Hollywood Buzz

by Margit Liesche

  “Oh.” Feeling more than ever like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, I sighed. Did I really have what it took to turn around Novara and his perverted ideas of what we did?

  Sam picked up our pace as we vectored between clapboard buildings, many with running balconies. Sam explained that the buildings had once been dressing rooms or offices in the studio’s previous life as Hal Roach Studios. Since conversion to the First Motion Picture Unit, they mostly functioned as barracks.

  Sam pointed to the Writers’ Building, a tin-roof, plywood and tar-paper GI structure where he had his office. Seconds later, we paused before a two-story brick building.

  “Film Editing,” he said. “Gunnar’s territory.”

  A dark green Buick Roadmaster rolled to a stop across the street in front of the Music Building. The convertible top was down. The driver wore a red scarf over her dark hair. I knew immediately by the dark eyebrows and red lips who she was.

  I blurted, “Judy Garland?”

  “Yup. That’s her husband David Rose, the composer. Miss Garland always drops him off around this time on her way to MGM. They live off post, near George Montgomery and his wife Dinah Shore. Keep alert. Miss Shore also does the chauffeur thing now and then.”

  He apologized with a wink. “I could bend your ear until it was blue, talking about the stars’ comings and goings around here. Maybe you’d like to know something unusual about the military side of FMPU?”

  I would have preferred the star talk, but his boyish grin was infectious. “What?”

  “Regulations require that an air base be under the command of a flying officer. Our CO is Paul Mantz, the former stunt pilot. He’s the only flying officer on the entire base.”

  I chuckled. Miss C hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d called this a loose military operation. Miss C. My dilemma with Novara. How was I going to convince him to change our film? I decided to hit up Sam for advice.

  “Those rushes with the WASP cadets…they looked like posy prima donnas on leave from their college sororities. Any tips on getting Novara to present our program in a more professional light?”

  “Not really,” Sam said. “It’s his film. But don’t sweat it too much. You’ve seen the worst. We’ve got some footage of cadets marching in review on the parade grounds, and there are more classroom scenes, I think.”

  Pretty dull stuff. I was getting more discouraged by the moment. “How about the segment of Frankie crashing? Any ideas on getting him to drop it?”

  “Waste of time, even trying. I’ve worked with him, trust me. When he says something stays, it stays; he says it goes, it goes. Your boss Cochran’s request is a good example. She wanted a scene of cadets learning instrument flying in those tiny box-like compartments with wings that simulate flying conditions…” Sam paused, reaching for the right word.

  “Link trainers,” I filled in absently.

  “Yeah, link trainers. Novara rejected the request, flat out.”

  The nerve! Novara wouldn’t listen to Miss C’s advice, yet she expected me to get him to take mine. The sudden burst of anger, brought on by my boss’ brazen expectations, lit a fire in my belly. Scattered vague thoughts on how I might get Novara to follow my lead began chasing through my mind. Sam’s voice drew me back before they could gel.

  “Novara has a casting couch reputation,” Sam warned next, as if it weren’t obvious. “And he treats women like merchandise. But you handled him just right. Put up the hands-off sign, made sure he read it, straightaway.”

  Sam stopped in his tracks and faced me, his mouth fixed in a half-smile. “What he said about your looks, don’t take it personally. Directors and studios don’t seem to get it. To them, ‘different’ means inferior. In my opinion, in pictures, anytime, it’s more original—and more appealing—not to be perfect.”

  I accepted the observation as the compliment I thought it was meant to be. “Why, thank you, Sam.”

  We’d reached the administration building with its weathered colonial façade. Before he left to go back to his office, Sam gave me directions to MGM where the meeting with Brody and the OWI representative was scheduled for that afternoon. He also said it might facilitate security matters if he accompanied me. Delighted with his willingness to help, I agreed to pick him up outside the MGM entrance.

