They blow in, the Jujyfruits and Almond joys, junior Mints and Planters nuts, they grin and wince into bad Bogart impressions, they match wits naming the Magnificent Seven, or the Seven Dwarfs, or the seven major Golden Age studios. Dopey, they say, Warners and Universal. Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, they say. Grumpy. A boy who looks like the Spirit of Che Guevera does a soggy soft-shoe in front of the men's-room door. The fat girl in the poncho tumbles for a box of popcorn, large, with a nickel's extra butter. A boy in a cape and a girl with a yellow slicker do a brief exchange from a Marx Brothers' picture and the young men on the couch roll their eyes and cluck their tongues. Old Pudge comes out from the projectionist's booth and nods to Shine. The lobby empties into the theater.
Shine flicks switches and the tanks of orange and purple settle, the yellow bulb in the popcorn machine goes out. A girl in an Army fatigue jacket comes in sopping and pays Gerald in quarters and dimes. She asks Shine for Good and Plentys, then rattles them loudly inside the box. "Lotta leg room in there," she says and grins. A boy with a bad complexion and an armful of books sheltered under his coat buys a ticket and then asks what is playing. Shine closes the back of the counter and locks it. The empty street seen through the streaming glass doors has no edges, cars and buildings appear out of focus. The theme from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre begins in the theater and Shine tells Gerald he can go read in the office.
A car washes up in front of the doors and Eddie Pincus — Pincus Jr. - scurries in with a large box in his arms. He passes Shine without speaking, heading for the office. Eddie is wearing a red pointy-collared shirt and plaid pants, shoes with semi-Cuban heels, and rings on all the fingers of his left hand. An Italian-hood type, thinks Shine, down low in the organization. A gunsel. A Dead End Kid pushing thirty. Pincus Jr. comes back empty-handed, goes to the car and brings in another box. Shine counts ticket stubs so their eyes won't meet. Before he leaves for good Eddie reaches over the counter and scoops himself a handful of popcorn, leaving a trail on the carpet.
Inside the theater Bogart and Tim Holt catch up with the labor contractor who has stiffed them. They argue, then fight silhouetted in stark barroom light till the contractor lies bleeding on the floor. The two winners take only what they are owed from his wallet.
Shine brings the stubs and the cashbox to the office. His swivel chair is occupied. "They never picked this up," says Gerald nodding toward two film cans on the desk, "and Mr. Pincus wants you to clear your stuff out today."
Shine leans against the desk and dials a number.
"Mr. Brandt's office, may I help you?"
"This is Mr. Shine? And I'd like to — "
"Mr. Brandt took special pains to see that you received a good print. If there's anything wrong with it then it happened on your end."
"No, see, the print — "
"In fact we're considering charging you for restoration of a few we've gotten back from you — "
"The print is fine."
"there is also some evidence of extra screenings not provided for in our agreements. Film is a delicate medium, Mr. Shine — "
"Miss, you didn't pick up the last one."
"Pardon?"
"You didn't come and pick up last week's feature from us. On the Town. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra? I thought. you might want it."
"Oh. Oh dear. Let me check something."
There is a long silence. Gerald begins to nod at his book. "Mise-en-scene," he says.
"Mr. Shine? We're very sorry, there's been a mix-up. How late will you people be open?"
"Till eleven. Have whoever you send just come in the back."
"We'll do that."
"I'd also like to confirm the cancellations."
"Cancellations?"
"There should be a letter on your desk by now."
"You realize, Mr. Shine, that there is a fee for cancellations? We take a loss on the arrangements we make. Ordering, shipping, things like that."
"Don't try to con me, Miss, you've got all our standards in stock. So put them back on the shelf."
"There is a fee for cancellations."
"You can take that up with Mr. Pincus," he says, and hangs up. "Film," he says to Gerald, "is a delicate medium."
"Time," says Gerald, deep in his book, "and space."
The two cardboard boxes Eddie Pincus brought are sitting in the corner, their tops wet. Shine can't read the smeared label and pulls one open to see. There are a couple pages of promotional literature lying on top of a boxful of tinted plastic glasses in cardboard frames. At the bottom of the promo there is a blob of pink roughly in the form of a woman. Shine puts a pair of the glasses on and the blob sharpens into a naked woman, her tits pimpling up at him from the paper. 3-n PUSSYCATS it says in mound-letters. Shine looks about him and sees that Gerald has lost all definition, the wall posters are smudged faceless, only the miniature naked lady is real anymore.
"A delicate medium."
Shine reaches around Gerald and pulls the drawers from his desk, laying them on the floor. He starts a junk pile and a Keep pile, but keeps almost everything. Publicity photos, posters, even snippets of film — he saves them all. He sorts the posters by studio, MGM and Fox claiming the-most..
"The stuff on the walls too," says Gerald. "Mr. Pincus said the stuff on the walls goes too."
Technicolor! say the posters. Cinerama! All Talking all Singing all Dancing! Brando in The Wild One, Dean in Rebel, Garfield in The Sea Wolf and Wayne in Stagecoach, all looking impossibly young and lipsticked. A picture of Shine, also impossibly young, standing with Pincus Sr., in front of the first theater. The old gentleman looking serious and dignified, his young partner grinning, out of place. Shine takes them all down and gently adds them to the pile. He imagines a cliche flashback to his youth, a slow dissolve with a harp flowing distantly on the soundtrack, till his father's face appears looking down as if to a child.
"Our bissness," he whispers as if sharing a great secret. "The motion-picter bissness is our bissness. Never forget this. Luke et Mayer," he says, "luke et Cohn. Thalberg, Selznick, Sammy Goldfish. Op front it may be American boyss, powdered meelk, Gables end Crossbys, but it's our bissness. We pull on the strings. Never forget this."
The camera tracks back to show a thin, middle-aged man in a faded blue usher's uniform. RIALTO it says in yellow script over the left breast.
Ridiculous casting, his father never had an accent.
Shine ties paper into bundles. The junk pile, mostly old bills, he kicks into the corner with Eddie's 3-D glasses.
In the theater, on the screen, the three prospectors strike gold near the top of the mountain and rig a sluice to mine. There are weeks of hard, hot work. Greed creeps into the camp, and paranoia. They begin to split each day's take three ways and hide their goods from each other in the bush. Ban- ditos attack, their leader Gold Hat braying evilly to set the standard for a generation of Mexican outlaws. An outsider tries to extort his way into the find and is killed. The gold begins to peter out and the men break camp, first putting the mountain back the way they found it. Thanks mountain, they say as they head down the trail toward civilization.
The old man, Walter Huston, is taken by Indians to be honored for saving a half-drowned native boy, leaving Bogart and bland Tim Holt to manage all the heavy-laden burros. Gold-fever and isolation begin to work on Bogart, he grapples with Holt and has his gun taken away. They sit across the fire from each other that night, Holt wary but fading with exhaustion. We'll see who falls asleep first, says Bogart. His wild, flame-lit face breaks into Satanic laughter. We'll see who falls asleep first, partner.
During slow scenes or long dissolves there is a mass creaking as the audience shifts in the old seats, like some huge animal stretching after a century's sleep. There is an occasional wet sniff and the methodical crunching of jawbreakers in the back row. The people sit deep in their seats, prop their legs before them and tilt their heads back as if being fed a long, satisfying meal. The rain outside is faintly audible, but like the glowing red Exrr signs to either side of the screen, it has long since become subliminal. The drying clothes and wet hair give off a woolly must peppered with sweat and cola and aged peppermint gum. Someone in the front has a mild case of asthma.