The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix

by Paul Sussman

  I didn’t actually go to Los Angeles to get involved in films. Far from it. I was at the time selling novelty lavatory chains – the novelty being that when you pulled them they played a tune – and was hoping that, Los Angeles apparently having more flush lavatories per square foot than almost any other town in America, I might be able to do some good business.

  And as it turned out, I did. Some very good business. So good, in fact, that after a week, rather than heading south to San Diego as planned, I decided to extend my stay.

  Everyone in Los Angeles, it seemed, wanted musical lavatory chains. I’ve never known such demand for a product. Captain McCabe’s Hair and Scalp Tonic had been popular, but nothing like to the same degree as my novelty loo flushers. Barely had I placed an advert in the papers before Warner Brothers called and ordered 200 for the cast and crew of their recently completed musical The Jazz Singer. Thereafter, ablutions the length and breadth of town were enacted to the soothing strains of Al Jolson’s ‘Mammy!’ whilst my newspaper advert received a dramatic strapline: ‘Flush with the stars!’

  I sold chains to some of the most famous names of the day. Boris Karloff bought 20 as gifts for his friends; newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst had three installed in his mansion up at San Simeon; whilst Greta Garbo invited me to her home to give a demonstration, although when I arrived she wasn’t in. Even Charlie Chaplin purchased one, later, if industry rumours are to be believed, using it for a sequence in Modern Times (the latter, sadly, ending up on the cutting-room floor).

  By the end of 1927 I was universally acknowledged as the loo-chain king of the western seaboard. I had orders coming out of my ears, and supply could barely keep up with demand. I didn’t think things could get any better, and when I received a summons to present myself and my samples at the home of Luther J. Dextrus, in Beverly Hills, I knew I’d reached the pinnacle of my profession. An order from Mr Dextrus, after all, was the Hollywood equivalent of carrying a ‘By Royal Appointment’ sign outside your shop. There could be no greater affirmation of the desirability of one’s wares.

  Although nowadays less well remembered than the likes of, say, Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer, Luther Dextrus – real name Lemuel Drescovitz – was, in the Twenties, the movie mogul par excellence. His 1922 silent epic America was, until Gone with the Wind, the most successful movie of all time, whilst such was the popularity of his 1926 swashbuckler The Rapier of Doom that new cinemas actually had to be built to accommodate the huge crowds that flocked to see it. His five-reel feature The Mississippi Swamp Monster, meanwhile, was the first US movie ever to receive a release in Japan.

  If his feature films were popular, however, Luther’s real success lay with the weekly adventure serial. These would be screened in cinemas before the main film, and were churned out by his studio, Dextruscreen, with production-line regularity, and at an enormous profit. The Fastest Gun in the West, for instance, considered by many critics to be the first real Western series ever made, alone earned Luther more than the revenue of most other major producers put together. Also immensely remunerative were Dextruscreen’s The Little Detectives, an adventure serial about a group of pre-pubescent private eyes who also happened to be orphans; The Adventures of Aladdin; and Gangster Jo, each episode of the latter ending with a shoot-out in which the entire cast would be shot dead, only to be resurrected the following week.

  These serials were made not only extremely fast, but extremely cheaply. ‘Don’t pay for what you don’t need,’ was Luther’s motto, and one he put into practice by using Aladdin’s magic carpet as a rug for The Fastest Gun in the West’s horse, Winchester, whose stable in turn doubled as the orphanage dormitory in which the little detectives all slept. If there was a corner to be cut, or a dime to be saved, Luther would cut and save it. Not that it made any difference to his success. By the time I met him in 1927, his studio was grossing $10 million a year and he was the nineteenth richest man in America. No wonder I was excited about going to see him. They didn’t come any bigger than Luther J. Dextrus.

  On the day and hour specified on his summons I duly presented myself at his sprawling Beverley Hills mansion, carrying a selection of my finest lavatory chains, one of which I’d programmed to play the score from his latest blockbuster, Shoot-Out at Dodge City (starring an as yet unknown Clark Gable). I was rather nervous. Dextrus, it was said, ate men like me for breakfast.

