Hollywood is the first true city of the twentieth century. Like Rome or Byzantium she thinks herself inviolable. I have seen it all on the television. Of course there are changes, but the core is preserved. Was muss ich zehlen? A city founded on abstracts (and in this she is by no means the first) she next sought to make those abstracts reality. This is a common process. Wie lange muss ich werten?
Hollywood, though constantly threatened by her neighbours, is the strongest fortress of the modern world. She must not grow lazy. Hollywood purged herself once. It was painful, but she was successful. She purged herself as John Wayne might purify his blood after a rattlesnake bite; by drawing out the poison with his mouth, then, with a white-hot Bowie knife, cauterising the wound. Hollywood spat the poison into the sea, sending it East where it had come from. She banished writers, a few producers, some directors, a tiny percentage of her actors, and let them try to swim in the unfriendly ocean of reality. They drowned, most of them. A few eventually reclaimed themselves from Carthage. It is time for her to draw the poison from her arteries again.
Half-caste youths in studded leather ride their motorcycles amongst her fallen monuments. Mongrel dogs defecate upon slabs engraved with the names of honourable Lords and Ladies on that crumbling Avenue of the Stars. Gangs of gaudy vandals run unchecked over the broken walls of once unassailable castles. They loot the rotting costumes, the faded scenery. It is all that is left now of Republic and RKO, of Fox and Lasky. Hollywood offered her prophecies in so many films. She warned the world of the dangers of interbreeding and loose moral standards. Griffith drummed this message home, even in Broken Blossoms, the most unsound of his films (though Lillian Gish was exceptional). He died in poverty, that great man. From me he got only ‘trousers’. Everything he predicted came true. Pray, all of you, for the great Tsar City, the New Byzantium, the citadel of our Faith. Vergenen Sie nicht. Die Kapelle spielt zu schnell. Rock-and-roll magnates, champions of all that is barbaric, are the inheritors of our sunlit, melancholy ruins. Who could know The Jazz Singer would lead to this? Yet God is with his Emperor Stadt, even now. Not the yammering, drooling old God, but the new one, the Greek. The white palaces still stand guard above the valley, only apparently sleeping. Who better to accuse her than I? But I shall not. Six thousand miles from me and careless of my name, she yet retains my loyalty. Byzantium, you blaybnlebn. Hollywood was ever a Christian city, though many of her princes began as Jews. Wer Jude ist, bestimme Ich. Why not? Auf gut Deutsch. The Venice of the near past is still in a perpetual celebration, a carnival. Her pier swarms with happy souls. The sea is calm today. The ferris wheel turns slowly, like a useless mill. I walk beneath rococo arcades, her wooden fretwork, her brick that imitates stone. I admire the huge gondola on the Grand Canal which, itself, is smaller than the original. The gondolier sings some mock-operatic snatch as he poles his passengers towards the watery cul-de-sac’s terminal. The little railways flash and rattle. The yellow trolleys roll by. And girls in pretty beads and skimpy frocks, in cloche and aigrette, skip upon the arms of blazered Midwest dandies who walk awkwardly, trying to keep their boaters from falling off their bullet heads. I shall be leaving Venice soon, to move my few goods up the boulevard to the Hollywood Hills. A small grey and white palace of my own, for Esmé’s sake. I know what she prefers. At the pier I turn, still shaded by this idea of some Doge’s cloister, and here stands my bulky partner, my nervous benefactor. ‘Mr Hever!’ I surprise myself with my exclamation. There is a pause. The day is momentarily still. ’Sara sheyn veter!’
‘Ven kumt on der shiff?’
‘You’ll recall I leave by plane tomorrow.’
‘Of course. I was looking for you, old man.’ A wave of embarrassment rocked his untidy frame. ‘I didn’t find you home, so . . .’
‘I thought I had put all the PXI jobs in hand with Willy.’
‘Of course. That’s dandy. I’m very happy. I felt like a little gabfest, that’s all. Do you mind?’
I proposed we walk along the seafront in the general direction of Long Beach. The promenade stretched for miles, apparently meeting beach and ocean somewhere near Catalina Island. We walked. He said nothing for a long time. Then he suggested lunch at a nearby lobster place. Again I complied. I had time to kill. I was content. The food was excellent and became the topic intermittently for an hour or so. We finished our lobsters, our custards and our coffee and set off again. Still, save for remarks about the beachfronts, the weather, the Curtiss seaplane beginning its approach to Long Beach harbour, he was substantially mute. At last he asked if I would mind taking a Red Car and continue ‘our real talk’ by the workshop. I cheerfully agreed and we crossed the street to wait for the massive trolley of the inter-urban line. It was a hot, easy day. Children ran in and out of the water, chased by dogs and parents. Young people grew brown on the sands. Every town along the coast had its pleasure arcades, its little fairgrounds, its share of fun. I was amiable, thinking how much Esmé would be thrilled. I intended to bring her back by train from New York, so we could travel via the Broadway Limited and then take a Pullman all the way from Chicago. I guessed she had become unused to any luxury and what I proposed must surely pleasantly overwhelm her.
In the twilight palms, tall outlines now against the deepening blue of the sky and the rich wash of the sunset, he began to speak rapidly of his motion picture ambitions. He intended to be sole financer of a movie drama to star Mrs Cornelius. ‘She’s agreed to change her name to Dorothy Kord. Names are supposed to be important and easy to remember and all that rot. Mrs Cornelius wasn’t too happy about doing it. Well, to keep it short, what I’d like from you is the story - that’s White Knight and Red Queen - for which of course you’ll get a generous fee. Why don’t you try fleshing it out to full-length. About an hour.’ He made a shy smile. ‘I’m no Griffith.’