What Makes Sammy Run?

by Budd Schulberg

  “Listen, Miss Harrington, don’t let me butt in. Why don’t you two kids just run along and have a good time?”

  But Miss Harrington would not hear of it. “Mr. Glick is so clever,” she told the bronzed face from Pasadena. “He knows everything about making pictures. He’s going to tell us all about it at dinner. Aren’t you, Mr. Glick?”

  Sammy tried to turn the compliment aside, if it were a compliment, or the jibe, if it were that. But he couldn’t do it deftly enough. He had always been better with the sledgehammer than he was with the foils. Laurette kept laughing at him, silently and politely, her superiority piercing Sammy’s pride like banderillas, stinging, hurting …

  Sammy sat with them in the Florentine Room, feeling a raw and ugly wound inside, out of place in his business suit—his running togs. He felt a little better when he beat George to it by ordering the most expensive wine in the place. But when it arrived, Laurette looked at it and told the waiter to send it back. “If you haven’t 1927, don’t bother. That’s the only good year left.”

  The orchestra was playing a tango. Sammy didn’t know how to tango. Laurette and George danced it with their hands and their heads as well as their feet, like a professional team. Sammy’s eyes took every step with her, watched her dancing with her lips parted, her eyes half closed, her body swaying to the slow rhythm. He thought of the tango partners she must have left behind, American scions and Georgian princes and titled Englishmen. Maybe he could get a tango expert to come to the house, secretly, and then he would get up one evening and surprise Laurette, that bitch, the woman he loved. If it didn’t take too much time. Though it might be worth it to make time. He had finally found a woman worthy of his ambitions, she was the golden girl, the dream, and the faster he ran the farther ahead she seemed to be.

  Then they returned to the table and Sammy stood up, feeling challenged and mean, and popped down too quickly again.

  “What a beautiful dance,” Laurette said. “You feel wild and free.”

  She knew Sammy had never felt wild and free.

  The music was back to jazz. Sammy rose jerkily. The manners were gone. Just the speed, the fury, the one-man battle.

  “Come on, let’s dance.”

  He held her tight against him, his hand clamped against her bare back, his fingers tense and strong on her skin. It was a double satisfaction, the immediate thrill of her refined presence so close to Sammy Glick and the chance that this would reach the columns. He danced a dogged box-step which he forced her to follow. Both of them felt the struggle of it.

  “You even dance like a dynamo,” she said.

  “Okay. Wanna quit?” Sammy said.

  He was beginning to find himself.

  “No,” she said. “I’m enjoying it.”

  She was. It was terrifying when he held her like that, not trying to be polite any more. She hadn’t been really terrified in a long time. To dance as badly as Sammy and not be ashamed of it set him apart from all the other men she had ever known.

  She had the next dance with George and when she returned, Sammy was gone. The waiter handed her a note:

  Decided I couldn’t waste any more time here so I ducked out to the studio to clean up some work. The bill is taken care of for the rest of the night. Have fun.

  Sammy

  “I took a chance,” Sammy said. “And my hunch was right. I had gone soft on her and she was taking me for as big a sucker as these studio broads would if you gave them a chance. You know what she did? She called me at the office after that polo player left. Said she wanted me to come back and talk to her. I told her to meet me at my place. And she came. What do you think of that, Laurette Harrington coming over to see me in the middle of the night? We sat up talking until it got light. I had her all wrong, Al. That sophisticated stuff is all on the surface. She’s just a sweet, simple kid at heart …”

  All the running Sammy ever did in his life must have been just the trial laps for those next two months. He wasn’t even around the office very often. He was too busy.

  One day we had an appointment at three and he finally showed a little after five. Irresponsibility was never one of Sammy’s faults so I suspected something colossal must have happened.

  When he finally came in I knew it was more than merely colossal. It was so big that even he was overwhelmed. He came in quietly, underplaying the scene.

  “Al,” he said, “have you ever heard of anybody scoring two holes-in-one the same afternoon?”

  He made you play straight for him.

