The Movie

by Patti Beckman

  After that night of passion in Kirk’s arms in Tunis, she’d wondered if a miracle might yet save their marriage. That night proved again that whatever other problems they had, the bedroom was not one of them. But when they flew to the desert location, Kirk had gone back to treating her with cold indifference. And when word came from the studio that the film had been canceled, Kirk hadn’t even said good-bye. He handled the details of dismantling production and then simply disappeared without a word to her.

  She wasn’t surprised. It only confirmed what she had believed all along—that Kirk’s only interest in her was as a ticket to studio backing of his production. With that gone, he had no further use for her.

  But she still had a vital interest in the film. Her closest friends were involved. They had all invested months of hard work in this motion picture. They were crushed by this cruel turn of events. Their dreams of a successful production company were shattered.

  Natalie returned to New York, determined to uncover the reason production had been canceled. She felt convinced there was more behind the act than budget problems. There was some kind of intrigue boiling at the corporate level.

  Once settled in her New York apartment, she made some phone calls and discovered that Sam Kasserman had flown in from the West Coast. She began by cornering him in his hotel suite.

  She saw at once the strain the motion picture executive was under. It was a different Sam Kasserman from the imperious studio head who sat behind his desk like it was a throne. He looked haggard and tired. His usually immaculate attire was slightly rumpled. He moved around the room, his hands twitching slightly as he touched various objects. When Natalie tried to pin him down, he was evasive.

  “What can I tell you, Natalie? The cost overrun was getting out of hand. We had to call a halt to Kirk’s extravagance. It had gotten to be too big a gamble—”

  “But you believed in the story.”

  “Yes, it’s a good script. But it’s costing too much.”

  “Sam, you can’t do this kind of big motion picture for small change anymore. You know that. I think you’re throwing away a chance to make millions for the studio.”

  Kasserman made a helpless gesture. “It’s out of my hands, Natalie.”

  “Out of my hands—” In that phrase, Natalie had a clue as to what was happening.

  She called David Clawson, chief executive officer of the Atlantic Enterprises corporation. He suggested they have lunch at “21.”

  Natalie often thought that if she were casting the part of a successful corporate executive approaching middle age, she would pick David Clawson. He would be typecast in the role of a forceful, self-assured executive. His walk was brisk. He stood erect. His penetrating blue eyes were unwavering. More than one board member’s gaze had faltered under that piercing look. His movements were deliberate and precise and his soft, well-modulated voice carried an undercurrent of firm authority.

  At forty-five, his light brown hair had a few strands of gray at the temples. His favorite dishes of Maine lobster, top sirloin and imported wines had given him a well-fed, slightly fleshy look around the cheeks and neck, but his complexion was kept a healthy pink by hours on the racquetball court. His tailored, dark gray suit had an air of subtle elegance. His only jewelry consisted of a pair of gold cuff links and a platinum wristwatch.

  Over the meal at “21,” they began with an exchange of polite conversation. Natalie asked about his wife and two teenage children. He talked about the last film she’d starred in, Never Tomorrow, which was enjoying a profitable run with the promise of future profits down the line with its eventual TV release. He said she should get an Academy Award nomination for her part, which Natalie knew was pure flattery. Nothing about the picture was Academy Award material.

  Then Natalie brought the conversation around to the main subject. “David, I’m at a loss to understand why Continental Films has shelved production on The Last Encounter.”

  Clawson looked surprised. He put his fork down and took a sip of wine. “I thought Sam Kasserman made it clear. The cost was getting out of hand.”

  “But the picture will be worth it—”

  Clawson shook his head. “Sam did a real dumb thing, getting into that, Natalie. That project had ‘loser’ written all over it.”

  Natalie flushed but made a determined effort to keep her emotions under control. She worked hard to maintain a pleasant front. “Sam has a reputation for being one of the top film executives in Hollywood, David,” she said gently. “He thought from the beginning it was a good script. Don’t you trust his judgment?”