  Those were the days before Hollywood became obsessed with its own security, and I was able to walk, unmolested, right up the lawn-flanked drive to the imposing front door. The latter – an exceedingly heavy wooden affair, with a discus-sized knocker and rows of metal studs across its face – looked distinctly familiar; and, indeed, after gazing at it for a moment I realized it was, in fact, modelled on the castle gateway of his 1919 epic The Viking Beasts. Beside it was a bell, which I pushed.

  I had expected to be kept waiting for at least a couple of minutes – this was, after all, the town in which power was synonymous with bad timekeeping – and was surprised when the door opened almost immediately. I was even more surprised when I discovered it had been opened by a small, very ugly child wearing plus fours and holding what looked like a large brown baton in his hand.

  ‘Yes!’ said the ugly boy, his voice a high-pitched nasal squeak.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Dextrus,’ I replied, leaning down and patting him on the head. ‘Could you go and fetch him, sonny.’

  The child went very red, his ugly face scrunching up like a ball of scarlet paper.

  ‘I am Luther Dextrus!’ he bellowed, jabbing me in the stomach with his finger. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  For a moment I was unable to answer, so amazed was I by the diminutive stature of the man before me. I had, of course, heard that he was small. I was, however, completely unprepared for something quite this small. The word, indeed, hardly did justice to the tininess of his physique. Even by child’s standards he was minute. All he needed was a dress and a bonnet and he’d have looked exactly like a dolly, albeit an exceedingly unattractive one.

  ‘I said, “Who the fuck are you!”’ he repeated, shoving the brown baton in his mouth. Only then did I realize it was a cigar.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I stammered. ‘A quite unforgivable mistake. I hadn’t expected that you yourself would open . . . you know; I thought a butler or something.’

  ‘What do I need a butler for?’ he snapped. ‘Waste of goddamn money! If I want servants I’ll hire ’em by the day. Now, for the third and last time, who are you and what d’you want?’

  ‘I’m Mr Phoenix,’ I replied, handing him a card. ‘I’ve come about the lavatory chains.’

  ‘Lavatory chains?’

  ‘Yes, the musical toilet flushers.’

  ‘Is this some sort of half-assed joke? Because I’ll tell you, mister, I don’t like jokers.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I assured him. ‘You wrote to me. We have an appointment.’ I removed his letter from my jacket and showed it to him.

  ‘Hunh!’ he mumbled. ‘OK, follow me. And keep your fucking hands off my head.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Dextrus. I really am most terribly sorry about that.’

  ‘You will be if you do it again,’ he growled. ‘I’ll have your legs broken.’

  He ushered me into the house, slammed the door behind me with a crash and headed off across a palatial marble hallway. Rooms opened off it in all directions, whilst I caught a glimpse of extensive landscaped gardens through windows at the back of the house. I thought I heard the dull thud of a tennis ball, and a shrill squeal of female laughter, but I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘A beautiful house you have, Mr Dextrus.’

  ‘I deserve it,’ he snarled.

  We climbed a sweeping stairway, passed round a gallery on the first floor, through a bedroom, and so into what I presumed to be his private bathroom, the latter dominated by a bath the size of a small swimming pool. I later discovered it was a small swimming pool, and that when the weather outside was too cold to use t
he main pool, Dextrus would transfer his Lilo into the bathroom, where he would happily bob around for hours on end, scrutinizing screenplays and smoking one of his trademark cigars.

  ‘Can’s over there,’ he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of a coral-pink lavatory set on a small dais against the far wall, beside which was a framed photograph of Dextrus shaking hands with Rudolph Valentino.

  ‘You impressed?’ he sneered, noticing me gawping at the picture.

  ‘Yes, Mr Dextrus, I am. Very impressed.’

  ‘Well, I ain’t,’ he growled. ‘I ain’t impressed by nobody. They’re impressed by me. That’s why I’m where I am today. Now show me what you’ve got, and make it quick. I ain’t got all morning.’