  “Well, I’m your man. Only it’s a little more important than golf. Harrington and I have been sitting in Victor Hugo’s from one until just now. He’s one of the sweetest guys in the world, Harrington. And I’m not just saying that because he’s going to be my father-in-law.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “I hope you and Mr. Harrington will be very happy.”

  “You should have seen me,” Sammy said. “I was as nervous as a whore in church. Thought sure as soon as I broke it to him he was going to run out and throw Laurette on the first plane. You know, fine old Southern family and all that crap. But Jesus, he was tickled to death. In fact he seemed so anxious to marry her off to me that I began to wonder whether he was on the skids himself and figured the head of a studio was a nice little thing to have in the family.”

  “Head of the studio?”

  “Yes,” Sammy said. “I did everything I could. But I’m afraid poor Sidney is out after all.”

  “What do you mean afraid?” I said. “Afraid Harrington might change his mind?”

  “Al,” he said, “it’s a good thing I have a sense of humor. Because if I didn’t you’d have been out on your ear long ago. As a matter of fact I really went out there and fought for Sidney this afternoon.”

  “Arise, Sir Samuel, my true knight,” I said.

  “Don’t give me that,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to apologize for. I kept my word. I told Harrington I’d be willing to work under Fineman. I couldn’t do any more than that, could I?”

  “How should I know?” I said. “And why should you care what I think, anyway?”

  “Listen, Al,” he said, “I’m no dope. I know how long those pals of mine would stick around if I couldn’t go on doing things for them. You’re different. You never asked me for anything—I mean for yourself. You’re my only friend. I’m only human. I’m not just a—dynamo. Every man’s got to have a wife and a friend.”

  I still think the guy had something when he said forgive them for they know not what they do. Nine times out of ten that may be a virtue. But there is always that tenth time when a strong stand is needed and softheartedness becomes very flabby behavior. This was one time when I really had the impulse to break off diplomatic relations with Sammy. When he was knifing his fellow man in the back he performed with such gusto and brilliance that it fascinated me as a tour de force. He was so conscientious about being unscrupulous that you almost had to admire him. But there was something indecent about this new pose. It was a little too much like the tycoon who spends the first part of his life sucking and crushing and the last part giving away dimes and Benjamin Franklin’s advice. I could imagine the Sammy Glick of forty instead of thirty, with all the sordid details of his career washed from his mind, reviewing his life like an official biographer, believing that his contribution to mankind has entitled him to friendship, kindness and peace.

  Suddenly he felt he had to justify himself. He insisted upon giving me a playback of that historic interview with Harrington.

  They were sitting in Victor Hugo’s. The orchestra was playing chamber music, soft and refined, but the only music for Sammy was Harrington’s voice.

  “Sammy, I’m going East tomorrow. I don’t know whether you realize it or not, but we’re contemplating some important changes in our organization out here. We feel your record entitles you to a say in this reorganization.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Sammy said. “Of course, it’s only fair to tell you how much
I’ve learned from assisting Sidney. He’s been like a father to me. Everything I know about producing came from him. In fact, he’s taught me everything he knows.”

  “That’s just what I’ve been wondering. Perhaps he has given you all he has to give. He let too many flops slip into the program this year.”

  “Only a genius can make pictures on an average of one a week without some turkeys, Mr. Hanington. Sidney is a hard worker. He did the best he could.”

  “I appreciate your sentiments. But, to speak frankly, the purpose of my visit was to determine whether his best was good enough.”

  “The pictures would have made money if the overhead wasn’t so terrific. But it isn’t entirely his fault if production costs have been too high.”

  “Then you think production costs are too high?”

  “You put me in a difficult position, Mr. Harrington. I don’t like to speak about my superiors. Especially a man like Fineman, who was such a pioneer in this business. After all, I can remember when I was a kid seeing his nickelodeons.”

  “Naturally, my boy,” Harrington said. “Loyalty is always to be commended. Always. But our first loyalty is to World-Wide, and I wonder if Fineman isn’t becoming a little too old-fashioned to uphold the standard of the World-Wide trademark.”