  Clawson smiled, but his eyes were cold. “No, frankly, I don’t always trust his judgment, Natalie.”

  “He’s made the studio show a profit, hasn’t he?”

  A tinge of annoyance glinted in David Clawson’s eyes. “That’s not the point, Natalie. Sam has become entirely too arrogant. He went ahead with this production over my objections in the first place.”

  Natalie did not pursue the subject. She had heard enough. The next day she paid her mother an obligatory, long-overdue visit and the following night she went to see her favorite relative, her great-uncle, Jeffrey Brooks, who lived on Long Island.

  The patriarch of the Brooks family, approaching seventy, had a mane of white hair, eyes as blue as the sky reflected in a clear pool and a complexion of pure mahogany, carefully cultivated on his sailboat. He stood as erect as a Viking. His greeting was a bear hug and a remonstration for neglecting him.

  “I haven’t seen you in six months, child!”

  “I know, Uncle Jeffrey. Will you forgive me?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Let’s have something to drink while I think about it.”

  They had snifters of expensive brandy in the luxuriously paneled den of the Long Island mansion.

  “Uncle Jeffrey, what is going on at Atlantic Enterprises?” Natalie asked.

  “Whatever do you mean, child?” he asked blandly.

  “Oh, don’t act so innocent,” she chided. “I see that twinkle in your eyes. There’s something afoot.”

  “Well, now, what do you think it is?”

  “I think David Clawson is out to get Sam Kasserman’s scalp, is what I think,” she replied. “And the fallout of those two at each other’s throat is killing the picture I’m working on.”

  “Oh, yes. The Last Encounter. Your husband’s big epic.” The blue eyes became penetrating. “How are things with you two, anyway? I hear rumors you are divorcing him.”

  She flushed. “Yes. But that’s another matter.”

  “Too bad. I hate to see that. Didn’t want you to turn into one of those Hollywood types, running from husband to husband.”

  Her cheeks grew warmer. “It’s not like that, Uncle Jeffrey. There...there are problems—”

  He made a conciliatory gesture. “Now, Natalie sweetheart, don’t take offense at an old man who loves you. I know what a difficult thing it is for people in your profession to have any kind of normal home life: the long separations while you’re off on location, the volatile nature of talented, creative people, the strain of two careers in the same family, especially when one is successful and one is not.”

  Natalie frowned and started to reply, but her great-uncle interrupted. “Now, we won’t talk about your private life anymore. But I would like to know why you’re concerned about the picture. Is it because it’s Kirk’s production? Because your friends are involved in the production company? Because you have the starring role?”

  Natalie sighed. “I suppose it’s all of those things. And it’s so damned unfair, Uncle Jeffrey! Let’s leave Kirk and my friends out of it. And, yes, forget the fact that I had the lead role, which happens to be one of the best I’ve ever gotten, by the way. Putting all those things aside, I’d still be upset about this because it’s a marvelous story. Granted, it’s going to cost more to produce than first estimated, and maybe Kirk has rather grandiose ideas that are expensive. But that’s what it takes to produce a motion picture of
this magnitude. Have you read the script, Uncle Jeffrey?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. And before you spend any more breath trying to convince me, I’ll tell you that I agree with you.”

  “You do?” she asked with surprise. “I thought everyone on the board at Atlantic Enterprises was dead set against it.”

  “Oh, no. Not by any means. Some of us are a hundred percent behind the production. We think it will be the biggest money-maker Continental Films has ever produced.”

  Natalie digested that bit of information in a moment of surprised silence. “Then the fight is between David Clawson and Sam Kasserman?”

  “Exactly. And both have strong allies on the board of directors. Natalie, it’s not unusual for a corporate executive like David to be attracted to the glamour of the Hollywood scene. He wants to be more directly involved with the allure of movie making. The way he can do that is to get Sam Kasserman out of the way and put his own man at the head of Continental Films. He’s using this fight over The Last Encounter production to prejudice the board against Sam, trying to convince us that Sam has lost his touch, has done an utterly foolish thing to take on a producer who laid such a bad egg with his last film.”

