The Star Stalker

by Robert Bloch

  Somebody had to say it. I think Taylor opened his mouth first. “Well?”

  “You were right.” Treedom turned to Lozoff. “It has to go just the way it is. Twelve reels.”

  Bernie Glazer nodded at the director. “A masterpiece. I wouldn’t change a foot of it.”

  Lozoff smiled. It was hot in the little room, and he was perspiring. He stared at Sol Morris, waiting. Morris examined the end of his cigar. I could see that he was sweating, too—and then I realized something else. He was waiting.

  Salem stood up and walked to the front of the room. His shadow moved across the blank screen. He smiled at Morris.

  “I’d like to say a few words,” he murmured. “With your permission.”

  “Go right ahead, Lester.” It was Lester, now.

  “Thank you.” The smile broadened now to include all of us.

  “First of all, I feel I owe somebody an apology. When Mr. Lozoff came to us with the intention of making his picture, I was opposed to it. Although I have a feeling of reverence for the classics and I respect Mr. Lozoff’s ability, I thought this film would be a mistake. But you people who know me and work with me realize one thing—I’m man enough to admit it when I’m wrong. And I was wrong about Crime and Punishment. You did a magnificent job, Lozoff, a magnificent job! Acting and directing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That goes for everyone connected with the production. Miss Hilton, your work is terrific. Mr. Conway—I congratulate you on a performance that’s going to make motion picture history. Mr. Treedom, you and Mr. Besserer and the rest of the crew have come through with a great piece of photography. Don’t you agree, Mr. Morris? Nicky?”

  “He said it would be a winner.” Sol Morris put the cigar back in his mouth and smiled happily.

  “Got to hand it to you, pal,” nodded Nicky.

  “There is just one thing I take exception to,” Salem continued. “Mr. Treedom. You made the remark that you wouldn’t change a foot of the film.”

  Treedom tugged at his mustache. “Well, that was just a way of putting it, you might say. We’ve got a lot of extra footage—if you or Mr. Lozoff wants to go another reel or so, if you want to make a couple of substitutions—”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Salem told him. “I’m sure the editing has been excellent. And I like what Mr. Taylor and Mr. Post did with their titles.” He smiled at me. “Unfortunately, it’s large a case of love’s labor lost.”

  “You want to run it without titles, like The Last Laugh?” I asked. “But—”

  “No. I want to run it without titles, but with sound.”

  “Sound?” Lozoff sat up straight.

  Lester Salem nodded. “Perhaps the matter has escaped your attention,” he said. “You creative people sometimes bury yourselves entirely in the work of the moment, I know. But speaking as a businessman, I can tell you I’ve been keeping my eyes open throughout the past year—and my ears, too. And I’m convinced the sound picture, the talking picture, is really here to stay.

  “I’ve got a few figures here on the grosses from Warner’s and Fox and the independents. They’re really quite surprising. And that’s not just my opinion. MGM and United Artists and the others are getting into this thing. Paramount, too. They tell me Westinghouse can’t keep up with the orders—theaters are converting to sound all over the country. We can’t afford to miss the boat.”

  “Isn’t it a rather expensive gamble?” Arch Taylor asked.

  “Expensive, yes. A gamble—no. The past months prove you can’t lose with a talkie. The public wants voices and we’ve got to give them what they ask for.”

  He leaned over the back of the front row, talking earnestly. “This isn’t just an offhand opinion. It’s something I’ve already talked over with Mr. Morris at great length. It’s something my people are prepared to back up with cold cash. As a matter of fact, we have backed it up. With Mr. Morris’s permission—right, Mr. Morris?—I think I can tell you a loan has already been negotiated. We’re ready to invest three million dollars in preparing this Studio for talking picture production. Plus another two million to convert our own theaters and publicize the fact. Next week we’ll shut down for the entire month of February and let the technicians go to work. During that time we can get ready to resume shooting on Crime and Punishment and our other scheduled releases as talkies.

  “Mr. Lozoff, you’ll have all the cooperation I can give you. You’ll have the aid of trained engineers, sound experts. We’ll be using new equipment, microphones. It’s going to be a big job, but I know you can do it. The picture will be a sensation.”

