“Before we go any further,” Johnson rose and reached for his hat, “let’s take a look at that print. I don’t know if we can—”
I knew what he was thinking. Amateurs. Home movies. Feelthy peekchures mebbe?
We got the reels out of the hotel safe and drove to his laboratory, out Sunset. The top was down on his convertible and Mike hoped audibly that Ruth would have sense enough to get sport shirts that didn’t scratch.
“Wife?” Johnson asked carelessly.
“Secretary,” Mike answered just as casually. “We flew in last night and she’s out getting us some light clothes.” Johnson’s estimation of us rose visibly.
A porter came out of the laboratory to carry the suitcase containing the film reels. It was a long, low building, with the offices at the front and the actual laboratories tapering off at the rear. Johnson took us in the side door and called for someone whose name we didn’t catch. The anonymous one was a projectionist who took the reels and disappeared into the back of the projection room. We sat for a minute in the soft easy chairs until the projectionist buzzed ready. Johnson glanced at us, and we nodded. He clicked a switch on the arm of his chair and the overhead lights went out. The picture started.
It ran a hundred and ten minutes as it stood. We both watched Johnson like a cat at a rathole. When the tag end showed white on the screen, he signaled with the chair-side buzzer for lights. They came on. He faced us.
“Where did you get that print?”
Mike grinned at him. “Can we do business?”
“Do business!” He was vehement. “You bet your life we can do business! We’ll do the greatest business you ever saw!”
The projection man came down. “Hey, that’s all right. Where’d you get it?”
Mike looked at me. I said, “This isn’t to go any further.”
Johnson looked at his man, who shrugged. “None of my business.”
I dangled the hook. “That wasn’t made here. Never mind where.”
Johnson rose and struck, hook, line and sinker. “Europe! Hm-m-m. Germany. No, France, Russia, maybe, Einstein, or Eisenstein, or whatever his name is?”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t matter. The leads are all dead, or out of commission, but their heirs… well, you get what I mean.”
Johnson saw what I meant. “Absolutely right. No point taking any chances. Where’s the rest–?”
“Who knows? We were lucky to salvage that much. Can do?”
“Can do.” He thought for a minute. “Get Bernstein in here. Better get Kessler and Marrs, too.” The projectionist left. In a few minutes Kessler, a heavyset man, and Marrs, a young, nervous chain-smoker, came in with Bernstein, the sound man. We were introduced all around, and Johnson asked if we minded sitting through another showing.
“Nope. We like it better than you do.”
Not quite. The minute the film was over, Kessler, Marrs, and Bernstein bombarded us with startled questions. We gave them the same answers we’d given Johnson. But we were pleased with the reception, and said so.
Kessler grunted. “I’d like to know who was behind that camera. Best I’ve seen, by Cripes, since Ben Hur. Better than Ben Hur. The boy’s good.”
I grunted right back at him. “That’s the only thing I can tell you. The photography was done by the boys you’re talking to right now. Thanks for the kind word.”
All four of them stared.
Mike said, “That’s right.”
“Hey, hey!” from Marrs. They all looked at us with new respect. It felt good.
Johnson broke into the silence when it became awkward. “What’s next on the score card?”
We got down to cases. Mike, as usual, was content to sit there with his eyes half closed, taking it all in, letting me do all the talking.
“We want sound dubbed in all the way through.”
“Pleasure,” said Bernstein.
“At least a dozen, maybe more, speaking actors with a close resemblance to the leads you’ve seen.”
Johnson was confident. “Easy. Central Casting has everybody’s picture since the Year One.”
“I know. We’ve already checked that. No trouble there. They’ll have to take the cash and let the credit go, for reasons I’ve already explained to Mr. Johnson.”
A moan from Marrs. “I bet I get that job.”
Johnson was snappish. “You do. What else?” to me.
I didn’t know. “Except that we have no plans for distribution as yet. That will have to be worked out.”
“Like falling off a log.” Johnson was happy about that. “One look at the rushes and United Artists would spit in Shakespeare’s eye.”
Marrs came in. “What about the other shots? Got a writer lined up?”
“We’ve got what will pass for the shooting script, or will have in a week or so. Want to go over it with us?”
Marrs said he’d like that.
“How much time have we got?” interposed Kessler. “This is going to be a job. When do we want it?” Already it was “we.”
“Yesterday is when we want it,” snapped Johnson, and he rose. “Any ideas about music? No? We’ll try for Werner Janssen and his boys. Bernstein, you’re responsible for that print from now on. Kessler, get your crew in and have a look at it. Marrs, at their convenience, you’ll go with Mr. Lefko and Mr. Laviada through the files at Central Casting. Keep in touch with them at the Commodore. Now, if you’ll step into my office, we’ll discuss the financial arrangements—”
It was as easy as that.
Oh, I don’t say it was easy work, or anything. Because in the next few months we were playing Busy Bee. What with running down the only one registered at Central Casting who looked like Alexander himself (turned out to be a young Armenian who had given up hope of ever being called from the extras lists and had gone home to Santee), casting, rehearsing the rest of the actors, and swearing at the customers and the boys who built the sets, we were kept hopping. Even Ruth, who had reconciled her father with sorting letters, for once earned her salary. We took turns shooting dictation at her until we had a script that satisfied Mike, myself, and young Marrs, who turned out to be clever as a fox with dialogue.
What I really mean to say is that it was easy, and immensely gratifying, to crack the shell of the tough boys who had seen epics and turkeys come and go. They were really impressed by what we had done. Kessler was disappointed when we refused to be bothered with photographing the rest of the film. We just batted our eyes and said that we were too busy, that we were perfectly confident that he would do as well as we could. He outdid himself, and us. I don’t know what we would have done if he had asked us for any concrete advice. I suppose, when I think it all over, that the boys we met and worked with were so tired of working with the usual mine-run Grade B’s that they were glad to meet someone who knew the difference between glycerin tears and reality and didn’t care if it cost two dollars extra. They had us pegged as a couple of city slickers with plenty on the ball. I hope.
Finally it was over with. We all sat in the projection room and watched the finished product. Mike and I, Marrs and Johnson, Kessler and Bernstein, and all the lesser technicians who split up the really enormous amount of work that had been done. It was terrific. Everyone had done his work well. When Alexander came on the screen, he was Alexander the Great. (The Armenian kid got a good bonus for that.) All that blazing color, all that wealth and magnificence and glamour seemed to flare out of the screen and sear the mind. Even Mike and I, who had seen the original, were on the edge of our seats.
The sheer realism and magnitude of the battle scenes, I think, made the picture. Gore, of course, is glorious when it’s all make-believe and the dead get up to go to lunch. But when Bill Mauldin sees a picture and sells a breathless article on the similarity of infantrymen of all ages — well, Mauldin knows what war is like. So did the infantrymen throughout the world, who wrote letters comparing Alexander’s Arbela to Anzio and the Argonne. The weary peasant, not stolid at all, trudging and trudging into mile after mile of those dust-laden plains and ending as a stinking, naked, ripped corpse peeping from under a mound of flies, isn’t much different whether he carries a sarissa or a rifle. That we’d tried to make obvious, and we succeeded.