  ***

  On a short break during orientation, I tried the hospital and was put through to Dr. Farr.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “I wish I had more positive news. Miss Beall’s condition is grave, ah, very grave indeed. She has a broken wrist, cuts and contusions—ah, those injuries are healing as expected. The coma is our main concern. That, and the internal injuries which may be numerous—and potentially serious. A visit from you will be good…” He cleared his throat again. “Ah, good for Miss Beall. It’s beneficial for comatose patients to have someone whose voice they recognize talking to them. In some cases, it’s enough to bring them out.” Dr. Farr hesitated. “We continue to hope for the best, but there’s been no response since she was transported here.”

  “I have an appointment coming up that’s carved in stone. But I’ll be there this afternoon.” It was my turn to hesitate. “Ah…what’s her prognosis, long-term?”

  “The next couple of days are critical. While it’s not unusual for a patient to be comatose for as long as a week after a severe head injury”—there was a pause—“the chances of emerging diminish significantly after that.”

  My stomach tightened. “My gosh,” I whispered. “Frankie might not emerge…” I couldn’t seem to bring myself to try pinning him down further. I swallowed. “Shouldn’t someone, er, related be with her?”

  “Miss Lewis,” Dr. Farr said firmly. “I’m telling you this because you’re needed. It seems she has no immediate family.”

  “No family?”

  “There is an uncle, her father’s younger brother. Efforts are underway to locate him. I’m afraid, however, getting him here will be impossible. He’s overseas, serving in the Pacific.”

  Poor Frankie. All alone. In a coma. No family. “I’ll be there this afternoon.”

  ***

  True to his word, Sam was waiting for me. He climbed in the car and a trail of tangy aftershave—Old Spice?—followed.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Reams of paperwork to cut through before they’d let me escape. And no assistance from Reagan. You were right.”

  Sam looked over. Errant locks of fine dark hair, though damp and lined with the marks of a fresh combing, flopped forward onto his brow. His eyes, mellow pools of brown, took me in. “Worth the wait,” he said, softly.

  Blood rushed to my cheeks and I swallowed hard, at a loss for a comeback. Then, as if my drippy schoolgirl blush and sudden muteness weren’t embarrassing enough, my foot hit the accelerator with a firmer press than was necessary. Sam’s head snapped back with a jerk.

  “We’ve actually got plenty of time,” he said, once he’d recovered from the abrupt start. “Meeting’s been delayed an hour. OWI rep’s running late.” He turned to me. “Bumped into my buddies doing the extra work. They introduced me to the set supervisor. We’re cleared to take a quick look. Wanna do it?”

  “A top-secret filming? Sure. What’s it called?”

  “Project 1699. I’ll brief you in more detail on the set.”

  I braked at the guardhouse in front of the arched stucco entrance. There was no gate. The guard, acknowledging Sam with a nod, motioned us through. We passed under the METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER sign with its signature roaring lion. I felt tiny prickles of excitement dance across my shoulders as the reality of where we were took hold.

  Fort Roach and MGM might be only a few blocks apart, but there was a world of difference in their appearances. Fort Roach was a bare-bones operation with tired-looking, low-lying, clapboard buildings. Personnel roaming the grounds were predominantly male, mostly in uniform. Driving into the MGM lot was like entering a bustling Technicolor metropolis. Modern stucco buildings, man
y newly coated in yellow paint, lined both sides of the street. Civilian men and women from all stations of studio life, clad in everything from coveralls to shimmering gowns, meandered freely along the length of the route.

  I gawked openly as we inched along. Near Stage 8, I spotted a small cluster of men in AAF uniforms. “Ah-ha,” I said. “I’m no longer in Oz.”

  “Ah-ha, but you are. Those ‘soldiers’ are actors.”

  I slowed the Packard to a crawl, squinting to get a better look.

  “They’re working on a picture about a bomber pilot who gets killed on a failed reconnaissance mission,” Sam continued. “He dies heroically, but then comes back to earth as a guardian angel to watch over a rookie pilot.”

  “Th-Th-That’s Spencer Tracy in the leather jacket…” I sputtered. “Van Johnson’s next to him!”