  Lozoff gripped the arms of his seat. “I disagree,” he said, softly. “First of all, I must correct you on one point. I am not unaware of these new developments in the sound film. I know what has happened here in Hollywood during the past year or more. I have seen Mr. Jolson and Miss McAvoy, and heard them. I attended The Lights of New York, and Abie’s Irish Rose, Mother Knows Best, The Terror, the rest of the releases. There is only one fault to be found with them. One and all, they stink.”

  Lester Salem opened his mouth, but Lozoff wasn’t finished. “Inevitably, talkies will replace the silent films. There will be some wonderful advances. But all this is several years in the future. We won’t be ready in a month, or in six months.”

  Salem shrugged impatiently. “We can’t let the others get the jump on us.”

  Lozoff nodded. “I’m all in favor of starting now, converting the Studio to sound. Turn out the photographed stage plays, the films with singing and dancing. Experiment a little with part-talkies. That’s good business. But don’t try to change Crime and Punishment.”

  “I understand how you feel.” Salem was smiling again. “But what I propose can’t possibly harm the picture, only improve it. We’ll merely reshoot some of the sequences with dialogue, add a sound-effects track, give the public something to really rave about.”

  “Merely.” Lozoff sighed. “I wish it were that simple! For example, in those scenes you saw between the inspector and the student—”

  “Exactly what I was talking about!” Salem broke in. “Think of what dialogue would do there, to bring everything out.”

  Lozoff shook his head. “Those scenes were created in terms of pantomime. With your recording apparatus in its present stage of development, pantomime is virtually impossible. The microphone is stationary—performers must remain motionless in order to have their voices picked up properly. This means the camera is immobile, too. Every change in shooting, from close-up to long shot, requires a complete change of electrical setup. And that’s only the beginning.

  “The microphone magnifies and distorts the slightest rustle of cloth, the squeak of shoes, offstage noises. That’s something we can learn to control. Directors and actors must work in silence. Actors must memorize lines, and there’ll be more exacting rehearsals. Scripts will be different. These things we can and must learn. Once a picture is written the new way—so that sound and dialogue play their proper parts to bring out dramatic values—we’ll overcome the mechanical obstacles.

  “But what you propose now is out of the question. Here’s one basic difficulty. These sound cameras photograph at a speed of ninety feet a second. Our present cameras shoot at sixty. Actors are conditioned to this speed; their entire technique must change or else they’ll appear slow. Scenes will drag until they learn to make the transition—and you can’t expect them to do so overnight. Another thing, we have no way of predicting how the voices of our cast will record.”

  Salem turned away. “We’re set up to handle those problems,” he said. “We’ll have voice coaches, stage directors, playwrights from the East. The engineers will know how to mix the sound. Don’t worry.”

  “But I am worried.” Lozoff walked over to Sol Morris. “You see what I mean, don’t you? This picture was conceived in terms of silent techniques. It tells its story through pictorial values, pantomime. And it’s perfect. Don’t you agree?”

  Morris nodd
ed slowly. “We never made a better one,” he said.

  “Then why change it? Why rip it up, break the mood. I came to you and begged for a chance to make this picture. I promised you a fine job, and I haven’t failed. Now I ask you to let it stand.”

  He turned to face us all. “And as for business—this film will make money. There’s still a market for a good silent picture, will be for at least another year.”

  Lozoff’s glance included Salem now. “Look, Mr. Salem. From now on, I’ll go along with you. I’ll work with sound. It’s something I want to do, it’s a challenge to me. I don’t promise my unit will turn film out as fast or as soon as the others, because I want time to study and experiment. I want to do nothing but the best.

  “But I can promise you just that. And in return, I ask only one thing. Let Crime and Punishment stand. Release it. I know it will find an audience. It will bring you a profit, it will bring you praise and prestige. This picture means something to me. It represents everything I know, everything I believe in. And I say to you, honestly and sincerely, you are wrong. Sound cannot improve it, only spoil it. It is a silent picture.”

  Lester Salem shook his head.

  Lozoff’s forehead was wet. “Mr. Morris—”

  Sol Morris lowered his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s up to Mr. Salem.”