  ‘Might I inquire as to the sort of thing you’re looking for?’ I asked. ‘We do have a very wide range. Handle-wise alone we offer over 45 separate designs.’

  ‘Well, I don’t fucking know,’ he snapped. ‘You’re the salesman. Just show me a few examples.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, setting my samples case down on the floor, clicking it open and removing the first chain that came to hand. ‘Let’s start with the Finnigan’s Mark II Porcelain-Handled Musi-Flusher.’

  I dangled the chain teasingly in front of his face, before stepping back and whirling it around in the air above my head. I like to think that, in my own way, I brought a little drama and excitement to the world of lavatory-chain selling.

  ‘As you can see,’ I continued, ‘the Mark II has a hand-painted porcelain handle, with special indented design for ease of grip.’

  I held out the handle to him, and he gripped it.

  ‘Yeh, yeh,’ he muttered. ‘Great.’

  ‘The chain itself is gold-plated and, of course, fully rust-resistant. Tests have shown that it can hold up to 400lbs dead weight, which is strong enough for even the largest of lavatory users.’

  I whirled the chain around my head once more, and then leapt balletically on to the lavatory seat and attached it to the cistern.

  ‘As you can see,’ I explained, ‘it’s simple to install, and can be removed without difficulty should you wish to alter the tune, or increase or decrease the volume thereof. The actual mechanism is contained within this small and unobtrusive box’ – I tapped the small, unobtrusive box – ‘and operates on exactly the same principle as a pianola. If I might be permitted to demonstrate . . .’

  I stepped down from the loo seat and, with a triumphant flourish, pulled the chain. There was a whoosh of water, accompanied by the theme tune from Shoot-out in Dodge City.

  ‘You might,’ I ventured with an obsequious smile, ‘recognize the tune.’

  He made no comment, however, just continued to stare at me with disconcerting intensity, and so I detached the Mark II and passed on to the Finnigan’s Imperial, and then the Finnegan’s Deluxe, and then the Mark III Pamper-Flush with optional detergent facility. I showed him chains with attached fragrance diffusers, glow-in-the-dark chains, easy-to-flush chains for the elderly and chains with tunes ranging from ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ to ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’. I demonstrated long chains, short chains, big chains, little chains, economy chains, wedding chains and even a chain for those in mourning, the latter providing a long, slow, lugubrious flush to the doleful strains of Chopin’s ‘Funeral March (in C Sharp Minor)’. I gave, though I say it myself, probably the most complete display of novelty lavatory flushing ever seen, and felt sure, by the end of my demonstration, that even one as hard-nosed as the legendary Luther J. Dextrus would be quite unable to resist the temptation of my wares.

  ‘So,’ I said, perched on top of his coral-pink lavatory as the final chords of Chopin died away in my ear, ‘anything of interest?’

  His reply, however, was not at all what I’d expected.

  ‘You ever done any acting?’ he inquired.

  ‘Acting?’

  ‘Yeh, acting.’

  ‘Well,’ I mused, ‘I once had a small part in a school revue.’

  He nodded slowly and rubbed his chin.

  ‘You wanna be in movies?’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ I confessed. ‘I wouldn’t mind, I suppose.’

  ‘OK,’ he growled, ‘here’s the deal. I’m casting a new serial and I’m looking for a fresh face to play the lead. It’s about knights and jousting and stuff and it’s set in medieval England. We’re doing it in sound, so I need someone with a British accent. It’s the whirling that got me thinking.’

  ‘The whirling?’

  ‘Yeh. With the chains. They’re like those weapon things knights used to have. What are they called?’

  ‘Maces?’

  ‘Yeh, that’s it. Maces. The way you whirled the chain it was like a knight with a mace. I want you to do a screen test. If it’s good we’ll use you. If it’s not you can go back to selling toilets or whatever the fuck it is you do. Be at the studio at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll make the arrangements. Now clear up all this crap and get out.’

  And with that he stomped out of the bathroom. I packed up my samples and hurried after him.