  “Uh-huh. Film’s called A Guy Named Joe. Tracy is the guy who gets killed, Johnson is the pilot in training. Irene Dunne plays Tracy’s bereaved girlfriend. She falls for Johnson, eventually. It’s a—a nice love story.” Sam gave me a sidelong glance, smiling when my eyes met his. “OWI likes the flick ’cause it leaves the audience with a consoling note they can carry into real life—the dead hero lives on, in memory, in heaven.”

  At Stage 2, I parked the Packard. The truck that had been carrying the ersatz German soldiers sat unoccupied nearby. Cleared by the sergeant at the door, we entered a dim cavernous space. In the near distance, tall portable lights, scattered around the set, illuminated a castle and a crew of khaki-clad soldiers operating cameras and sound equipment. One man on a low stepladder held a long boom-mike pointed in the general direction of a path leading to the castle entrance. Of course, the castle was only a façade, but from a distance it looked real.

  “Intelligence gathered the images from postcards and pictures taken by tourists on their summer vacations. Set department did the rest. Look—” Sam pointed slyly as we crept closer to the action. “There’s my buddies.”

  The two German soldier cut-ups weren’t laughing now. Armed with prop rifles and standing at attention, they flanked the castle’s main gate, seventy feet or so from the assemblage of cameras and men.

  “But a castle? German soldiers standing guard? What’s going on?”

  A tall, clean-cut captain seated in a chair marked “Director” looked our way and frowned. Sam waved. The soldier-director nodded, got up to peer through the camera finder.

  “It’s about the process of interrogation. Show air crews what to expect by depicting what happens to a B-17 crew shot down over Germany. Put the airmen through a program of subtle German interrogation. Let the viewers see how the Nazis separate even the most well-meaning, tight-lipped American flier from his military knowledge.”

  Sam had been whispering. I whispered too. “How do we know what the Germans do?”

  “That’s a replica of the place in southern Germany where they take our men. A couple of fliers who escaped are acting as advisors…”

  The director stepped back from the camera. With an imperious wave of his hand, he shouted, “Ac-tion!”

  A soldier snapped the arm of a clap board. Men in German uniforms and captured GIs in leather flight jackets approached the gate.

  “Edmond O’Brien? Barry Nelson? Arthur Kennedy?”

  Sam nodded. I gave in to a smug smile. I got it right. Things were looking up.

  Sam bent in close. “Kennedy’s also in the Flight Characteristic picture I just wrapped with Brody and Rask.”

  He’d mentioned the hush-hush training film in the rushes theater this morning. He started to say more, but a rifle belonging to one of the writer-stand-ins clattered to the ground. The group by the gate burst out laughing.

  “Cut!” yelled the director, his face beet red. “And cut the funny business. I’ve had it with the pranks. It’s a simple shot. Let’s get it done. NOW. There’s a war going on, dammit!”

  Silence followed.

  I sensed something plunging toward us before I saw it. Barely saw a blur. Heard a dim noise that increased to an ear-splitting sound. I turned. A torpedo-like object screamed as it dove toward Sam’s head. He started to look up as I shoved him hard. We tumbled forward, stumbling, rolling in a tangle on the ground. Slamming into the floor inches from us with a vicious thunk, the missile bounced sideways, landing and ricocheting against the floor several times until finally it settled, rocking nervously. Was it a mailing cylinder? One of the grips rushed over to pick it up.

  “Wait!” I jumped up, holding out my hand. “Don’t touch it. Could be a bomb!”

  The entire crew burst out laughing. I was aghast. One of the men, noticing my horrified expression, hushed the yokels.

  Above us, footsteps bounded down one of the catwalks, heading away toward the far end of the vast sound stage. I looked up at the maze of planks crisscrossing the ceiling, following the sprinting footfalls and, at intervals, glimpsing a khaki-clad figure. The running stopped. He’d reached the stairway along the exterior wall. My gaze whipped to the crew clustered nearby. A grip held the tube in his hand; the others looked amused. The entire event had played out at such an accelerated speed that I could only think they hadn’t yet caught up with what was going on. What else would explain their complacency?

  The grip turned the tube so I could see an amateurish whistle device attached it its side. “It’s another prank…”

  “If that cylinder had hit home, you’d be calling the medical examiner instead of making like it was Stan Laurel up there having a little fun.”