  “I see.”

  We all saw, then. Three million to prepare the Studio. Two million to convert the theaters. Salem had paid the piper and he was calling the tune.

  “Getting late, gentlemen,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I suggest we postpone further discussion until tomorrow. We’ll be fresh, then, and perhaps Mr. Lozoff will feel better if he sleeps on this idea. After all, the important thing to remember is, we have to keep up with the times.” He smiled, walking over to the door. “One thing has already changed. As I said just the other day at the Association Luncheon, that old motto—Silence is Golden—has been erased from the copybooks.”

  We filed out, moving slowly.

  Arch Taylor’s pipe bobbed beside me as he bent his head and murmured in my ear. “Yeah, that’s right. We’ve got a new motto, now. Money talks.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  IN FEBRUARY the Studio closed down for the changeover. This gave me a breathing-spell and a chance to look around. But I didn’t breathe easier, and what I saw wasn’t pleasant.

  The panic was on, the handwriting was over Hollywood, the lid was off at the Brown Derby. Sound was here, with a vengeance.

  Goodbye Jannings, Nissen, Langdon, Pringle, Billie Dove! Some of them would hang around, hang on for a couple of years yet—but the curtain was coming down. Goodbye, then, to John Gilbert and D.W. Griffith and the Sennett Bathing Beauties. Farewell to the little Wampas girls and to the big girls like Pola and Vilma and Baclanova.

  And hello John Boles, Warner Baxter, Lawrence Gray! Welcome Tibbett and roll out the red soundtrack for Ruth Chatterton! A nice fat raise for Marie Dressier and Conrad Nagel, a big boost for the Barrymore brothers, and congratulations to Norma Shearer and the rest whose voices came through clearly.

  Watch those musicals, they’re going to be BIG! Listen to that Broadway Melody, everybody. Maybe we can get Wynn and Cantor and George M. Cohan out here—they didn’t set the world on fire in silents, but we can use ’em now. Look at the way Jolson is cleaning up. Understand Mayer is signing an m.c. named Jack Benny. Who are these Four Marx Brothers you hear about? They say Chaplin won’t talk, but Doug and Mary and Gloria are going along with it.

  Did you hear what happened to Gloria and Erich on Queen Kelly? What’s the word over at Universal, will Uncle Carl be ready? Fox is out to corner the market—Gaynor and Farrell are set for a musical. Anybody know anything about El Brendel, Roscoe Ates, Benny Rubin? Here they come, get set, everybody!

  Get set for the Chief and the Twentieth Century, get those extra porters out to carry bags for the dialogue directors and the dramatic coaches and the diction specialists. Reserve those tables at the Troc for the New York play doctors, the booking agents who can find the talent, yank the acts off Orpheum Time. And don’t forget a box of cigars for the engineers. Without the engineers, we’re licked! Thank God we can always get another loan from the banks—this is costing real money, but wait until we hit Main Street with our new, jazzed-up version of Way Down East—All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing!

  I looked around and I saw what was happening, heard what was happening. There was a new threat called RKO, and the voice of Vitaphone thundered in the land. Fox had gone Movietone, Hollywood had gone—

  Hollywood had gone.

  I looked in vain for the once familiar figures; the cameramen with their caps turned backwards, the directors in puttees, the mood musicians, the beard-wearing bums on the extra bench. They were suddenly dated and departed, like the Keystone Cops. In a few years they’d be cameos or caricatures of a dim and distant past.

  Where was Harker; where was Karl Druse?

  Druse hadn’t signed anywhere for another picture. Maybe he was ill, as the rumors said.

  As for Harker, I’d scarcely given him a thought. Mankind hadn’t done too well at the box-office, and he hadn’t announced a new production. But that wasn’t the real reason I didn’t think about him.

  I didn’t think about him because I didn’t need him any more. The dream of Dawn had vanished, and the dream of a father was discarded, too. I’d learned, at last, that his advice was best. Forget the past.

  Maybe I wasn’t his son, after all. I could have gone back to Kate LaBuddie, searched out the astrologer, checked and verified. But it didn’t matter any more. It was part of the past.