  ‘But what about my novelty flushers?’ I cried as he scampered down the stairs. ‘What about the Finnegan’s Mark III Pamper-Flush?’

  ‘Screw the Pamper-Flush,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘I’m gonna make you a star!’

  Some people get into movies through the front door, some through the back. So far as I know, however, I’m the only person to have ever got in through the lavatory.

  The following day, as instructed, I presented myself at the Dextruscreen studios – still armed with my samples bag – where I was required to dress up as a medieval knight, read from a script, do profiles to camera, and then attack a chair with a large broadsword. There were two other unknowns also up for the part – a tall, athletically built man named Cary Grant, and a quiet, softly spoken stage actor called Leslie Howard – but for some reason I was deemed the best and the role went to me. Later that same afternoon I signed my name to a seven-year contract and took delivery of the keys to my very own dressing room, to which I was instructed to report at 5.30 the following morning for costume fittings. Somewhere in all the rush and bustle I lost my lavatory chains, a fact which, curiously, left me more depressed than I was elated by my new-found fame and fortune.

  The serial in which I was to appear was entitled The White Knight of Bosworth, and I had the dubious honour of playing the lead role. Dubious because, as I soon found out, although I was the hero of the show, and performed deeds of exceptional and highly improbable valour in every episode, I did so whilst encased in a cumbersome iron helmet. Aside from a pair of inadequate eyeholes, and a small slit through which I delivered my lines, the latter completely covered my face, and since I wore it throughout each episode I became, in the course of my four years as an actor, probably the least recognizable star Hollywood has ever known.

  ‘He’s a man of mystery,’ Luther explained, puffing on his enormous cigar. ‘He fights evil and saves broads from dragons but no one knows who the fuck he is. That’s the appeal. He’s the hero without a face.’

  ‘So why did you need a new face to play him?’ I inquired.

  ‘Because new faces are cheap,’ he replied, ‘irrespective of whether you see them or not.’ Which was a typical Luther reply. He was nothing if not frank.

  The White Knight of Bosworth was, quality-wise, possibly one of the worst film series ever produced. It made The Fastest Gun in the West, which was dire, look positively accomplished. The acting, including my own, was abysmal; the sets cheap to the point of surrealism and the costumes so evidently made from cast-off curtains and restitched army-surplus stock that we would have attained greater historical accuracy had we performed the whole thing naked. If the censors had allowed it, we most likely would have performed the whole thing naked, since costumes cost money, and money, as Luther never failed to point out, ‘is something I’ve got a lot of, and want to keep it that way’.

  Any expense th
at could be spared was spared. My iron helmet was in fact a revamped janitor’s bucket, whilst the budget never extended to more than one horse per episode, usually a mangy one, which made for some very curious jousting sequences.

  To his credit, Luther did pay for the services of a professional scriptwriter to pen the first episode. That initial script, however, was thereafter used for every subsequent show, all 217 of them, the only difference being that the names were changed and each week there’d be a different bad guy. Sometimes it was a wicked baron, sometimes a sorcerer, sometimes a monster, and sometimes, if Luther was feeling extravagant, which he usually wasn’t, all three at the same time. The Dragon of Death appeared in no fewer than 103 episodes, which was stretching credibility to breaking point, since he got killed at the end of every one of them.

  Storylines were formulaic to the point of catatonia. A beautiful damsel, played by the same two women for the entire four years the show ran, each appearing on alternate weeks, in a different wig, would find herself harassed by one of the aforementioned bad guys. Cue the arrival of the White Knight of Bosworth to defend her honour and become the object of her unmitigated adoration. At the climax to each show the damsel would be kidnapped, tied up and threatened with death. At the last minute, however, I would arrive, kill the bad guy and save her. There would be a brief kissing sequence, me still in my iron helmet, before I rode off into the sunset, to the immortal voiceover: ‘Where he came from, and where he went, no one knew. Once again, however, the White Knight done good.’

  ‘It’s drivel,’ I remember saying to the director after we had attended a pilot screening of the first episode. ‘I mean, who on earth is going to watch it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so bad.’