  I glanced down. Sam’s glasses had flown off and he was crawling toward them. “Sam, you okay?”

  He looked up. “Yup. Fine.” His voice was a little shaky, but he was mobile. I believed him.

  I squinted toward the staircase. The airman’s legs appeared, starting down from the top of the stairs. I took off after the prankster, the soles of my saddle shoes clapping against the wooden floor. I could see a silhouette of his frame as he descended the final stairs. He’d removed his tent cap, using it to shield his face, but I noted he had black, slicked down hair. I was closing in on the stairway, my arms pumping, my breath coming hard. Pushing off the final step he bolted for the door, shoved it open, and ducked outdoors. I followed, seconds behind.

  Outside, I panted, fighting to catch my breath while I surveyed a deserted alleyway.

  Back inside, the crew members had returned to their duties. The director, looking exasperated, huddled with the principal actors to one side waving his hands to emphasize his words. A few airmen glanced over as I returned to Sam, his face drained of color, holding a poster and staring at the image.

  I came up beside him. “The contents of the tube?”

  Sam’s voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear it. “No bomb, but it may as well be.”

  He turned the poster so I could see the illustration. The confident, commanding figure of Hitler, brandishing a swastika-emblazoned red flag, dominated the forefront. Behind him, a sea of uniformed troops with swastika armbands gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute, many of them also waving flags like their imposing leader. The winding river in the background had to be the Rhine. In the sky, glorying over all, an illuminated cloud formation cast far-reaching beams of white light. In the border beneath the bold German phrase along the bottom, the poster’s message had been translated: GERMANY LIVES!

  “Outrageous!” I was furious. “And they think this sort of thing is all a big joke? Your head nearly got split open.”

  Sam forced a smile. “It’s war. We like to keep things light. Other incidents have been funny…”

  “Like?”

  “The other day, just as the actors reached the gate, a banner flipped down over the castle entrance. Someone had drawn a good caricature of Bela Lugosi. His mouth was open and a dialogue bubble said, ‘Velcome to de castle of my ancestors.’ Everyone cracked up.”

  I rolled my eyes. No wonder the director was at his wits’ end.

  Sam tossed th
e poster on a nearby folding chair that also held the mailing tube. “They’ll have to set up another take. We should go. Commissary’s near Brody’s office. How about we leave all this fun behind, grab some lunch?”

  His invitation reminded me I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. I accepted.

  ***

  A pedestrian path led us through a warren of institutional buildings and into an open courtyard surrounded by Spanish-style structures of white plaster and red tile. Outside the Dutch door entrance to the casting department, a line of people stood waiting. I panned for famous faces. A little further on, at the studio schoolhouse, I honed in and thought, eureka!

  Sam chuckled. “Sorry, that’s not Mickey Rooney. Only a stand-in. Don’t feel bad,” he patted my arm, “a double is supposed to fool you!”

  We laughed and continued walking. I asked Sam to prepare me, best he could, for what would be going on in the upcoming story conference.

  “Like Brody said at the rushes theater, an OWI rep has found some problems with the script. He’s called the meeting to iron them out.”

  The Office of War Information, or OWI, served as the non-military propaganda arm of the State Department. Dedicated to making the war pervade everyday lives, the agency also helped interpret the war for the public. I knew OWI representatives were in Hollywood “coaching” movie makers on how best to advance the war effort and keep the public informed on war issues; I didn’t know the full extent of their control. “Can’t a studio produce a picture without OWI’s blessing?”

  “Sure. But OWI holds a trump card. The Office of Censorship relies on its input and they control the almighty, highly lucrative foreign distribution rights.”

  “Ah, gotcha,” I said.

  We walked a bit further. “Who else, besides Brody and the OWI rep, is expected at the meeting? Will Rask be there? And what’s the film about?”

  “It’s a wartime story set off the coast of Long Island,” Sam said. “No, no Rask. This is a major studio feature, he’s strictly AAF. Producer’s supposed to attend, but I doubt that he’ll show. Someone from production should be there, though. Russell Chalmers, too, I heard. He wrote the novel the movie is based on.”