“But there’s no Indians in Duck Soup.”
“The gag’s the same. I want something for a swimming-hole sequence we’re using Kitty Doran in.”
“Doran, huh?” He smacked his lips. “I could go for that dame. How about this? Eddie Sutherland used it in one of the Oakie pictures.” He described it to me.
“Yes, maybe we can kick that around, but cut out the double-wing-and-scram on the end. Now let’s see what else we can dig up.”
We had five more gags — two early Sennetts, a Chaplin, one from As Thousands Cheer, and one that practically everybody had used — by the time Fred came in from his day’s work afield. Betty Lee Fenton and Kitty Doran were with him.
Betty Lee paused at the door only long enough to ask. “You heard from Max?”
“Sure,” I said. “Your virginity’s safe.”
“I thought it would be,” she said and went away.
Danny, looking after her, automatically smacked his lips and muttered, “I could go for...”
Fred asked, “What’ve you guys got?” and, when we told him our six gags, said, “I guess they’ll do.”
Danny went away.
Fred yawned and spread himself on my cot. “Ann tell you about the blow-up?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t do anything with her,” he complained. “She’s just laying down on me.”
Kitty said, “It was disgraceful.” Neither of us paid any attention to her.
“The part can be whittled down,” I said. “She doesn’t have to be the one that Wiley seems to be falling for.”
“We’ve got to do something,” he growled. “She’s wooden. Why the hell does she have to take her spite out on the picture?”
Kitty clapped her hands. “Oh, Freddy, couldn’t I have that love scene with Wiley? I know I could do it. Please.”
“It could be written that way,” I said.
He scowled at her and at me. “Max wouldn’t stand for it. It’d have to be too big a part — we’d need a name.”
“Max wants sex,” I said. “Here it is.”
“Please, Freddy!” she cooed. “Please, darling! Just try me.”
He shook his head. “Max’d raise hell.”
“Well, I’ve got to do something,” I said. “What?”
Kitty said, “Please, sweetheart!”
He looked at me.
I said, “I’ll front for you to Max.”
He jumped up from the cot. “All right, damn it! Go ahead!” Kitty laughed happily and put her arms around his neck. I said, “Clear out, youse mugs, this means a solid night’s work for me.”
Kitty came back alone at a few minutes before midnight. “I just bad to come in to thank you,” she said, “because I owe this wonderful chance all to you and I’m so excited I know I won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight. Could I see what you’ve written for me? Just a tiny peep, Bugsy?”
“Stop talking like that,” I said. “One more Bugsy puts you back among the people who call me Mr. Parish.”
“I’m sorry, Bugs, but I’m so happy I don’t know what I’m doing.” She began to dance around the tent. “Freddy likes me to call him Freddy.”
“Would he like your being here?”
She laughed. “Then maybe I’d better stay till late — till we re sure he’ll be asleep and won’t see me leaving. Can’t I see what you’ve written?”
“Help yourself.”
She read the new pages of script carefully and said: “I like that. I think it’s fine. But look, I’ve got an idea. I know an awfully cute little dance. I’ll show it to you — and see if you don’t think it could be worked in in that campfire scene. You know, I could dance around the fire.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “We could have thirty or forty Nubian slaves bring you on in a silver chariot and while you were dancing around the fire we could release a flock of swans.”
She pouted. “You’re making fun of me again, but let me show you. It’s a cute dance.”
She showed me and it was a cute dance.
I said, “It’s a cute dance.”
“And you’ll let me do it?”
“No.”
“You’re a meany. I guess you think I’m an awful pig, but there’s something else I want to ask you — another favor. Freddy’s been awfully nice to me, but he’s mostly a Western picture director, isn’t he?”
“Most of his pictures have been outdoor he-man stuff, yes.”
“That’s what I thought. Well, will you help me with the love scenes? I’m so awfully anxious to make good and they’re the kind of things you write and you’d know more about it. Will you?”
“Sure, but it’s not going to do you any good at this stage of the game to let Fred get the idea that you’re slighting him. He—”
“I know, but we can he tactful about it, can’t we? I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings for worlds.”
“Your sentiments do you credit,” I said. “Now you’d better—”
“Oh, no, I can’t leave till we re sure Freddy’s gone to bed. He might see me. I’m going to curl right up in this corner and I won’t bother you one teeny-weeny bit.”
So I wrote her a love scene with Ted Wiley, the male lead, and we shot it against the campfire almost in silhouette, and I directed it. and if I do say it myself it was every bit as good as when Murnau first did it against a sky in Sunrise. And everybody except Ann agreed that we had a find in Kitty.
Ann took me aside to say, “I’ve seen a lot of hammy performances, but...”
I said: “I’m very sorry to hear you say that, Miss Meadows. I thought we were all great artists working together in a great art form.”
She wrinkled up her forehead. “Listen, Bugs, what are you up to? On the level.”
“I’m fixing things — for everybody.”
She looked at me suspiciously. ”I wonder.”
I crossed my heart.
“How?
I told her. “By simply doing what everybody wants. It’s a beautiful plan. You want Fred back. You get him. Fred and Kitty want her to get a chance in pictures. She gets it. Betty Lee wants to keep her virginal characterization. She keeps it. I don’t want anything. As usual, I get it.”
“But how does that bring Fred back?”
“Wouldn’t he break with his own mother if she sent him over his schedule and budget? Well, with Kitty carrying the sex burden, she steals the picture completely from Fenton. Whether your jealousy will let you see it or not, she’s not bad, and when Fenton sees the finished film she realizes it and squawks her head off in her usual refined manner. Max has got too much dough tied up in her to let her be buried by an unknown, and Kitty’s part is written so that if the big scenes come out the rest will have to come out and something else will have to be put in its place — and that means more money and time. And who does Fred blame for that but me and Kitty? He can’t do anything to me: he can bounce her out of his affections and his picture. On the other hand, you have only a small part in the dingus now and he probably still loves you and—”
“Maybe,” she said slowly, “but I don’t like it. You’re being malicious and you could’ve—”
“Sure, I’m being malicious, but I’ve got to have some fun. Besides, a lot of people get good lessons out of it. Max learns he oughtn’t to try to sex up westerns; Fred, that if his gods are Budget and Schedule that he should stick to them; Kitty, that little pigs who go to market shouldn’t carry too big baskets; and maybe all of you that I’m not just an amiable boob.”
She shook her head. “There’s more to it than you’re telling me, and I don’t like it.”
There was more to it.
Ten days later I finished my work on the script and went back to Hollywood, but, of course, not immediately on to Santa Barbara and the play. Max Rhinewien had bought a I Bulgarian comedy which he said needed more epigrams and he talked me into doing the adaptation. That took about four weeks and I finally escaped by simply ducking out on him.
I had been in Santa Barbara eight clays when Ann telephoned me. She said, “Bugs? I think you ought to know that your plan worked so well that Kitty Doran is dying in St. Martin’s Hospital,” and hung up.
Kitty wasn’t dying. Her mouth and throat were burned, but they had pumped the stuff out of her before it got a chance to work. She raised her head a little and smiled painfully at me when I came into the hospital room.