  “You couldn’t find a better man than Fineman,” Sammy said, “among the older producers.”

  “I’ve had a chance to watch you both function,” Harrington said. “And I may have some difficulty convincing the Board because you’re so young. But I’ve made up my mind that what this studio needs is new leadership. Young blood.”

  The waiter came to the table. “Will that be all, Mr. Glick?”

  Yes, Sammy thought. I think it will. I think that is just about it, pal.

  “No,” he said, “bring Mr. Harrington and me another brandy.”

  “To you and Laurette,” said Mr. Harrington.

  “And to World-Wide,” Sammy added quickly.

  He crossed to the window that looked out over the lot. The studio street was full of the pretty girls in slacks going home in twos and threes and carpenters and painters in overalls carrying their lunchboxes and cat calling to each other; a director exhausted from the day’s shooting and already worrying with a couple of assistants about the camera set-ups for the next; a star clowning as he climbs over the door into his silver Cord; the crazy-quilt processional of laborers, extras, waitresses, cutters, writers, glamour girls, all the big cogs and the little ones that must turn together to keep a film factory alive.

  “Now it’s mine,” Sammy said. “Everything’s mine. I’ve got everything. Everybody’s always saying you can’t get everything and I’m the guy who swung it. I’ve got the studio and I’ve got the Harrington connections and I’ve got the perfect woman to run my home and have my children.”

  I sat there as if I were watching The Phantom of the Opera or any other horror picture. I sat there silently in the shadows, for it was growing dark and the lights hadn’t been switched on yet and I think he had forgotten he was talking to me. It was just his voice reassuring him in the dark.

  “Sammy,” I said quietly, “how does it feel? How does it feel to have everything?”

  He began to smile. It became a smirk, a leer.

  “It makes me feel kinda …” And then it came blurting out of nowhere—“patriotic.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The reshuffling at the studio was announced three weeks later but Sidney Fineman hung around for several months, tying up threads he had begun. Kit did his last picture. She said it was really something to see him roll up his sleeves with the enthusiasm of a kid just breaking in.

  “He wasn’t working to make money,” Kit said. “He enjoyed living well, like anybody else. But that wasn’t the main part. He was a picture maker. He had pride in his work, like an artist or a shoemaker. The reason he worked was to make good pictures.”

  And it just happened that his last picture turned out to be a unique kind of hit. It had only two characters, a farmer and his wife, and somehow it managed to electrify and convince and challenge and entertain just by following them through their ordinary passions and defeats and everyday triumphs without any heavies or comedy reliefs or sub-plots or sub-sub-plots, and the critics didn’t know whether to call it comedy or tragedy or fantasy but audiences called it entertainment of a fresh and provocative kind because it had all three, because a little of all their lives was in it. It might have earned Fineman a producing berth at one of the other studios, but somehow or other everybody was saying that it was impossible for Fineman to do anything as modern as that and most of the credit was given to Larry Ross, the kid assistant Fineman had upped from the writers’ ranks. As a matter of fact, as Kit discovered, the source of this rumor was none other than young Ross himself and apparently Sammy was glad to give it his stamp of approval because he was already claiming Ross as one of the protégés he had developed.

  As soon as Fineman moved out of his office, Sammy had the wall to the adjoining room knocked down, to make it larger. Then he threw out the whole Colonial motif because he said it cramped him. When the office was finally remodeled it had the intimacy of Madison Square Garden. The walls were lined with leather and the solid glass desk looked like a burlesque runway. On one wall was an oil painting of Laurette, which made her look ten years younger, even though it had been painted just a few months before. Opposite her was a large autographed photograph of Harrington.

  Because he died so soon after his separation from World-Wide, there was some talk that Fineman committed suicide, but the Hays Office hushed it up so fast that it was impossible to track it down. Of course, there are less spectacular ways of taking your life than by gun or gas; there is the slow leak when the will is punctured, what the poet was trying to say when he spoke of dying of a broken heart.