  “You see, using his position as the head of Atlantic Enterprises, David could just go ahead and fire Sam. But he’s walking a tightrope. That action could backfire and get him fired if the board of directors didn’t agree. So David is trying to convince us he’s right, to make sure he has a majority of the stockholders behind him when he makes his move to can Sam Kasserman.”

  “What are his odds?”

  “Pretty nearly even. Now let me ask you this: Do you want to save the production?”

  “Of course I do!”

  Jeffrey Brooks took a sip of his brandy, his eyes sparkling like bright, blue marbles. “Then, I think you and I should fly down to Miami and have a chat with my old friend, Willie Thompson. Willie is on the board and he’s one of the company’s biggest stockholders. I suspect that old pirate has been quietly buying up stock here and there, hoping one day to corner controlling interest. Willie and I go a long way back. We were shipmates in the Pacific in ’42. If we can get Willie on our side, it might be David who gets the ax instead of Sam.”

  Natalie grinned. “Uncle Jeffrey, you rascal, you like a good fight. You’re enjoying all this!”

  “Maybe.” Then he winked. “Willie still likes to look at a pretty girl, so cross your legs and bat those long, gorgeous eyelashes at him.”

  “Uncle Jeffrey!”

  * * * * * * *

  The trip to Miami was successful. William Thompson agreed to stand beside his friend, Jeffrey Brooks, when the fight between David Clawson and Sam Kasserman reached the boardroom. Then Natalie’s uncle quietly went around, sounding out the other members of the board of directors. She admired the smooth way the wily old financier operated.

  Once he was sure of his support on the board, Jeffrey got Sam Kasserman cornered and elicited his promise to resume production of The Last Encounter in exchange for having a majority of the board behind him in his conflict with David Clawson.

  The fight was over before it began. A special board meeting was held. Clawson left the room shaken and defeated. The majority of the stockholders were solidly behind Sam Kasserman. For David Clawson, the handwriting was on the wall. His days at Atlantic Enterprises were numbered. He resigned.

  Natalie was elated. She immediately phoned her friends in Hollywood. There was a cheer of elation. They had been under a cloud of despair for weeks. Now the sun had burst through. Continental Films approved a new budget. Work on the space sets was resumed.

  The big problem was locating Kirk Trammer. He had apparently vanished from the face of the earth. It took two weeks for Bill Dentmen to track him down. He eventually found Kirk in a little dirt-floor cantina in Matamores, Mexico, drowning his sorrow. Bill sobered him up and they took the next plane to Hollywood.

  There were several more months of hard work, shooting the outer space sequences. Then the film went into its post-production phase, which could take as long as the actual filming. In the cutting room, the final version of the story would really take place as the film editor pored over countless feet of film, choosing the scenes to be used. The musical score had to be adapted to the edited film.

  Natalie’s work on the film was over. She accepted a role in a movie being shot for TV in Wyoming. As she was packing to leave, she got an unexpected call from her attorney. “Miss Brooks, we’ve got some news you’ve been waiting to hear. All of the problems relating to your divorce have been ironed out. We’re ready for the court hearing.”

  Natalie felt a strange kind of cold shock. Yes, she had been waiting for this call. Now that the time had come she found herself less prepared than she had believed. “So—so soon?” she stammered.

  “Yes. It’s been smooth sailing right down the line. Most of the delay was in contacting Kirk. He’s been so wrapped up in that film he’s producing. However, he’s making no demands as far as property settlement is concerned.”

  “That—that hardly seems fair. He put a lot of money into that big house we own.”

  “Yes, but he readily admitted he sank his share of the assets the two of you had accumulated into his film, The Two of Us, that lost so much money. He’s making no claim on any property presently owned and will sign a quitclaim deed to the house. Since you’re not asking for alimony, and it’s an uncontested, no-fault divorce, there’s not much for you to do except appear in court and the decree will be granted.”