  That’s why Harker laughed at me; he could see the absurdity of my attempt to resurrect a dead reality. And I was no longer angry with him for laughing, because I understood.

  Suppose he was my father, what then? Suppose Teddy Harker had married little Connie back there in the carny days? Suppose he’d settled down with a wife and a kid, given up his delusions of grandeur and tried to make a living?

  Chances are, he’d have stuck with the carnival—had to stick with it. Selling patent medicine, doubling in brass as a spieler. Maybe he’d have taken a winter job somewhere, as a filling station attendant or a grocery clerk (takes money to feed three over the layoff season, and what kind of skilled work can a carny get?).

  I could see him as he might have been, and I could see myself. That was the clincher—I could see myself. There wouldn’t have been any Hollywood for Harker if he’d stuck, and there wouldn’t have been any Hollywood for me.

  No, it was all for the best. All for the best that Theodore Harker had followed his flamboyant fancies into the future, believed in stars and destiny and dreams.

  I couldn’t complain. If it came to a choice, I’d rather be Tom Post than Tom Harker any day—because Tom Post was sharing the big dream. Hadn’t I written myself into that last picture, just as I’d always promised I would?

  That was the important thing, the only important thing. No sense searching for phantom fathers, worrying about people in the past. They were phantoms, too. You couldn’t believe in them. You could only believe in yourself, in what you were doing. The way I believed in Crime and Punishment.

  I made up my mind, and then Lozoff and I went to work again. We had plenty of time.

  It was the middle of March before they actually got the Studio open again, and the first week in April before they’d done tests of Lozoff, Conway and Hilton. Lozoff’s voice was surprisingly good, with just a touch of accent. Conway sounded effeminate, and Hilton might just as well have gone over to Disney and dubbed-in for Mickey Mouse.

  “That’s it!” Lester Salem said, when he heard the soundtracks. “We’ll dub for Conway and Hilton. Get a couple of good people out here from New York. Right?”

  I didn’t say anything. I’d spent a little time chumming around with a few of my friends, men who were already doing dialogue and talkie scripts. I thought I could handle the technique all right, but I w
asn’t up on dub-ins.

  “Come on over to my office,” Salem suggested. “Nicky’s there. The four of us can get our plans set.”

  “What about Mr. Morris?” Lozoff asked.

  “He’s asked me to handle this.” Salem’s voice was bland.

  I glanced at Lozoff but said nothing. There was nothing to say. We followed Lester Salem down the corridor.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” he said. “Just go right ahead and show me what you can turn out.”

  “It’s all done,” I answered. “I handed it in two days ago. Didn’t know what sequences you planned on doing in sound, so I just went straight through from beginning to end—wrote dialogue for the entire thing. All you have to do is select what you want. Lozoff and I have been running that print for weeks, studying it.”

  Lozoff nodded in agreement. “Maybe it can be done,” he murmured. “With dub-in, we won’t have to reshoot any scenes. Just add the soundtrack. I have in mind a composer, a friend of mine—he has done some very fine things. He could write a musical score.”

  Salem waved us into his office. Nicky sat there, glancing up in greeting as we entered.

  “Sit down,” Salem said. Then, to me, “I’m afraid you don’t understand. I’ve read your dialogue, yes. It’s good, but it won’t fit.”

  “What’s wrong—too talky?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “I was meaning to tell you this before, but there’s been so much to do that it slipped my mind. Anyway, I’ve gone over the whole proposition here with Nicky, and we’ve decided on a few changes. We’ll dub in the voices all the way, but we’ll shoot some additional scenes.”

  It was very quiet there in his office, and the sound of Nicky’s cud was all too audible.

  Lozoff looked at him, then at me, then at Lester Salem. “What did you have in mind?” he asked, softly.

  “Well, I don’t pretend to be an expert, you understand, just a businessman. Nicky and I have made pictures together for several years now, but we certainly can’t claim to be in your class. Nevertheless, our modest little efforts have made money for the Studio. Because we have learned something about audience appeal. And with all due respect to you, Mr. Lozoff, there’s one thing your picture lacks. Nicky put his finger right on it.”