care, and with the caring went the only defense that she had been able to build against a word suddenly too much aware of her. She had constructed her wall of indifference carefully, in the very beginning, for she had known that she would need something to hide behind.
“In a little while,” Lewis had warned her, “say when Samuel's Castle gets close to the hundred thousand mark, it is going to become fashionable to pan the hell out of it.”
“But I don't understand,” Allison replied. “The first reviews were good. Not raves, exactly, but good.”
“That was in the beginning,” said Lewis. “But there are a lot of phony people in the world. They are the ones who ‘discover’ people, places and things and can't bear to keep their mouths shut about how clever they've been. But the minute that the great unwashed public begins to share their enthusiasm, whatever has been discovered is no longer palatable to the discoverers. Then they backtrack.” Lewis imitated the voice of one of them. They always sounded like victims of some terrible fatigue. “Capri used to be the place to go, my dear. But lately it's simply too full of the most undesirable types.”
Allison laughed. “And is that what they will say about Samuel's Castle?” she asked. “That it used to be a good book but now it's become so dreadfully common?”
Lewis’ face wrinkled in disgust. “I've listened to them at a thousand cocktail parties,” he said. “And believe me you can't fight them. They are the opinion makers and they have got themselves into positions of power.”
“I'm not their sort,” Allison had said. “They won't waste their valuable time on me.”
“They may,” Lewis said. “And if they do, it can hurt.”
“Don't worry about it, Lewis,” said Allison.
But it began to happen as he had said it would. The first indication that Allison had of it was when a reviewer who had written a favorable review of her book wrote an article in the same magazine when the movie rights were sold.
“Century Films have bought the rights to the sexy silly, Samuel's Castle. All we can say is that Hollywood must be more hard up for material than usual.”
Allison was stunned. She began to overhear conversations at parties and in theater lobbies.
“No, I haven't read Samuel's Castle,” she heard one woman, who had referred to the book on her television program as “exciting,” telling her companion, “I glanced through it, but, my dear, what a bore!”
The head of a television network, who had tried to buy the rights to the book for a ninety-minute spectacular and had been turned down by Bradley Holmes, gave an interview to a national magazine in which he said, “I dread to think what a number of good books have been ignored while Samuel's Castle has clung to the top of the best-seller list.”
It was only with Lewis that Allison could let down the barriers a little, and even with him she was careful not to reveal how much she was hurt. For the most part, she did her weeping alone.
“The public loves to create a hero,” Lewis had said. “Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick.”
“I don't care,” Allison had cried with forced gaiety. “It's wonderful to be famous while it lasts. And I don't really care that much what anyone says about the book. I don't really care at all.”
Allison wept without sound into the pillow on her bed.
I don't care, she cried. Century bought it. I took their money. It's theirs, and I don't care what they do with it.
3
AT NINE-THIRTY the next morning, when Bradley Holmes joined her for breakfast, Allison MacKenzie looked as if she had never shed a tear in her life.
“Did you read the script?” asked Brad, sipping his coffee.
“Yes.”
“How did it strike you?”
“As the biggest piece of foolishness one man could possibly get down on paper,” said Allison. “If he worked really hard at it, that is.”
“Well, it's not the end of the world,” said Brad. “Arthur told you that it was only their first effort.”
“He also said that the basis they have now will remain the same,” said Allison angrily. “If that's so, they're going to be laughed out of every theater in America.”
“Come now,” said Brad. “It can't be that bad.”
Allison shrugged. “See for yourself,” she said.
“No time,” said Brad, glancing at his watch. “We have to get started for the studio.”
“I'd just as soon get started for the airport if you don't mind,” said Allison. “The sooner we leave here the better.”
“You sound like David Noyes,” said Brad. “Come on, Allison, cheer up.”
She found it impossible to do so. All the way out to the studio, she sat in the back of the limousine in a little world of her own. It was a world of rancor. She hated Hollywood, Tishman, the writer, the director. All she could think of was that Tishman had bought her book because he admired it and thought it would make a great film; but he had bought it only to change it. She thought of the flat, platitudinous lines of dialogue and shuddered. The film would be called Samuel's Castle, her name would be listed on the credits; but it had nothing to do with her.
And yet, it would. She knew that in Tishman's Hollywood world, as in the Broadway world, no matter how remote was your connection with a flop—even if you were only the author of the book and had nothing to do with the adaptation—you were still considered to be partly responsible for it.
Having read Tishman's script, she had no doubt that the film would be a flop, that it would be laughed off the screen, that audiences would be so bored by it they'd leave their popcorn behind and flee the theater.
When she and Brad entered Tishman's studio, he was at his desk going through a loose-leaf folder containing the costume designer's preliminary sketches. On the margins of each sheet he wrote comments in red ink. Allison noted that he had the calligraphic handwriting that always reminded her of monastic orders, of dedicated men working alone. So much for handwriting analysis, she thought; Tishma
n was no monk, and Hollywood was a million miles from the nearest monastery.
Arthur Tishman looked closely at Allison from under his heavy, hooded eyelids. He swung his chair around and, in a sudden movement, stood up.
“Brad,” he said, “why don't you go over to Publicity and look over what Jenks has prepared. I'd like to take Allison and show her around the lot.”
“Of course, Arthur,” Brad said. “That's a very good idea.”
Allison looked at Brad and thought, You've missed your calling; you'd have made a perfect Yes man.
When Brad had gone, Arthur turned to Allison. He moved toward the door and she found herself following him.
“Do you mind walking?” he said.
“I like walking,” Allison told him.
“I like it, too. But it takes too long,” he said.
Then he was silent. Allison walked along beside him, thinking, What kind of man is this? He has the handwriting of a monk, dresses like a man from Mars—today he wore a sport shirt on which palm trees swayed across his chest, casting their shadows on beautiful Waikiki Beach which stretched across his stomach—believes walking is too slow, and thinks he can make a great movie out of this incredibly dull and unimaginative script.
After five minutes of walking, the ordinary world of ordinary buildings was behind them. Allison felt like Alice; the world had gone topsy-turvy. Next door to a crumbling southern mansion was the façade of the palace at Versailles; and when they left those behind, they walked down the main street of a small town that Hollywood, by using it so often, had made the American people (and half the world) believe to be typical. Six cowboys wearing green eye shadow, their lips rouged, loped past them, their horses’ hoofs clattering on the asphalt road.
When they left the typical small town Allison saw, on her right, an artificial lake. A rowboat with three wet actors was being tossed about by high waves. From a tower, a voice called, “Okay. Turn off the storm.” The wind machines stopped; the storm ended; the actors stepped out of the boat into the knee-deep water and waded ashore.
“When you see that on the screen,” Arthur said, “you will be certain it was filmed on the open seas. And if the director is good and the producer is imaginative and the actors right, you will believe in the plight of that shipwrecked trio.”
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