  “When will we do that?”

  “It’s set up for this week. We thought you’d want to have it settled before you leave for Wyoming.”

  “Yes...all right,” Natalie said.

  She felt strangely disoriented and lonely as she put the phone down. Tears trickled down her cheeks. From a logical, rational standpoint, she knew it had to end this way. Yet, it was the end of a lot of dreams and hopes that had started out so bravely. She thought that divorce was a bleak reality, the sad ending of a fairy-book love story.

  When she drove to the airport on Friday, it was over. She and Kirk were no longer married. She told herself there was no difference, really, no need for the feeling of loneliness that engulfed her. She had been alone in a physical sense since that time Kirk had deserted her and gone off to Europe. Yet, there had been a kind of unseen spiritual bond because they were still legally married. Deep down, there had flickered a faint hope that a miracle might bring them back together. But Kirk had remained cold and aloof during the remainder of time they worked on The Last Encounter. He had treated her with the impersonal professional attitude of a director relating to an actress. He’d obviously reached the same conclusion that their marriage was best ended.

  Now she was a single woman again. She realized she was facing a period of readjustment.

  The Last Encounter had its premier early the following summer. It fulfilled everybody’s dreams. The reviews were superlative. “This is the year’s Big One.... Stunning cinematography and effects...a moving story...manages to entertain while achieving artistic excellence.... Powerful drama....”

  Sam Kasserman was jubilant. Rentals from movie houses around the country poured in. Critics raved. Audiences formed long lines. It was the blockbuster of the year, as Kirk had predicted. Then came the Academy Award nominations. Natalie and Tom Sacks for best leads. Marsha Sanders for best supporting actress. The movie itself for best movie of the year. Other nominations included best director, best special effects, best musical score.

  Natalie had completed the made-for-TV movie in Wyoming and was working on a film in Ireland when the date for the Academy Awards rolled around. She took a break in her schedule and flew to Hollywood for the event. She had closed up the big house in Beverly Hills and put it on the market, so she stayed with her cousin, Ginny Wells.

  Tom Sacks was her escort to the evening of Academy Awards. She hadn’t seen Tom since the completion of the movie. Both had been w
orking on productions in different parts of the world. Tom’s gaze lit up when he picked her up that night. He grinned. “Well, are you all set to pick up your Oscar?”

  “I’m not quite that confident,” she replied. “But it’s an honor just to be nominated. This is the first time I’ve gotten this close.”

  “Well, same for me,” he admitted. “I have Kirk’s directing to thank for getting me this nomination. Several times while we were shooting the film, I felt like taking a swing at him, but when I saw myself on the screen, really acting for the first time in my career, I took my hat off to the guy.”

  Natalie looked away, hiding the emotion stirred by the mention of Kirk’s name.

  When they were in Tom’s car on the way to the auditorium, he said, “Natalie, you’re still as beautiful as ever. When are we going to get together for a date? You’re single now. I told you once before that I thought we’d make a great couple.”

  “You’ll have to fly to Ireland,” she quipped. “I’ll be on location there for another two months.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to get my schedule arranged to do just that. We can go out to an Irish pub.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Natalie agreed.

  She managed to keep up a light banter, but her thoughts were on the evening ahead. Kirk would be at the banquet. She was bracing herself for the emotional impact of seeing him again.

  They had arranged to sit with Ginny Wells, the Dentmens and Linda Towers. Linda had done the editing on the film. Natalie’s agent, Ira Bevans, was there, as was Sam Kasserman and others who had been close to the production. Natalie waved to them and to numerous Hollywood stars and celebrities that she knew. At first she didn’t see Kirk. Then she caught sight of him sitting with a group some distance away. Marsha Sanders was beside him. She felt a familiar sharp stab of pain. During the past months she had thrown herself into her work, concentrating all her energy on the role she was playing. The hurting memories had dulled somewhat. She thought she was getting it all out of her system, but seeing Kirk again tonight brought back a rush of mingled emotions as painful as ever.