  The papers said Fineman was only fifty-six. I would have guessed somewhere in the late sixties. The papers also said that he had recently been forced to resign his post at the studio because of failing health.

  The day after he died a whistle blew in all the studios at eleven o’clock, a signal for all activity to cease for a full minute of silence while we rose in memory of Sidney Fineman. At one minute after eleven another whistle sounded, the signal for us to forget him and go on about our business again.

  But the soul of Sidney Fineman was not let off that easily. Hollywood likes its death scenes too well for that. A few days later they gave Sidney a testimonial dinner at the Ambassador at ten dollars a plate.

  I wanted Kit to go with me, but she held her ground. “I like to give my testimonials to people before they’re dead,” she said. “I’m going down to hear Hemingway. He’s raising money for the Loyalists.”

  Mrs. Fineman sat at the table of honor between Sammy and Harrington, who had just come back to the Coast again to be on hand for the wedding.

  Sammy’s speech had women digging frantically for their handkerchiefs. In presenting Mrs. Fineman a gold life pass to all World-Wide pictures, he said, “The greatest regret of my career is that I had to take the reins from the failing hands of a man who has driven our coach so long and so successfully. And I can only say that I would gladly step down from the driver’s seat and walk if I thought it would bring Uncle Sid back to us again.”

  The columnists reported tears in Sammy’s eyes as he sat down.

  “Perhaps the camera flashlights made his eyes water,” I suggested to Kit.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s at all impossible that those were real tears. Sammy has the peculiar ability to cry at phony situations but never at genuine ones.”

  “I didn’t think he had any tears in him for any occasion,” I said. “I thought that well had run dry long ago.”

  “Oh, God, no,” she said. “Sammy is an emotionalist. Only instead of letting himself go he just sounds one note over and over again.”

  “I know which note that is too,” I said. “Mi mi mi mi …”

  The wedding w
as a beautiful production. It was staged in the garden beyond the lawn terrace of the estate in Bel Air that Sammy had just purchased from a famous silent star who had gone broke after the advent of sound. The wags insisted on calling it Glickfair.

  Beyond the garden were the swimming pool and tennis court and just across the private road a freak three-hole golf-course. The house itself was of baronial proportions, an interesting example of the conglomerate style that is just beginning to disappear in Hollywood, a kind of Persian-Spanish-Baroque-Norman, with some of the architect’s own ideas thrown in to give it variety.

  There were at least a thousand guests milling around—from Norma Shearer to Julian Blumberg, whose first novel had shortened Hollywood’s memory of his Guild activities.

  People were clustered about the garden like bees, buzzing isn’t it lovely, lovely, just too lovely! The flower girls were two little child stars and the bridesmaids who preceded Laurette down the terraced steps all had famous faces.

  Laurette’s white satin wedding gown made her complexion seem whiter than ever. Her red lips and hair against that milky skin, and the solemnity of the moment as she moved to the funereal rhythm of the wedding march added to the unreality of the spectacle. She was a ghastly beauty floating through the Hollywood mist. She and Harrington in his striped trousers and top hat were like a satirical artist’s study of the whole grim business of marriage.

  Sammy entered the garden from the opposite path, followed by Sheik, both in gray double-breasted vests and afternoon cutaways. Sammy was staring straight ahead of him, a smile set hard on his lips as if it were carved there. Sheik kept grinning, obviously a little lit, taking it big.

  All through the marriage ceremony newsreel cameras were grinding. As Sammy and Laurette were declared man and wife for better or for worse for richer or for poorer in sickness and in health till death do them part, a professional mixed chorus suddenly stepped forward and sang, “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.”

  After that the crowd broke, moving over to the terrace, where enormous banquet tables had been set up, manned by the entire staff of the Vine Street Derby. Four office boys staggered in with a six-foot-high horseshoe made entirely of gardenias, across which was strung a white silk banner with gold letters, “Long Life and Happiness Always.”